Racial segregation American public schools dates back as far as the 1860's. It has been a long and difficult struggle for blacks to try to reverse segregation in public schools. During the 1950's segregation was still frequent in the United States. In the south separate schools for blacks and whites were allowed by state laws that had been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. Plessy vs. Ferguson ruled that such segregation did not violate the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The case ruled that racial segregation was legal as long as the separate facilities for blacks and whites were "equal." This became known as the "separate but equal" policy. .
Segregation resulted in poorer education for blacks. Teachers in white schools generally received higher pay than did teachers in black schools, and facilities in most white schools were far superior to facilities in most black schools. According to Waldo Martin's article, "In 1950 more than 2/3 of the county's black households earned less than $1,000. The total value for black schools was $194,575; that of white schools was $673,850. The school board spent $43 per black child and $179 per white child, and black teachers earned 2/3 less than white teachers." This was definitely separate but hardly equal.
The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) was an organization dedicated to fighting for racial equality and ending segregation. NAACP played a huge role in legal struggle to reverse segregation. Many of the legal cases in the early days, that constitute the Brown decision, evolved out of the day-to-day struggles of black people.
One case that constitutes the Brown decision was Briggs v. Elliot. It began when Reverend DeLaine and a local farmer Pearson began to pressure the county to provide buses for black students; of course the white children were already being bused for free. The case eventually escalated and was argued by the head of the NAACP Thurgood Marshall (D"Angelo, 2001).