the Board of Education in Topeka, Kansas, there were a lot of arguments that persuaded the Supreme Court to overturn the doctrine of "separate but equal." I feel that the most Significant argument was the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution. The fourteenth amendment was an important factor in this case because it was part of the United States Constitution and it practically states that segregation of the races is wrong and unconstitutional.
It wasn"t the entire fourteenth amendment that was needed to persuade them. Only the first section of the amendment was needed. The first section stated that, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within it's jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" (Quoted from the U.S. Constitution in Wheeler, pg. 242). .
An argument from Plessy v. Ferguson in debate of the fourteenth amendment was that the amendment does not deny anyone of their property. Justice Brown stated that, "colored men were assigned to colored railway cars and white men were assigned to white railway cars, thus neither was being deprived of any property" (Wheeler, pg. 243). I think that is totally wrong. What if a white man wanted to sit on a colored mans railway car. And was denied it because of what color he was? What if he really needed to get on that railway car but the railway car for whites was full and there was plenty of room on the colored man railway car? That is just wrong and I can"t see why people back then couldn"t see that.
When you look at the first excerpt from the fourteenth amendment, it basically says that segregation between races is wrong.
