Brown v. Board of Education

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, {{ussc|347|483|1954}} was a landmark case of the United States Supreme Court which explicitly outlawed de jure racial segregation of public education facilities (legal establishment of separate government-run schools for blacks and whites), ruling so on the grounds that the doctrine of "separate but equal" public education could never truly provide black Americans with facilities of the same standards available to white Americans. A companion case dealt with the constitutionality of segregation in the District of Columbia, (not a state and therefore not subject to the Fourteenth Amendment), Bolling v. Sharpe, {{ussc|347|497|1954}}.

Myths

• The most persistent myth about the case talks about Linda Brown's hardship in attending Monroe. This quotation from a University of Virginia Libraries web site is typical:

:::In 1951 Oliver Brown filed suit against the Topeka, Kansas, Board of Education, after the board refused to allow his daughter, Linda, a third-grader, attend the white school located only a few blocks from their house. To reach the black elementary school, Linda had to walk a dangerous one mile through a railroad yard. UVa web site has since been corrected. The version with the myth can be found on the Internet Archive.

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:In fact, the Topeka school district provided bus service to black students, a service they did not provide whites, and Linda Brown's five block route to her bus stop was along First Street, adjacent to a railroad track and across it once. It was not across a rail yard, although it was an unpleasant area that was frequented by bums. The children walked along next to the tracks to avoid the abandoned buildings.

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:*Google maps route from Linda Brown's home to her bus stop. - five blocks, 0.4 miles

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:*Google maps route to Sumner Elementary - the proposed white school - five blocks, 0.4 miles

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:::(Note: the home was destroyed during construction of an entrance ramp to I-70 in the 1960's.)

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• That Oliver Brown was the named plaintiff because he was first alphabetically in the list of plaintiffs.

::Darlene Brown (no relation) clearly would have been first in that case.

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• That Brown v. Board of Education was the first legal challenge to racially segregated schools in the United States.

::In fact, Brown was the eleventh challenge to Kansas 1879 law allowing segregation of elementary schools, the third in Topeka. http://brownvboard.org/research/opinions/opinions.htm

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• That the case was about what school Linda Brown could attend.

::In fact the five cases under the heading of Brown represent over 200 plaintiffs, a dozen attorneys and countless community activists working toward the elimination of segregation in the U.S.

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