The American society is damaged. It has been damaged since the first slave ship set sail for this country, by the prejudices still within the great-grand children of former slave owners and slaves. Although the United States has made a lot of progress, you shouldn't forget that less than fifty years have passed since the day little Linda Brown and other innocent children were not allowed to attend a public school because of their color. The Brown vs. the Board of Education decision has changed not only the school systems that we use today, but also our everyday lives. Before the start of the Brown vs. Board of Education trial the segregation of everything from drinking fountains to schools was based on the Plessy vs. Ferguson trial in 1896. Under that decision segregation was legal as long as the separate places were seen as equal. However, black buildings and stores were often very p ...view middle of the document...
So her father tried to enroll her in the white elementary school. She was not allowed to enter the school. Neither were the many other black children who weren't allowed to enter a public school near their homes. This case also stopped other segregation in schools such as having to sit in the back row with a broken desk and a sticky chair just because you are black. Even though the case is labeled Brown vs. the Board of Education, it is only named that in honor of Oliver Brown Linda's father, the NAACP actually brought up the case.The second court hearing for the Brown versus the Board of Education was only a few years later in 1955. This was also called the mandate of "with all deliberate speed.In the year 1979 three young black attorneys in Topeka petitioned to reopen the Brown vs. Board of education case to check if all implements of segregation were completely abolished. This case resulted in the Topeka school system building three magnet schools to comply with the courts findings.It has been 50 years since the Supreme Court decreed that all segregation in public schools is unconstitutional. The effects of the ruling still live on today in public schools all over the country, and thanks to the ruling, students have a wide range of cultural and linguistic diversity in public schools. However it has been difficult for many schools to provide the same education for everybody. If separating classes in different languages, creates different opportunities for learning for each group ,the results can be separate and unequal.Every year close to 3.7 million second language learner students are offered linguistic help, including California were 25 percent of the students actually receive linguistic help. De facto segregation is practiced every day between those who speak English and those who don't speak English. This is the kind of thing that the Brown vs. Board of Education case tried to erase over fifty years ago. As we are at the fifty year anniversary we realize how much we have progressed, and how much we have left to go.
