Slide 1

							• In the early
  1950's, racial
  segregation in
  public schools
  was the norm
  across
  America.
  Although all
  the schools in
  a given district
  were
  supposed to
  be equal,
  most black
  schools were
  far inferior to
  their white
  counterparts.
• A black third-grader
  named Linda brown
  lived only a few
  blocks from a school
  but that school was a
  white school so she
  had to walk one mile
  to the nearest black
  school and this was
  supposedly separate
  but equal.
• Linda Brown had to walk one mile through
  a railroad switchyard to get to her black
  elementary school, even though a white
  elementary school was only seven blocks
  away.
• Linda's father, Oliver Brown, tried to enroll
  her in the white elementary school, but the
  principal of the school refused.
Linda Brown and Her Sister Walking
   to School (1953) by Carl Iwasaki
   (Modern Print). Sisters Linda and
   Terry Brown were not allowed to
   attend nearby all-white New
   Summer School in Topeka,
   Kansas, but had to walk through
   the dangerous Rock Island
   switchyard to catch a bus for the
   all-black Monroe School. On May
   17, 1954, in Brown vs. Board of
   Education of Topeka, the U.S.
   Supreme Court struck down the
   separate-but-equal doctrine,
   ending the legal basis for
   segregation of public schools.
• The NAACP took up her
  case, along with similar
  ones in Kansas, South
  Carolina, Virginia, and
  Delaware. All five cases
  were argued together in
  December, 1952 by
  Thurgood Marshall, a
  black lawyer who headed
  the NAACP.
• Supreme Court
  Decision