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The Road to Brown, Its Leaders, and the Future

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The 50thanniversary of the historic 1954U.S. SupremeCourt decision in Brown v. Board of Education provides an opportunity to trace the origin of Brown and the long journey by African Americans to achieve quality elementary and secondary education in this country. This journey began with passage of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1868, which applied the Bill of Rights to the states. This action gave the newly freed slaves the same legal rights as White Americans, citizenship and equality under the law and due process protection against state action under the Bill of Rights. Even though public education did not exist for Blacks when the amendment was enacted, it gave Blacks protection against future negative state action. This journey was slowed in 1896 when the Court in Plessy v. Ferguson ruled that the doctrine of separate but equal could satisfy the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In the 1940s, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) forcefully renewed the journey again. In 1954, the Court reversed the Plessy ruling and held that de jure, state enforced racially segregated education did not meet constitutional requirements. This article reviews this history and makes projections for the future of public education for African Americans, 135 years after this journey began with passage of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Key Words: desegregated education • minority education • integrated education • civil rights • at-risk students

Education and Urban Society, Vol. 36, No. 3, 255-265 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/0013124504264443


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