Remembering and Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka which is the ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.

WHEREAS, On May 17, 1954, the United States Supreme Court announced its decision that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal; and

WHEREAS, The decision effectively denied the legal basis for segregation in Kansas and twenty other states with segregated classrooms and would forever change race relations in the United States; and

WHEREAS, In the early 1950’s, racial segregation in public schools was the norm across America and although all the schools in a given district were supposed to be equal, most black schools were far inferior to their white counterparts; and

WHEREAS, In Topeka Kansas, a black third grader named Linda Brown had to walk one mile through a railroad switchyard to get to her black elementary school, even though a white elementary school was only seven blocks away from her home; and

WHEREAS, Under Plessy vs Ferguson, the Topeka School system was segregated on the basis of race and under the separate but equal doctrine, the arrangement was acceptable and legal; and

WHEREAS, The parents of Linda Brown sued in federal district court on the basis that separate facilities for black children were inherently unequal; and

WHEREAS, The lower courts agreed with the school system that if the facilities were equal, that black children were being treated equally with whites as prescribed by the Fourteenth Amendment; and

WHEREAS, The Browns and other families in other school systems appealed to the Supreme Court that even facilities that were physically equal did not take into account “intangible” factors and that segregation itself has a deleterious effect on the education of black children; and

WHEREAS, The case of the Browns and other families was supported and encouraged by the National Association For The Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and was argued before the Supreme Court by Thurgood Marshal, who would later become the first black justice on the Supreme Court; and

WHEREAS, The High Court ruled unanimously to overturn the 1896 case of Plessy Vs Ferguson and that Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, delivered the decision of the court; now therefore

RESOLVED, That the Council of the City of Philadelphia celebrates the decision of the Supreme Court on the

17

th day of May in the year 1954 to end racial segregation in public schools and commends the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for its tenacity in pursuing the end of segregation in public schools; and now be it

FURTHER RESOLVED, That the City of Philadelphia and all citizens remember and celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Brown vs Board of Education which ruled that in the field of public education, the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place and that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.

RESOLVED FURTHER, That an Engrossed copy of this resolution be presented to a representative of the Philadelphia National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as evidence of the sincere sentiments of this legislative body.

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