Brown V. Board of Education: The Case for Integration

Children's Literature - Leila Toledo

The author compiles the background of the individual school segregation cases from across the country which were grouped together for Brown v. Board of Education. Among the witnesses in the presentation of the case was Dr. Kenneth B. Clark, a renowned psychologist. He presented test results which determined that a segregated education was harmful to African American children. Another source indicates that Thurgood Marshall, the chief counsel for the NAACP, presented the case before the United States Supreme Court and was in Mobile, Alabama, not in his NAACP New York office, when the decision by the Supreme Court was reached. When he was informed that the decision was reached, he flew to Washington and heard chief justice Earl Warren read the decision. It was after that that he returned to his New York office. In fact, there is a picture on the front page of the New York Times, May 18, 1954, of Thurgood Marshall and two of the other attorneys, James Nabrit and George Hayes, on the steps of the Supreme Court following the decision. This should be clarified. In the "Fifty Years Later" section the author indicates that President George W. Bush and members of his cabinet were present at the ceremony, including the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Education. The author should have included their names: General Colin Powell and Roderick R. Paige respectively. Except for these errors and omissions the documented history leading up to the desegregation of public schools is informative.