In 1954, 17 southern and border states (including the District of Columbia), required by law for their schools to be segregated. 4 more states (Arizona, Kansas, New Mexico and Wyoming) allowed for creation of racially segregated schools. According to the Supreme Court's ruling in the Plessy v Ferguson case of 1896, public school could be segregated as long as they were "separate but equal", meaning that they were granted the same facilities, opportunities and resources. …show more content…
Linda Brown was a 9 year old African American student that had to cross a railroad, in order to get to the bus stop, where she took the bus to the other side of the town, in order to get to the Monroe School. She sent an application to the Summer School, which was closer to her house, however she was rejected due to her race. Four similar cases were filed from Kansas, Virginia, Delaware, South Carolina and the District of Columbia and were combined into one under the name “Brown v Board of Education”. All of them included a black, elementary student that attended a legally segregated school, however was rejected from a white school due to their skin colour. Thurmond Marshal, the NAACP' special counsel argued the case in front of the Supreme Court. Even though the case raised many questions about the legal aspect of segregation, the main concern was that the separate school systems for black and white students violated the “equal protection” clause of the 14th Amendment. Marshall also argued that based on sociological tests, performed by the social scientist Kenneth Clark, the segregation made black student