11th Grade
13/05/2017
The African American Pursuit for equality
Since the American Colonization, African Americans were treated unfairly and were not considered as equals. Through the years African Americans started to revel against the government and the white Americans because they were tired of being treated differently. During the 1860’s through 1870’s, the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were passed by the government and this three Amendments guaranteed civil rights and equality for African Americans. But even with this Amendments being part of the Constitution, African Americans were not treated as equals but they were not going to give up in the fights for their rights and equality. The Civil Rights Movement started in the …show more content…
Schools, public transportation and jobs were segregated according to the skin color and this created a high feeling of inferiority among African Americans, especially children in comparison with their white peers. The Brown v. Board of Education case took place in 1954, in Topeka, Kansas, when Linda Brown had to travel a mile every day to go to her school even though she lived 7 block away from a white school. His father, Reverend Oliver Brown attempted to enroll her into the nearest school to her house but she was not accepted because of her skin color because the closest school was only for white people and she could not go there. Education should have been equal for African Americans and white Americans. Reverend Oliver Brown was tired of segregated education and he took the case with other 13 African American Parents to the Supreme Court. Brown and the 13 other parents sued the Topeka Board of Education saying that segregation was depriving African Americans of equal protection stated under the 14th amendment, declaring the ‘’separated but equal’’ unconstitutional. Three district Court Judges ruled in favor of the Board of education, claiming that the facilities of black students were equal but acknowledged the detrimental effect of segregation on black children. Brown appealed directly to the Supreme Court and Chief Justice Earl Warren ruled in favor of Brown and assumed equality between schools, proving that segregation was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause stated by the 14th Amendment in the Constitution because the feeling of inferiority caused by segregation in black children was depriving them of equal