Maryland
Bar Bulletin
Publications :
Bar Bulletin
Editor: W.
Patrick Tandy
May, 2004
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Celebrating
the 50th Anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education
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| By Janet
Stidman Eveleth |
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MSBA celebrates the 50th
Anniversary of Brown vs. Education, the 1954 United States Supreme
Court decision that began the dismantling of segregation in this
country's schools.
(Photo © Corbis/Bettman)
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This month marks the 50th anniversary
of Brown vs. Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court ruling
that advanced equality in this country by ending a social injustice that
denied equal rights to many American citizens. The Maryland State Bar Association
(MSBA) is celebrating this momentous occasion by devoting this special May
issue of the Bar Bulletin to Brown vs. Board of Education.
The Association dedicated Law Day 2004 to this historic hallmark and is commemorating
it with two outstanding Law Day events and a special community Brown vs.
Board of Education Speakers’ Bureau.
Fifty years ago, on May
17, 1954, the United States Supreme Court began the process of dismantling
segregation in this country’s public schools when it struck down the
legal doctrine of “separate but equal” in the landmark Brown
vs. Board of Education decision. This monumental high court ruling paved
the way for desegregation in our nation’s schools. It played an important
role in the civil rights movement in this country and the pursuit of equal
rights for all citizens.
By tradition, Americans
celebrate Law Day by honoring our freedom, our country’s rich legal
heritage, our U.S. Constitution and our doctrine of liberty, justice and
equality for all under the law. MSBA dedicated Law Day 2004 to Brown to
uphold these principles and pay tribute to the hallmark Supreme Court ruling
that won equality by law. Brown underscores and illuminates the true
meaning of equality in our democracy.
“The Brown decision
is significant for many reasons,” remarks MSBA President Harry S. Johnson. “The
most obvious is that the Supreme Court explicitly overruled Plessy vs.
Ferguson, finding unanimously that separate can never be equal with regard
to the education of children. While earlier cases had desegregated education
on a graduate student level, this case took the issue of desegregation into
every home in this country.”
“Once segregation
was attacked in education, other institutions soon began to desegregate,”
Johnson continues. “On another level, this case evidences the immense
power vested in the Supreme Court to assure that the protections provided by
the Constitution and the 14th Amendment
are extended to every citizen in this country.”
The Origin of Brown
vs. Board of Education
Brown ignited
the quest for equality and justice under the law in this nation. The roots
of this landmark decision actually date back to the 1930s when the NAACP,
led by a distinguished group of African-American attorneys including Thurgood
Marshall, began using the law as the means to better the lives of African-Americans.
They legally challenged entities sanctioning segregation, including state
public school systems.
Initially, they sought
the “separate but equal” doctrine decreed in the Supreme Court
case of Plessy v. Ferguson at the turn of the century. However, they
quickly discovered that while segregated schools were separate, they were
certainly not equal. So the attorneys revised their legal strategy in the
1950s and challenged the “separate but equal” doctrine as unconstitutional.
Their mission was to completely eradicate segregation in this land.
Around the same time,
Linda Brown, a third grader in Topeka, Kansas, had to walk five miles a day
through a dangerous part of town to simply get to her segregated school.
Concerned over his daughter’s safety, Brown’s father attempted
to enroll her in the white school, a mere four blocks away. She was turned
away due to legally imposed segregation. In 1951, the NAACP took up this
case and represented Brown, challenging segregation in this state’s
public school system. This was the origin of Brown.
The Brown vs. Board
of Education Supreme Court case is actually the culmination of a long
line of court cases from decisions in Kansas, Delaware, South Carolina,
Virginia and the District of Columbia. While the conditions of the schools
varied by large degree from state to state, all were segregated by the
law. Roughly 200 plaintiffs and over 12 lawyers were involved in these
historic cases.
Four of these cases were
argued on appeal to the United States Supreme Court in 1952. The issue was
whether segregation deprived students of equal protection under the law,
as guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.
On May 17, 1954, the Supreme
Court, under the leadership of Chief Justice Earl Warren, unanimously declared
that segregation of the public schools was unconstitutional. The Chief Justice’s
decision stated, “We conclude that in the field of public education,
the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place.” This
was a major victory in the struggle for equality and equal protection for
all Americans under the law.
Ramifications of Brown
Eventually, this legal
hallmark wrought revolutionary transformations in this country. It served
as the precipice for the pursuit of equal opportunity and equal protection
under the law and ultimately changed the civil rights landscape in this nation. Brown was
the foundation that was instrumental in ending legally imposed segregation
in parks, libraries and all other public institutions.
But this was just the
beginning. Brown was the inspiration that led to justice in other
contexts, including voting rights, gender equity and the protection of disabled
Americans. Over the years, its spirit ushered in an era of unprecedented
progress in this country. Brown initiated the quest for equal opportunities
for all, a quest that still continues today.
“There is no question
that there has been tremendous progress since 1954,” states MSBA’s
President. “The current composition of our Court of Appeals is substantial
evidence of that progress. Yet many pockets of our society remain essentially
segregated.”
“If we look at our
schools today, in many areas they are as segregated as they were in 1954,”
adds Johnson. “Our corporate community, including the legal profession,
has yet to reflect the diversity of our general community. I speak with law
students who still perceive barriers to their entry into this profession due
to their color or ethnicity.
“We also see evidence
of a backlash – that is, those people who claim that they are being
deprived of some privilege by programs designed to help minorities. As a
culture and as a profession, we still have a way to go before we can truly
say that every child now has equal opportunity and that every person will
get equal justice under law.”
Thus, MSBA dedicated Law
Day 2004 to all of the strides in equality which have been made in this country
in the last 50 years. We paid tribute to the hallmark Supreme Court decision
that won and protected equality in this nation’s schools. We paid homage
to the driving force behind the civil rights movement that enriched our lives
as American citizens.
Law Day was devoted to
the legal milestone that promoted and preserved equality in our schools and
eventually in our society. Through our rule of law and our court system, Brown
vs. Board of Education redefined equality in this country. It is a testament
to our legal system’s ability to establish and protect our legal rights.
