In the early 1950's racial segregation in public school was all across America. Although all schools are supposed to be alike or equal many of the black schools were far from equal. In Topeka Kansas, a black third grader named Linda Brown had to travel over a mile to walk to a black elementary school through a railroad shipyard. Linda Brown also had a white school that was only seven blocks down her street. Linda's father, Oliver Brown, tried to enroll his daughter into the white elementary school. The principal of the white elementary school refused to accept Linda into the white school. The brown family went to McKinley Burnett, who was the head of Topeka's branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and asked for help. The NAACP wanted to help the Browns, they had been waiting for a long time to challenge segregation in public schools.
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The United States district court for the district of Kansas heard the Brown's case from June 25-26 in 1951. During the trial the NAACP argued that having segregated schools sent the message to black children that they are not as important as white children because the schools where obviously unequal. .
Brown and the NAACP appealed to the Supreme Court on October1, 1951. There case and many other cases that challenged school segregation in South Carolina, Virginia, and in Delaware. The Supreme Court first heard the case on December 9, 1952 but they could not reach a decision. The case went to the Supreme Court again in May of 1954. This time, the Supreme Court ruled that separate educational schools were unequal and required the desegregation of schools across America. The court decision did not address any other type of segregations such as public restaurants and restrooms. .
Charlotte got involved in these issues in 1971 when a family named Swann filed a suit against the US Supreme Court. The Swann family wanted their 6 year old son to be able to attend the elementary school that was closest to their house.
