Good Essay On The Impact Of The Brown Decision

Before the brown decision, the African American people had it rough. Despite the drafting of U.S. Constitution and Equal Rights in 1787, the laws never took the result that was intended as the black population experienced a wide range of inequities. In the northern states, they were not regarded as citizens, and almost all schools refused to enroll them as students. In the southern states, they were slaves thus their rights were never taken seriously.
However, the status of the blacks became more definitive after the Dred Scott decision of 1857 and Plessy v. Ferguson Decision of 1896. This was because after then, a new doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ took effect and this led to the separation of the blacks from the whites in terms of housing and education. This doctrine, however, was still a major setback in a strive for equality as it legalized the relegation of the blacks to an inferior state. This went on for about fifty years until a furious parent by the name Oliver Brown filed a suit for the admission denial of his third grade daughter to a nearby school in their residence of Topeka, Kansas. The debate went on for three years where the decision ruled that the segregated schools were far from equal. Finally, the Supreme Court agreed that the schools were not equal as those of the blacks had an inferior status and it would greatly affect the ability to function in American society, and ordered that segregation in every state be stopped.
What followed the decision was a mild reaction, which later erupted to violent protests in towns and cities. The Brown decision encouraged African Americans to attack separation in nearly every segment of American life and culture. In the 1970s, the segregation law was abolished and all finally, the people could now talk about equality off all thanks to the brown decision. In fact, it is respected much so that the US Congress, in its honor, established the National Historic Site in Topeka, Kansas in 1992.
It is thus evident that, though all the debates and the constitutional drafts greatly encouraged the abolition of black discrimination, the Brown decision made a high impact in the making of the liberal state of black people today.