Brown V. Board of Education (1954)

In 1954 a number of black children in Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware sought admission to public schools that required or permitted segregation based on race.  When the schools denied these children their right to go to their school based on the color of the children's skin a class action suit was filed against the Board of Education in the city of Topeka, Kansas. The plaintiffs were thirteen Topeka parents on behalf of their twenty children who felt that the fourteenth amendment was being violated by the Board of Education's denial of their kids into the schools.  This case was taken to the supreme court and quickly became a landmark case.  The case included Brown V. Board of Education itself, Briggs v. Elliott (filed in South Carolina), Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County (filed in Virginia), Gebhart v. Belton (filed in Delaware), and Bolling v. Sharpe (filed in Washington D.C.). 

    I think the children had every right to go to these public schools despite the segregation that these states permitted.  The 14th amendment, which prohibits state and local governments from depriving persons of life, liberty, or property, was definitely violated in this case.

   The defendants in this case used the outcome of Plessy V. Ferguson to argue their actions.  Unfortunately for them, the Supreme Court Justices overlooked the past case and made a unanimous decision that this was indeed a vioaltion of the fourteenth amendment.  This case now stands as the basis for many related court cases that came after Brown V. Board of Education.