Mock Trial: Brown v. Board of Education Reaction

Today, we were welcomed into the courtroom to witness the no-doubt historical trial of Brown v. Board of Education. The case concerns the 14th Amendment and whether the segregation of state-sponsored public schools is constitutional.

Our case starts in the small town of Topeka, Kansas, where Linda Brown was denied admission to the school in her town, forcing her to travel to a segregated school for Black students. While her parents were the first to speak out, they were joined by 12 other affected families across five other cases against the segregation within their school districts. These cases began similarly, as class-action lawsuits from 1950-1951 in Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, and the District of Columbia. Originally, the district court ruled against the Browns, upholding the precedent established in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). Afterward, the Browns appealed and took the case to the Supreme Court, represented by Thurgood Marshall, the Chief Counsel for the NAACP. 

During the proceedings, Brown's defense made the moral argument that the entirety of the "separate but equal" precedent was not only from another time but also entirely unjust at its core.

Meanwhile, the counsel for the Board of Education argued based on the same basic principles. Hayes Jones's biblical argument must be remembered. He spoke about how the Bible teaches us all to "love thy neighbor" and how, yes, our world is growing together. Mr. Jones spoke about the violence currently faced, and how putting the children on the front lines of the fight would not be beneficial to their actual education.  

Regardless of the fight put on the Board of Education was not enough to stop the movement of progress.  With a victory towards Brown, the justices declared how the precedent set by Plessy v. Ferguson, and "separate but equal" was inherently flawed and unconstitutional.  This decision will start the integration of schools at all levels, and bring America into a new age of building.