Key Excerpts from the Majority Opinion, Brown v.

Board of Education
by Chief Justice Earl Warren
(picture of the members of the
board but would not switch
over)

The decision was unanimous. Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered the opinion of the Court.
...Here... there are findings below that the Negro and white schools involved have been
equalized, or are being equalized, with respect to buildings, curricula, qualifications, and salaries
of teachers, and other “tangible” factors. Our decision, therefore, cannot turn on merely a
comparison of these tangible factors in the Negro and white schools involved in each of these
cases. We must look instead to the effect of segregation itself on public education...
Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments.
Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate
our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society... Today it is a principal
instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional
training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful
that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an
education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which
must be made available to all on equal terms. . . .
To separate them [children in grade and high schools] from others of similar age and
qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the
community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely to ever be undone. . . .
Whatever may have been the extent of psychological knowledge at the time of Plessy v.
Ferguson, this finding is amply supported by modern authority...
We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no
place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the
plaintiffs and other similarly situated... are...
deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.
 School Colors
(picture of Little Rock Nine, but would not cross over)

Elizabeth Eckford wanted the black-and-white dress to look perfect. It was her first day of school
at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Elizabeth wanted to look her best.

As her mom made breakfast, Elizabeth busily ironed the homemade dress, making sure the
creases were straight and the wrinkles were gone.

Elizabeth was almost ready for school when her brother turned on the television. The
newscaster’s voice echoed through the small house. “A crowd has already gathered in front of
Central High,” the announcer said. “Many people wonder whether nine Negro children will show
up at Central today.”

This was not going to be an ordinary first day of school for Elizabeth and eight other African-
American students. It was Sept. 4, 1957, and never had a black student set foot in all-white
Central High School.

State officials had barred Elizabeth and other black students from attending Central High or any
of the city’s white-only schools. But in 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court said that such segregation
was unconstitutional. The court ruled that schools had to be open to all children, regardless of
race.

Despite the court’s order, the governor of Arkansas vowed to keep the black students out of
Central High. He was successful for three years. Then in 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower
ordered the U.S. Army to protect Elizabeth and the other students, known as the “Little Rock
Nine.”

Separate and Unequal

The Supreme Court’s decision 50 years ago to integrate all-white schools, including Central
High, was a turning point in the civil rights movement. How did the court’s decision come
about?

The case started when the parents of 7-year-old Linda Brown tried to register their daughter for
classes at an all-white school in Topeka, Kansas. Linda’s parents couldn’t understand why their
daughter had to travel 2 miles to a blacks-only school when there was an all-white school a few
blocks away. At the time, states could legally separate students on the basis of their skin color, as
long as the schools provided an “equal” public education.
But segregation was unequal. Black schools were generally poor and did not have up-to-date
textbooks. Some students went to school in overcrowded shacks with little heat. White schools
had more money, better books, and modern buildings. At the time, Topeka had 18 schools for
white children and only four for black children.

Linda’s father, the Rev. Oliver Leon Brown, was angry when officials at the all-white school
refused to register his daughter for classes. Brown sued in 1951 in a court of law for his daughter
to attend the school. The case ended up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that
segregation in public schools was a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which
guarantees citizens “equal protection” under the law. Schools all across the country, even in
Arkansas, now had to integrate.

Linda Brown Thompson remembers that her father wept when the court announced its historic
decision.

“I remember seeing tears of joy in the eyes of my father as he embraced us,” Linda recently told
the Omaha World-Herald. “Little did he know when he stepped off the witness stand he stepped
into the pages of history.”

Worth the Pain

Elizabeth Eckford stepped into the pages of history too. With her new dress blowing in the
breeze, Elizabeth tried to walk past a screaming mob and into Central High that September day
in 1957. She didn’t make it into the school then, but she did three weeks later, protected by the
U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division.

When Elizabeth and the other members of the Little Rock Nine visited Central High in 1997,
they explained to the students that the brutal treatment they received at the hands of their white
classmates was worth the pain.

“I sat and talked to some of these kids, and they thanked me for integrating the school,” Thelma
Mothershed-Wair, one of the Little Rock Nine and a former teacher, told a reporter at the time.
“When I started teaching school, I was able to look at all the children as individuals. I didn’t look
at them [as different just] because of their skin color.”