Expert: Michael Troy - 5/3/2004

Question
Hi, I am a senior in high school and writing my senior paper on the topic of Brown vs. Board of Education.  I am investigating/researching to see if this case was successful. Did it accomplish today what it was supposed to accomplish?  I was wondering if you had any input on this topic, any useful websites, anyone you know I could talk to or other information.  If you could email me back asap that would be greatly appreciated. thank you
Meagan

Answer
Hi Meagan,

I suppose it depends on what you think it was supposed to accomplish.  The immediate goal of the suit was to get a rulling that public schools could not segregate children by race.  The case accomplished that purpose, and within a few years, explicit racial discrimination was illegal.  Of course, subsequent cases went even further, forcing schools to integrate even where there were factors other than discrimination that kept students largely separated by race.

One motivation for the suit was for minority parents to see that their kids got better a education.  Whether that was accomplished is rather questionable.

For more info, try these sites:

http://brownvboard.org/

http://www.pbs.org/jefferson/enlight/brown.htm

http://www.lib.umich.edu/exhibits/brownarchive/

I hope this helps!
- Mike