I’ve decided to bust out my law-and-history-loving side and write about one of the most important landmark Supreme Court cases. Brown v. Board of Education is the case that officially ended segregation in schools, though it took much longer to change the opinions of the general public. But how did that happen? To understand this case, you must know the background of another case that had been decided almost sixty years before, in 1896. Plessy v. Ferguson.
A Louisiana state law required that separate accommodations were needed for Caucasians and African Americans (The Separate Car Act). To protest this law, a black man named Homer Plessy sat down in the whites-only train car and refused to get up. He was immediately arrested. In trial, his lawyers argued that the Separate Car Act had infringed upon his Fourteenth Amendment rights, which guaranteed that every person must be given equal protection under the law. Unsurprisingly, the judge ruled against him. He appealed it until the Supreme Court decided to take the case. However, they too ruled against Plessy, stating that no rights were violated as long as the accommodations were “separate but equal.” For the first time, legal precedent stated that segregation was allowed, which set the foundation for even more segregation.
Sixty years later, in 1952, a group of African American parents sued the Board of Education in Topeka, Kansas. The case was only named after Oliver Brown, but it was comprised twelve other parents. They argued that the segregated schools violated their rights, using the same argument as Plessy. They were shot down, the judge citing the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling as legal precedent. However, the case eventually managed to make its way to Supreme Court.
The lead lawyer on the case, Thurgood Marshall, was a very smart man. He knew that if he just showed pictures of the dilapidated black schools in comparison to the pristine white schools, the Supreme Court would just give the school some money instead of desegregate the schools. He needed to prove that the segregation was mentally affecting the children. So he invented the Doll Test.
The Doll Test is a test where a child is seated in front of two dolls, one Caucasian and one African American. They would be asked several questions, such as “Which doll is the smart doll?” “Which doll is the nice doll?” “Which doll is the pretty doll?” “Which doll is the stupid doll?” “Which doll is the mean doll?” “Which doll is the ugly doll?”, so on and so forth. Thurgood Marshall performed this test on several African American children. They associated all of the positive traits with the Caucasian doll and all of the negative traits with the African American dolls.
The Supreme Court ruled for the parents in a unanimous decision. With the evidence provided with the Doll Test, they ruled that “separate is inherently unequal,” since it creates a sense of inferiority or superiority in the separated parties. With this decision, they overturned the “separate but equal” precedent left by Plessy v. Ferguson and officially desegregated the schools.
Of course, it wasn’t that easy. Many states kept their schools segregated because the Caucasian parents didn’t want their children to go to school with African Americans. It took many, many more years to change their mindset into something more open minded. But this case was most definitely the first, big step towards ending segregation in the United States.
Iced Tea With Vinegar 