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A Ruling For Equality

--By Brenda Iasevoli

May 17 marks the 50th anniversary of the United States Supreme Court's decision in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education. In 1954, the nine Supreme Court justices unanimously decided to end the policy of "separate but equal" schools and make the separation of races, called segregation, illegal.

CHANGING THE RULES

In February 1951, Oliver Brown and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) sued the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Brown's daughter, 7-year-old Linda, had to ride a school bus 21 blocks to the all-black Monroe Elementary. She was not allowed to attend an all-white school just four blocks from her home. Many black students shared Linda's plight. Often, they traveled long distances to go to schools that had worn, outdated textbooks and few, if any, desks.

By the time the Brown case reached the Supreme Court, it had been combined with desegregation cases from three other states and Washington D.C. After the ruling, several southern states closed some schools rather than integrate them.

In 1971, the courts ordered states to bus black children to white schools to integrate them. There were protests in many cities. But by 1972, the South had more integrated schools than any other region in the country. About 36% of black students attended schools that were mostly white.

WHERE ARE WE NOW?

Today, schools are becoming more segregated again. Only 28.4% of black students attend majority-white schools nationwide. In the South, the percentage of blacks attending majority-white schools fell from 43% in 1988 to 31% in 2000.

Theodore Shaw, the president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, believes that integration is vital. "Racial integration helps create a society in which all children learn to live with, befriend and work with people who are different from them," Shaw told TFK. "[It] makes our country a better place."

Next: The Girl Who Named Pluto