Important Figures Related to the History of the Cases
Thurgood Marshall
He was the first African-American to serve on the supreme court, and is most known for his involvement in the Brown v. Board of Education case. In 1940, he was appointed chief counsel of the NAACP. During his time with the NAACP, he argued many supreme court cases dealing with civil rights, including the Brown v. Board of Education case. In 1967, he was appointed to the supreme court by President Johnson. Even while served on the court he still fought for everybody to have equal rights. In 1993, he died of heart failure.
Linda Brown
Linda Brown was the little girl that started it all. A third grader at the time, she had to walk all the way across town to attend an all-black school. Her father, Oliver Brown, was upset about this, especially when there was a white school only a few blocks away that she could go to. Her parents tried to enrole her in the white school, but the school refused to accept her. They filed a lawsuit and the case eventually made its way to the supreme court, along with other similar cases around the state.
Homer Plessy
His supreme court case established the 'separate but equal' doctrine that was overruled by the Brown v. Board case. In 1896, all train cars were segregated. Homer was 1/8 African-American, but didn't consider himself African-American. When he sat in the white section of the train, he was asked to move to the segregated area of the train, but refused. He was arrested and charged and his case went to the supreme court. The court ruled that as long as the two segregated facillities were equal in evironment, segregation was legal.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
After school segregation has been dispatched, many schools still resisted the desegregation. In Little Rock, Arkansas, the federal court ordered that black students were to be enrolled in a white high school, but the governor refused. President Eisenhower sent military troops to Little Rock to escort the students into the high school.
