Brown vs. the Board of Education: A Step In The Right Direction for American Schools
by Sis. Tamika Alexander
Many people were part of the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s. People like Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Frederick Douglass, John F. Kennedy and many more. But, there is one person who helped make a step up for African Americans in schools, even though she was a little girl. Imagine you are a seven year old and have to walk one mile to a bus stop by walking through a railroad switching station and then waiting for a school bus to go to a "black elementary school" or a school where only African American children went. This is what happened to Linda Brown, an African American third grader from Topeka, Kansas, even though there was a "white elementary school" only seven blocks away. A "white elementary school" was a school where only white students were able to attend.
African Americans thought for this to happen everyday to a little girl was ridiculous, they had to do something about it. This sparked the Brown vs. Board of Education case. After three long years the case finally ended on May 17, 1954 with the court finding in favor of Linda Brown and the other African American children like her. The Supreme Court said that it was not fair to have black and white students separated in different schools. The judges voted on this case nine to zero. It took some states many years to put students together in schools and have them treated the same because many people were still prejudiced against Blacks.
If you were a seven-year-old African American girl in the 1950s, taking a step like this was very risky. But Linda Brown believed in herself; she took the chance to integrate schools and she won. This is not only important for Black History month but to me as well because this event gives young people the encouragement to be able to fulfill any dream that they have no matter how big or small. Another reason is because I go to a school that has mostly a white population. The change from it being all white to being diverse, was something seven-year old Linda Brown started.