Oliver Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas

On May 17, 1954, Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered the unanimous decision of the United States Supreme Court

Oliver Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas

Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does.

Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the Negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation, therefore, has a tendency to retard the educational development of Negro children and to deprive them of the benefits they would receive in a racially integrated school system.

We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. We have now announced that segregation is a denial of the equal protection of the laws.

It is so ordered.

Pictured above: Thurgood Marshall (Counsel for the NAACP, which represented plaintiff Linda and her father Oliver Brown. Marshall would later be appointed to the Supreme Court), Chief Justice Earl Warren, Linda Brown (who was denied admission to the Topeka public school near her home because of its "Whites Only" policy), W.E.B. DuBois (one of the founders of the NAACP, author of The Souls of Black Folk), Charles Houston (Counsel to the NAACP and architect of its litigation strategy; it was he who conceived of a plan to attack segregation in the courts. He died in 1950, too soon to see the fruition of his life's work.)

"If my grandmothers saw me now they'd say, Boy, the devil never sleeps."

I sit beside two women, kitty-corner
to the stage, as Elvin's sticks blur
the club into a blue fantasia.
I thought my body had forgotten the Deep
South, how I'd cross the street
if a woman like these two walked
towards me, as if a cat traversed
my path beneath the evening star.
Which one is wearing jasmine?
If my grandmothers saw me now
they'd say, Boy, the devil never sleeps.
My mind is lost among November
cotton flowers, a soft rain on my face
as Richard Davis plucks the fat notes
of chance on his upright
leaning into the future.
The blonde, the brunette—
which one is scented with jasmine?

from Jasmine by Yusef Komunyakaa
(born 1947)

"We slowly drove, he knew no haste,..."

On May 15, 1886, Emily Dickenson passed from this life into the next. She was 55 years of age.

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

"There was no joy in my heart. I was thinking of the war we were going to have to fight."

On the afternoon of May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of a new nation. "We hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish state in Palestine, to be called Israel.”

"And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."
Isaiah 2:4

"When you come to a fork in the road, take it."

On May 12, 1925, in St. Louis, Missouri, was born Lawrence Peter Berra.

While waiting in the dugout for his turn at bat, he had a habit of sitting cross-legged.

So his team mates began to call him "Yogi".

"Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours."

"Hand-painted dream photographs..."

On this day was born Salvador Dali, in 1904, in Figueras, Spain. He passed from this life on January 23, 1989, as his recording of Tristan and Isolde played on a phonograph.

"Surrealism will at least have served to give experimental proof that total sterility and attempts at automatizations have gone too far and have led to a totalitarian system. ... Today's laziness and the total lack of technique have reached their paroxysm in the psychological signification of the current use of the college."

"With hurricanes it's not the wind or the noise or the water.... it's the mangoes, avocados, green plantains and bananas..."

A campesino looked at the air
And told me:
With hurricanes it's not the wind
or the noise or the water.
I'll tell you he said:
it's the mangoes, avocados
Green plantains and bananas
flying into town like projectiles.

How would your family
feel if they had to tell
The generations that you
got killed by a flying
Banana.

Death by drowning has honor
If the wind picked you up
and slammed you
Against a mountain boulder
This would not carry shame
But
to suffer a mango smashing
Your skull
or a plantain hitting your
Temple at 70 miles per hour
is the ultimate disgrace. . . .

from Problems with Hurricanes by Victor Hernández Cruz