who was the attorney for brown in brown vs board of education

by Moises Macejkovic 7 min read

Thurgood Marshall

Who was the defendant in Brown vs Board of Education?

Feb 13, 2020 · Jack Greenberg. As the first white attorney for the NAACP, Jack Greenberg helped to argue Brown v. Board of Education at the U.S. Supreme Court level. Bolling v. Sharpe. U.S. District Court, Washington, D.C.

What was the majority opinion in Brown v Board?

The U.S. Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education, was bundled with four related cases and a decision was rendered on May 17, 1954. Three lawyers, Thurgood Marshall (center), chief counsel for the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund and lead attorney on the Briggs case, with George E. C. Hayes (left) and James M. Nabrit (right), attorneys for the Bolling case, are shown standing …

What was the cause of Brown v . Board of Education?

Who was the lawyer that successfully argued Brown v Board of Education using the 14th Amendment? Thurgood Marshall. Who were the justices in Brown v Board of Education?

Who won Brown vs Board of Education?

Jun 08, 2021 · The NAACP and Thurgood Marshall took up Brown’s case along with similar cases in South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware as Brown v. Board of Education. Oliver Brown died in 1961. Robert L. Carter Born in 1917, Robert Carter, who served as an attorney for the plaintiffs in Briggs v. Elliott, was of particular significance to the Brown v. Board of Education case because …

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Was Thurgood Marshall a lawyer in Brown vs Board of Education?

Board of Education Re-enactment. As a lawyer and judge, Thurgood Marshall strived to protect the rights of all citizens. His legacy earned him the nickname "Mr.

Who was the justice in Brown vs Board of Education?

Chief Justice Earl WarrenThe Supreme Court's opinion in the Brown v. Board of Education case of 1954 legally ended decades of racial segregation in America's public schools. Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered the unanimous ruling in the landmark civil rights case.Jun 3, 2021

What was the main reason the Brown family brought a lawsuit against the Board of Education in Topeka Kansas?

The Browns and twelve other local black families in similar situations filed a class action lawsuit in U.S. federal court against the Topeka Board of Education, alleging that its segregation policy was unconstitutional.

Was Brown vs Board of Education successful?

Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court's unanimous school desegregation decision whose 60th anniversary we celebrate on May 17, had enormous impact. ... But Brown was unsuccessful in its purported mission—to undo the school segregation that persists as a modal characteristic of American public education today.Apr 24, 2014

Description

The U.S. Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education, was bundled with four related cases and a decision was rendered on May 17, 1954. Three lawyers, Thurgood Marshall (center), chief counsel for the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund and lead attorney on the Briggs case, with George E. C. Hayes (left) and James M.

Source-Dependent Questions

The phrase "equal justice under law" is featured in this photograph. It was proposed by the architects planning the U.S. Supreme Court building and then approved by the justices in 1932. What does “equal justice under law” mean?

Citation Information

"George E. C. Hayes, Thurgood Marshall, and James M. Nabrit congratulating each other on the Brown decision," Associated Press, 17 May 1954. Courtesy of Library of Congress

Why was Brown v. Board of Education important?

This grouping of cases from Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, the District of Columbia, and Delaware was significant because it represented school segregation as a national issue, not just a southern one. Each case was brought on the behalf of elementary school children, involving all-Black schools that were inferior to white schools.

What was the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education?

Board of Education that state-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th Amendment and was therefore unconstitutional. The Five Cases Consolidated under Brown v. Board of Education. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Briggs v.

Who was Linda Brown?

Linda Brown. Linda Brown, who was born in 1943, became a part of civil rights history as a third grader in the public schools of Topeka, KS. When Linda was denied admission into a white elementary school, Linda's father, Oliver Brown, challenged Kansas's school segregation laws in the Supreme Court.

Who was the attorney for the plaintiffs in Brown v. Board of Education?

Jack Greenberg. Jack Greenberg , who was born in 1924, argued on behalf of the plaintiffs in the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka case, and worked on the briefs in Belton v. Gebhart. Jack Greenberg served as director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund from 1961 to 1984.

Who was Robert Carter?

Robert L. Carter. Born in 1917, Robert Carter, who served as an attorney for the plaintiffs in Briggs v. Elliott, was of particular significance to the Brown v. Board of Education case because of his role in the Briggs case.

Who was Thurgood Marshall?

Born in 1908, Thurgood Marshall served as lead attorney for the plaintiffs in Briggs v. Elliott. From 1930 to 1933, Marshall attended Howard University Law School and came under the immediate influence of the school’s new dean, Charles Hamilton Houston. Marshall, who also served as lead counsel in the Brown v.

Who was the plaintiff in the Belton v. Gebhart case?

Ethel Louise Belton#N#Ethel Belton and six other adults filed suit on behalf of eight Black children against Francis B. Gebhart and 12 others (both individuals and state education agencies) in the case Belton v. Gebhart. The plaintiffs sued the state for denying to the children admission to certain public schools because of color or ancestry. The Belton case was joined with another very similar Delaware case, Bulah v. Gebhart, and both would ultimately join four other NAACP cases in the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Belton was born in 1937 and died in 1981.

What was the NAACP's main goal?

In its early years its primary goals were to eliminate lynching and to obtain fair trials for Black Americans. By the 1930s, however, the activities of the NAACP began focusing on the complete integration of American society. One of their strategies was to force admission of Black Americans into universities at the graduate level where establishing separate but equal facilities would be difficult and expensive for the states.

Why was the Bolling vs Sharpe case argued?

Because Washington, D.C., is a Federal territory governed by Congress and not a state, the Bolling v. Sharpe case was argued as a fifth amendment violation of "due process." The fourteenth amendment only mentions states, so this case could not be argued as a violation of "equal protection," as were the other cases. When a District of Columbia parent, Gardner Bishop, unsuccessfully attempted to get 11 African-American students admitted into a newly constructed white junior high school, he and the Consolidated Parents Group filed suit against C. Melvin Sharpe, president of the Board of Education of the District of Columbia. Charles Hamilton Houston, the NAACP's special counsel, former dean of the Howard University School of Law, and mentor to Thurgood Marshall, took up the Bolling case.

What was the Board of Education case?

Board of Education case of 1954 legally ended decades of racial segregation in America's public schools. Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered the unanimous ruling in the landmark civil rights case. State-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th Amendment and was therefore unconstitutional.

When did Brown v Board of Education take place?

Reargument of the Brown v. Board of Education cases at the Federal level took place December 7-9, 1953. Throngs of spectators lined up outside the Supreme Court by sunrise on the morning of December 7, although arguments did not actually commence until one o'clock that afternoon.

Who was the leader of the NAACP?

At the forefront of this movement was Thurgood Marshall, a young Black lawyer who, in 1938, became general counsel for the NAACP's Legal Defense and Education Fund. Significant victories at this level included Gaines v. University of Missouri in 1938, Sipuel v.

What is the rights in America page?

The "Rights in America" page on DocsTeach includes primary sources and document-based teaching activities related to how individuals and groups have asserted their rights as Americans. It includes topics such as segregation, racism, citizenship, women's independence, immigration, and more.

Who was Eisenhower's chief justice?

In September 1953, President Eisenhower had appointed Earl Warren, governor of California , as the new Supreme Court chief justice. Eisenhower believed Warren would follow a moderate course of action toward desegregation. His feelings regarding the appointment are detailed in the closing paragraphs of a letter he wrote to E. E. "Swede" Hazlett, a childhood friend (shown above). On the issue of segregation, Eisenhower believed that the new Warren court would "be very moderate and accord a maximum initiative to local courts."

What was the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education?

Supreme Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for students of different races to be unconstitutional. The decision dismantled the legal framework for racial segregation in public schools and Jim Crow laws, ...

When was Brown v. Board of Education reheard?

Westminster and when Brown v. Board of Education was reheard, Warren was able to bring the Justices to a unanimous decision. On May 14, 1954, Chief Justice Warren delivered the opinion of the Court, stating, "We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place.

What was the cause of the Topeka class action lawsuit?

The basis for the plaintiffs' complaint was that their children were forced to walk or ride buses to reach segregated schools more than a mile away when there were white schools close to their houses. The Topeka NAACP filed suit on their behalf in February of 1951, but by August, the U.S. District Court ruled that, although segregation might be detrimental, it was not illegal. Citing the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the judges denied relief on the grounds that the black and white schools in Topeka were equal with respect to buildings, transportation, curricular, and educational qualifications of teachers.

When did Kansas segregate schools?

Elementary schools in Kansas had been segregated since 1879 by a state law allowing cities with populations of 15,000 or more to establish separate schools for black children and white children. African American parents in Kansas began filing court challenges as early as 1881.

What was the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka?

483 (1954), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality.

Where did the Brown case originate?

The case originated in 1951 when the public school district in Topeka, Kansas, refused to enroll the daughter of local black resident Oliver Brown at the school closest to their home, instead requiring her to ride a bus to a segregated black elementary school farther away.

Who wrote the Brown case?

Chief Justice Earl Warren, the author of the Court's unanimous opinion in Brown. On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous 9–0 decision in favor of the Brown family and the other plaintiffs. The decision consists of a single opinion written by Chief Justice Earl Warren , which all the justices joined.

What did the Southerners view Brown as?

Many Southern white Americans viewed Brown as "a day of catastrophe —a Black Monday —a day something like Pearl Harbor ." In the face of entrenched Southern opposition, progress on integrating American schools moved slowly:

When did the Brown ruling happen in North Carolina?

In North Carolina, there was often a strategy of nominally accepting Brown, but tacitly resisting it. On May 18, 1954, the Greensboro, North Carolina school board declared that it would abide by the Brown ruling. This was the result of the initiative of D. E. Hudgins Jr., a former Rhodes Scholar and prominent attorney, who chaired the school board. This made Greensboro the first, and for years the only, city in the South, to announce its intent to comply. However, others in the city resisted integration, putting up legal obstacles to the actual implementation of school desegregation for years afterward, and in 1969, the federal government found the city was not in compliance with the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Transition to a fully integrated school system did not begin until 1971, after numerous local lawsuits and both nonviolent and violent demonstrations. Historians have noted the irony that Greensboro, which had heralded itself as such a progressive city, was one of the last holdouts for school desegregation.

Who were the judges in Brown v. Board of Education?

U.S. circuit judges (from left to right) Robert A. Katzmann, Damon J. Keith, and Sonia Sotomayor at a 2004 exhibit on the Fourteenth Amendment, Thurgood Marshall, and Brown v. Board of Education

What is the movie Simple Justice about?

A PBS film called "Simple Justice" retells the story of the Brown vs. Board of Education case, beginning with the work of the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund's efforts to combat 'separate but equal' in graduate school education and culminating in the historical 1954 decision.

What was the impact of Brown v Board?

Board didn’t achieve school desegregation on its own, the ruling (and the steadfast resistance to it across the South) fueled the nascent civil rights movement in the United States. In 1955, a year after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, ...

When did Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka come to the Supreme Court?

When Brown’s case and four other cases related to school segregation first came before the Supreme Court in 1952, the Court combined them into a single case under the name Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka .

When did Rosa Parks refuse to give up her seat on the bus?

In 1955, a year after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus.

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Plessy v. Ferguson

The NAACP

  • In 1909 the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was officially formed to champion the modern Civil Rights Movement. In its early years its primary goals were to eliminate lynching and to obtain fair trials for Black Americans. By the 1930s, however, the activities of the NAACP began focusing on the complete integration of American society. One o…
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Five Cases Consolidated Under Brown v. Board of Education

  • By the 1950s, the NAACP was beginning to support challenges to segregation at the elementary school level. Five separate cases were filed in Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, the District of Columbia, and Delaware: 1. Oliver Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka, Shawnee County, Kansas, et al. 2. Harry Briggs, Jr., et al. v. R.W. Elliott, et al. 3. Dorothy E. Davis et al. v. County Sc…
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Supreme Court Rehears Arguments

  • Reargument of the Brown v. Board of Educationcases at the Federal level took place December 7-9, 1953. Throngs of spectators lined up outside the Supreme Court by sunrise on the morning of December 7, although arguments did not actually commence until one o'clock that afternoon. Spottswood Robinson began the argument for the appellants, and Thurgood Marshall followed h…
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The Warren Court

  • In September 1953, President Eisenhower had appointed Earl Warren, governor of California, as the new Supreme Court chief justice. Eisenhower believed Warren would follow a moderate course of action toward desegregation. His feelings regarding the appointment are detailed in the closing paragraphs of a letter he wrote to E. E. "Swede" Hazlett, a childhood friend (shown above…
See more on archives.gov

The Supreme Court Ruling

  • Finally, on May 17, 1954, Chief Justice Earl Warren read the unanimous opinion: school segregation by law was unconstitutional (shown above). Arguments were to be heard during the next term to determine exactly how the ruling would be imposed. Just over one year later, on May 31, 1955, Warren read the Court's unanimous decision, now referred to as Brown II(also shown a…
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Reaction

  • Despite two unanimous decisions and careful, if not vague, wording, there was considerable resistance to the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. In addition to the obvious disapproving segregationists were some constitutional scholars who felt that the decision went against legal tradition by relying heavily on data supplied by social scientists rather than precede…
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Overview

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality. The Court's decision partially overruled its 1896 decision Plessy v. Ferguson, declaring that the "separate but equal" notion was unconstitutional for American public schools and educational fa…

Reaction and aftermath

Although Americans generally cheered the Court's decision in Brown, most white Southerners decried it. Many Southern white Americans viewed Brown as "a day of catastrophe—a Black Monday—a day something like Pearl Harbor." In the face of entrenched Southern opposition, progress on integrating American schools moved slowly. The American political historian Robert G. McCloskey described:

Background

For much of the sixty years preceding the Brown case, race relations in the United States had been dominated by racial segregation. Such state policies had been endorsed by the United States Supreme Court ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which held that as long as the separate facilities for separate races were equal, state segregation did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment("no State shall ... …

District court case

In 1951, a class action suit was filed against the Board of Education of the City of Topeka, Kansas in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas. The plaintiffs were thirteen Topeka parents on behalf of their 20 children.
The suit called for the school district to reverse its policy of racial segregation. The Topeka Board of Education operated separate elementary schools due to a 1879 Kansas law, which permitted …

Supreme Court arguments

The case of Brown v. Board of Education as heard before the Supreme Court combined five cases: Brown 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.).
All were NAACP-sponsored cases. The Davis case, the only case of the five ori…

Decision

On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous 9–0 decision in favor of the Brown family and the other plaintiffs. The decision consists of a single opinion written by Chief Justice Earl Warren, which all the justices joined.
The Court's opinion began by noting that it had tried to determine whether the Fourteenth Amendmentwas meant to abolish segregation in public education…

Legal criticism and praise

William Rehnquist wrote a memo titled "A Random Thought on the Segregation Cases" when he was a law clerk for Justice Robert H. Jackson in 1952, during early deliberations that led to the Brown v. Board of Education decision. In his memo, Rehnquist argued: "I realize that it is an unpopular and unhumanitarian position, for which I have been excoriated by 'liberal' colleagues but I think Ples…

Brown II

In 1955, the Supreme Court considered arguments by the schools requesting relief concerning the task of desegregation. In their decision, which became known as "Brown II" the court delegated the task of carrying out school desegregation to district courts with orders that desegregation occur "with all deliberate speed," a phrase traceable to Francis Thompson's poem, "The Hound of Heaven."