The Story of Brown

While most screen readers should be able to scan this guide, a more accessible version can be found here.

The Brown Decision

As we set the stage, try to remember the result of the case and see how the struggle, hard work, and genius of those involved did or didn't pay off. After more than a century of legal and civil battles, a group called the National Association for the Advancement of Colored people, finally reached a victory in the U.S. Supreme Court when Chief Justice Earl Warren issued the court's decision:

"We conclude, in the field of public education, the doctrine of 'Separate but Equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."

Reflect

Do you think we're living up to the promise of Brown v. Board today?

Are there schools that are almost entirely one race in your community?
Why do you think that is?

What role do you think the Brown decision had in the Modern Civil Rights movement?

Slavery and Oppression

1619

Slavery and oppression weren't new concepts. The history of oppression in the United States for many people of color, dates back to 1619. The privateer ship The White Lion arrived at Point Comfort, Va., and later Jamestown, Va., carrying approximately 20-30 Africans who were traded in exchange for supplies. Slavery had reached the new world.

Reflect

Do you think slave-owners who didn't beat and torture enslaved people were any different than people who did?
Why or why not?

Do you feel slavery was just a 'product of its time?'
How does that explain Abolitionists who were products of the same time?

What effect do you think Lincoln’s assassination had on states when they voted to ratify the 13th Amendment?

Reconstruction

After enduring hundreds of years of enslavement, the United States nearly being torn apart, and freedom granted to only some, the day had finally arrived. On December 6, 1865, the United States Congress ratified the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery, except as punishment for a crime. This act would turn over a bright new chapter in our nation's history, or so some thought.

Black Codes

Many whites didn't want to comingle with people they had viewed as animals and property for centuries, let alone be on equal footing with them. With few laws protecting the treatment of these newly freed people, several states developed policies, dubbed the Black Codes, to prevent even a semblance of equality for non-whites.

Civil Rights

Despite the harsh resistance, most African-Americans saw voting as their civic duty. Farmers, soldiers, freedmen, teachers, and all other walks of life showed up to cast their vote. Many Black elected officials never saw office due to harsh white resistance. Others leveraged their offices to make strides forward for all people. Amendments like the 14th and 15th were added to the constitution, guaranteeing equal protection of the laws, citizenship, and the right to vote without the taxes or tests of the past.

Reflect

Do you think Congress has a moral responsibility to create laws to prohibit social practices when those practices are harmful to others?
Why or why not?

Which do you think is more likely; broad and vague laws being abused, or narrow and specific laws being ignored?
Why or why not?

Separate but (Un)Equal

The Birth of Jim Crow

With some civil rights being granted by new acts and amendments, a new series of laws took the place of the Black Codes. These laws separated whites and non-whites, dictating where people could eat, sleep, work, live, and otherwise enjoy their lives.

This spirit of discrimination that often created better facilities for whites and oppressing people of color were dubbed, Jim Crow.

Read More: Who Was Jim Crow?

Plessy v. Ferguson — 1896

In 1890 Louisiana enacted what's commonly called the Separate Car Act, requiring that all passenger trains in the state would have separate cars "that were equal in facilities" for whites and people of color.

A group called the Citizen's Committee of New Orleans challenged the act by sending one of its members to sit in a white car, refuse to leave, and be arrested under the law. In response, the group filed a lawsuit.

The U.S. Supreme Court, however, ruled against Plessy in a 7-1 decision. Justice Henry Billings Brown delivered the court's opinion, stating so long as the facilities provided equal accommodations:

"We cannot say that a law which authorizes or even requires the separation of the two races in public conveyances is unreasonable"

Only Justice John Marshall Harlan voted to rule against segregation. In his dissent he would give a voice to the voiceless, slowly sway public opinion, and open the door to future challenges to Plessy.

“Our constitution is colorblind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law.”

The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in this case instituted the doctrine of Separate but Equal which became the law of the land.

Read More: Plessy v. Ferguson

Reflect

Why do you think some whites wanted to be separate from other races?

Do you think this view was taught or were these whites born with it?

How can we avoid teaching this view to kids in the future?

Case of the Century

NAACP Enters the Scene

In response to the Springfield Race Riot of 1908, and seeing a need for a nation-wide coordinated effort for racial equality, a diverse group of individuals including writer Ida B. Wells, historian W.E.B. DuBois, suffragist Mary White Ovington, and Sociologist Henry Moskowitz founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

This group would go on to confront the issue of Separate but Equal through a series of carefully selected lawsuits. By the time the group had a formal plan to target inequality however, the NAACP couldn't afford to follow it until the late 1930's due to the Great Depression.

Read More: The Margold Report

Charles Hamilton Houston

Houston became the first general counsel to the NAACP in 1935, building off the NAACP's plan with an ingenious twist; he would build legal precedent by targeting places where there were no Black facilities at all.

Read More: Charles Hamilton Houston
A few of his plan's milestones include:

Murray v. Pearson — 1936

Maryland courts ruled that sending law students out of state, rather than admit them to white universities, could not prepare them for a career in Maryland. A great victory for the state.

Brown v. Board of Education — 1954

Each of the following cases were represented by the NAACP and eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court. Many of the lower courts ordered 'equalization' of schools. Essentially trying to allow the school boards to throw some cash at the situation in hopes it would go away.

Briggs v. Elliott — 1949

Parents in Clarendon County, S.C. had asked the county to provide buses for their children, as they had for the white students. When they were ignored, they filed a lawsuit challenging segregation itself.

Read More: Briggs v. Elliott

Bolling v. Sharpe — 1950

The Consolidated Parents Group, Inc. tried to enroll 11 African-American students an all-white school in 1950. The students were denied based on race, and the parents filed a lawsuit.

The Argument for Segregation

Attorneys representing segregation such as John S. Davis, Paul E. Wilson, H. Albert Young, and Milton Kormon relied heavily on the letter of the law of the constitution and states' rights to self-govern when no guidance was provided by the constitution. Such arguments as:

The constitution, or any of its amendments, didn't explicitly require integrated schools.
Social separation of races was largely a regional custom, which wasn't prohibited under the constitution, and therefore left for the states to decide.
White administrators and legislators had made 'good faith efforts' to equalize schools, but it would take time to shake off the effects of slavery.
Segregation hadn't created any 'real' injury to Blacks, or any people of color. The Plessy decision had even gone so far to claim feelings of inferiority were only perceived by people of color.

The Argument Against Segregation

Thurgood Marshall and his team relied on the inequalities experienced because of segregation, as well as expert testimony of the psychological damage that resulted from indoctrinating children in the practice.

The 14th Amendment allowed the government to prohibit any discriminatory action from a state based on race, which included segregation in public schools.
The U.S. Supreme Court had misinterpreted the 14th Amendment in the Plessy decision. Equal protection of the laws could not allow for racial segregation by its very nature.
The 14th Amendment never specified or granted power to the states to create segregated educational facilities.
Psychological testing confirmed the harmful effects of segregation on the minds of African-American children.

Psychology

Drs. Kenneth and Mamie Clark had been conducting a study on the impacts of segregation in school children as early as the 1930's. They would sit down with white and black children alike, ages 6-9, and ask them a series of questions while presenting them with two dolls.

With one white doll and one black doll in front of the children, the Clarks would ask:

"Which doll is the nice one?"
"Which doll is the ugly one?"
"Which doll do you want to play with?"

The Clarks asked several similar questions while observing the children's behavior with the dolls as well as their answers. A majority of students pointed to the white doll for the nice positive questions, and the black doll for the mean negative ones.

They then asked, "Which doll looks most like you?"

Black students would cry, refuse to answer, leave the room, and even choose the white doll.

The NAACP asked the Clarks to expand the study into southern schools, like Liberty Hill Colored school in Clarendon County, S.C., to compare the results from students from several situations. When the results were the same as students from northern states — which had mostly social segregation as opposed to legal segregation — they concluded the act of segregation itself, not the difference in facilities, caused psychological damage to the black self-image that was unlikely to heal as the damage had been done at such a young age.

The Decision

Echoing the U.S. District Court's earlier decision in Kansas, the U.S. Supreme Court accepted the Clark's study as evidence and concluded that the 14th and 5th Amendments had been violated, as the states and Washington D.C. had denied equal protection of the laws when it damaged one population but not another through segregation. On May 17th, 1954, Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered the opinion of the court:

"Any language in Plessy v. Ferguson contrary to this finding is rejected ... Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs [are] deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment."

This wasn't a decision the court had taken lightly. While Justice Fred Vinson was the Chief Justice, the court had been deeply divded over the issue and requested to hear arguments multiple times so they continue deliberating.

When Vinson died of a heart attack during the case, he was replaced by Gov. Earl Warren of California.

Warren was able to do something Vinson couldn't. He was able to convince the remaining hold-out Justices to agree to the opinion above. Unlike Justice John Marshall Harlan in the Plessy v. Ferguson decision, none of the justices dissented.
A unanimous decision by the U.S. Supreme essentially closed the door on future challenges to Brown v. Board.

Without that voice for segregation in the nation's highest court, even though the opinion was limited to the narrow realm of public education, it sent a resounding message to the United States as a whole.

Segregation is inherently unequal.

The Fallout

Change didn't happen overnight. Deliberations continued in the remedy phase of the case for more than a year after the decision. The court heard plans from the NAACP Attorneys, and even reached out to Attorneys General of various segregated states for an answer of how to best handle integration.

Without a solid plan that would avoid race riots, on May 31, 1955, the court urged segregated states to integrate their schools "With All Deliberate Speed"

Some places, such as Topeka, had already begun the process while the case was still being argued. Others took much longer, and some said 'Never.' Governors like Orval Faubus of Arkansas, came out and told their states they didn't have to obey the courts:

“The decision is yours to make. Public sentiment is with you in this struggle to preserve our legal and time-honored rights.”

Little Rock Nine — 1957

Faubus went so far as to order the National Guard of Arkansas to physically block students of color from attending Central High School in Little Rock.

It took intervention from President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who sent in the 101st Airborne to escort the students to school in order to enforce the court's decision.

"Mob rule cannot be allowed to overturn the decisions of our courts."

These children walked through crowds of people threatening to kill them every single day for the supposed offense of attending a formerly all-white school.

Ruby Bridges — 1960

Ruby was born September 8, 1954, four months after the initial Brown decision. Yet she was the first to integrate her school in New Orleans, Louisiana.

She was supposed to be part of a larger group of students, but the parents of the rest of the children decided to send their children to former all-Black schools after threats of violence from the white community.

While the administrators of the school were legally required to let Ruby in the building, they moved the white children to another classroom, and hired Barbara Henry specifically to teach only Ruby.

For Ruby's protection, she was escorted by U.S. Marshalls to school every day. Just like the Little Rock Nine or the Clinton 12 and many others before her, Ruby had to walk through a mob of grown men and women threatening to burn down her house, poison her food, and kill her parents.

Ruby had been instructed not to talk to anyone in the crowd, in case it would provoke them further. One day while walking up the steps to school, Mrs. Henry saw Ruby's lips moving. When Ruby got inside, her teacher asked, "What were you saying to them Ruby?" Ruby's response was short:

"I wasn't talking to them. I was praying for them."

Whether religious or not, one has to admire the strength of character of a six-year old girl to wish well people who want her dead.

As powerful as Ruby's story is, sadly it isn't alone. Despite the Brown decision, it would take an enormous amount of people with the same strength of character to stand up and resist Segregation on all fronts.

Modern Civil Rights Movement

Brown had opened the door with public education, but what about busses? lunch counters? hotels? pools? movie theaters? housing? The Brown decision hadn't integrated anything beyond public schools, but it opened a path forward. People like Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, and even Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson stepped up to do what they thought was right to promote equality in this country. Millions of Americans from all walks of life followed suit, demanding freedom and justice for all.

Montgomery Bus Boycotts — 1955-1956

Building off the progress made in the Brown decision, on December 1st, 1955, a woman named Rosa parks paid for a bus fare at the front, exited the bus, and re-entered through the Black entrance in the back — per the custom at the time. She sat down in the first row of Black seats.

At the time, the front half of the bus was reserved for whites, and the back half for Blacks. When the front half would fill, Black passengers were asked to give up their seats in the front of the Black section for white passengers.

When this happened to Parks and three other passengers, they gave up their seats, except for Parks. She was arrested, and fined.Active in the NAACP, she called E.D. Nixon, a prominent Black leader, to bail her out. The NAACP also began a class-action lawsuit Browder v. Gayle — though Parks couldn't be admitted because of a technicality.

In coordination with Black leaders, such as a young pastor named Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and groups like the Women's Political Council they distributed flyers calling for people of color to boycott the city bus system. Jo Ann Robinson, WPC president, coordinated the finer details of the boycott personally.

For more than a year, roughly 17,000 people of color drove, car-pooled or walked anywhere they needed to go in protest of segregation on public busses in Montgomery.

On December 20, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the class-action Browder v. Gaynes, and ordered the integration of Montgomery's busses, declaring them unconstitutional.

The next day Parks, Nixon and King boarded a bus and legally sat in the front row.

The boycotts came to an end, lasting 381 days.

Sit-Ins — 1960-1961

Building off of the growing momentum from movements like the bus boycotts, a group of students in Greensboro North Carolina sat at a whites-only lunch counter and refused to leave until they were served or arrested.

Hearing about an effective non-violent form of resistance more students and people at large began to participate in their own sit-ins. Some even forming groups like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to coordinate with the NAACP and leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Throughout 1960 and 1961 more than 70,000 people participated in sit-ins showing the growing push for racial civil rights. Dozens, if not hundreds, of businesses began to integrate as a result of the economic and social pressure the sit-ins created.

Freedom Riders — 1961

In 1946, the U.S. Supreme Court had banned segregation on interstate travel. Putting that ruling to the test, groups like the Congress of Racial Equality began travelling through southern states as early as 1947.

On May 4, 1961, a group of seven African-Americans and six whites, set out to revive the practice. Believing they would encounter violent resistance and force the federal government to enforce the U.S. Supreme Court decision from 1946 as it had with Brown.

Through their journeys they were beaten, arrested, sent back to neighboring states, tires on their busses were slashed, and a bus had even been fire-bombed. The number of Freedom Riders only grew.

At one point, they gained the protection of State Highway Patrol after a plea to U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy. They were later assigned National Guard protection of the now 27 Freedom Riders after local police in Montgomery refused to enforce the laws and the freedom riders were beaten again.

On May 29, 1961, Kennedy ordered the Interstate Commerce Commission to enforce even stricter bans on segregation in interstate travel, but it wouldn't take effect until September of that year. The Freedom Riders continued onward until the rules were in effect.

Civil Rights act of 1964

President John F. Kennedy had demanded that Congress develop a comprehensive civil rights bill to protect the equality of all citizens. He publicly advocated for equal rights in the United States:

"We preach freedom around the world, and we mean it, and we cherish our freedom here at home, but are we to say to the world, and much more importantly, to each other that this is the land of the free except for the Negroes;
that we have no second-class citizens except Negroes;
that we have no class or caste system, no ghettoes, no master race except with respect to Negroes?
Now the time has come for this Nation to fulfill its promise.
The events in Birmingham and elsewhere have so increased the cries for equality that no city or State or legislative body can prudently choose to ignore them."

President Kennedy would be assassinated in Dallas Texas in November of 1963.

His successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson, a southerner, took up the mantle of pushing congress to draft a civil rights bill. he called congressmen personally, asking for votes from 'the party of Lincoln' and even threatening "We've GOT to have Civil Rights, or I QUIT!"

Congress drafted and passed a bill that was signed by President Johnson on July 2, 1964, which prohibited "discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin" applying to public accommodations, promoting or firing in the workplace, or any federally funded programs. This bill would go on to be strengthened by Congress over the years, and had finally closed the door on the application of Jim Crow laws under the Plessy decision.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was an enormous milestone for the country, but there was more work to be done. If discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin was unacceptable — what about Ability Level? Sexual orientation? Gender Identity?

Civil Rights Expanding

Over the years, activists for people with disabilities in the United States advocated for the same opportunities as everyone else to participate in the mainstream of American life. It wouldn't be until 1990 that the Americans with Disabilities Act — modeled after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — would be signed into law.

LGBTQIA+ groups had been advocating for equality since the 1920s, with a large movement in the 1970s, but it wasn't until 2004 that any states would recognize same-sex marriage. Same-sex marriage wasn't federally protected until 2015. As recently as 2020 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that sexual orientation and gender identity are protected as extensions of one's sex under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Are their struggles somehow any less important than the one for racial equality?

Reflect on the World Today

We like to think of the United States as the 'Land of the Free and Home of the Brave,' but can we truly be free without people brave enough to stand up for equality?

Do you feel we've reached the promise of racial equality so many have struggled for?
Why or why not?

Think about the world you live in and the struggles of people around you, no matter how insignificant you feel it might be. Is there something you could do to relieve their pain?

Even if you don't understand someone's struggle or point of view, is their way of life going to harm you? If not, why stand in the way?

The Brown story is one of individual actions by engaged citizens. We as Americans can foster understanding and appreciation through art, culture, law, and politics on local, national and even international levels if we all work toward the same goal: Equality.

Education in Topeka

By 1928, the Topeka School Board announced segregated education would be the standard from kindergarten through eighth grade. Construction on Monroe School started in 1926 and was completed in 1927. Four schools were built for "colored" students between 1926 and 1927: Monroe, McKinley, Washington and Buchannan. All would be up and running by the time the district officially separated the students based on race.

Kindergarten Class — 1949

At the height of “permitted segregation” in Kansas, this room was designed as an inviting place where children could feel protected and free from the restrains of a segregated community.

Exodusters

By 1897, many southern African Americans had moved to Kansas. Reverend Charles Sheldon established kindergarten classes for the children of “Exodust” homesteaders. In Topeka, black migrants settled mainly in 4 communities: Tennessee Town, Mud Town, Sand Town, and the Bottoms.

Education in the Age of Jim Crow

Jim Crow laws legally sanctioned segregation. Settlement patterns, economics, changing demographics, and court cases all contributed to how legal sanctions and discrimination evolved and changed in the military, transportation, and education. In Topeka, the dual school system functioned adequately mainly because the school district maintained a standard of “as equal as possible.” This auditorium is symbolic of a tangible level of equality, within a segregated community.

Master Teacher Mamie Williams

Black teachers educated black children in the first years of schooling. They committed every aspect of their master’s level training to prepare their students socially and academically. Teachers like Mamie Williams encouraged students to “be a miracle” and held high expectations for academic success.

Monroe and Randolph Grade Schools — 1949

In 1949, Monroe Elementary was one of four segregated elementary schools in Topeka. Unlike southern states, Kansas law only permitted segregation in elementary schools and only in cities with more than 15,000 residents. These students would attend integrated junior high and high schools.

Auditorium as Lunchroom

At 11:30 a.m. each day, the lunch bell rang. The older students assisted their young schoolmates who did not walk home for lunch, across the street to Miss Laura’s Coffee Shop where they purchased hot chili, soda pop, and candy. They would then make their way back to the school auditorium to have lunch.

Linda Brown

Linda Brown attended Monroe grade school until the 6th grade and the time of the NAACP lawsuit that became known as Brown v. Board of Education. Her family resided in a racially-mixed community near the Sumner grade school where her father, Oliver Brown, tried to enroll her.

Segregated Preparation

Contrary to the standard preparation for "colored" students throughout Topeka’s segregated schools, African-American children were educated in the trade occupations for eventual service work. However, students saw examples of black professionals such as lawyers, physicians, educators, and entrepreneurs, which they could emulate. Topeka’s black community pressed forward to establish a thriving independent economy with multiple residents enjoying the benefits of an upper-class existence.

Topeka's African-American Teachers — 1949

Not everyone supported the NAACP’s challenge of the separate but equal law. Many highly qualified African-American teachers stood silent. Collectively, they did not believe the "colored" schools were substandard, and they had doubts that "colored" students would do as well in integrated schools.

Grades 3 & 4

The separation of white and black children in Topeka’s public elementary schools did not occur swiftly. School boards were granted discretionary power to “provide separate schools for the education of colored and white children,” yet Topeka moved cautiously towards creating a dual school system.

Grades 5 through 8

The 2nd floor of Monroe Grade School was home to the 5th through 8th grades. This floor housed a domestic science class where girls learned home economics. At later times, this floor had as a library, a music room, and a teacher’s lunchroom.

Graduating 'Scholars'

Monroe Grade School hosted annual 8th grade graduation ceremonies. Based on local school records, 80% of the students who passed through the "colored" grade schools advanced on to Topeka High School, which at the time was the largest high school facility in the county.

Within a century the practice of owning human beings as cattle was booming. It became a multi-billion dollar business by today's dollar. It was the backbone of several states' economies.

Viewed as nothing more than property, enslaved people faced grueling conditions. They were often banned from learning to read or write, had their families torn apart when they were sold separately at auction, were beaten, were tortured, and even killed.

By 1804 the northern more industrial states, had abolished the practice. Machines were cheaper, and just as useful.

In southern farm based states, it had become a vital part of life as they knew it. The cotton gin increased the amount of cotton a single enslaved person could produce by 100 fold. Plantations that had barely been covering costs could now produce huge wealth.

Owners of cotton and sugar farms, wanted greater profits and power. They tried to expand slavery into every new state that joined the union.

Meanwhile Abolitionists wanted to end slavery and tried to stop them.

Politicians argued on either side, and laws like the Missouri Compromise left almost nobody happy.

Rising moral, political and economic tensions reached a boiling point in 1860. Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States. He was elected without a single electoral vote from the south.

Southern states were under moral pressure to end slavery. Without it, their economies would crumble. They had to fight just to try and expand Slavery. After Lincoln's win they felt they had no power left in the Union to govern themselves. These states were fed up with the 'northern' states interfering with slavery laws. They seceded from the United States.

They argued the federal government had violated their state's rights. These now Confederate States of America, made their own laws. Ironically, the confederate constitution required all confederate states to 'recognize and protect' "the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists." They created the same federal power many claimed to oppose, just in support of slavery instead.

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After Louisiana passed the Separate Car Act in 1890, a group called the Citizen's Committee of New Orleans, challenged the law. They sent of its members, Homer Plessy, to sit in a white car, refuse to leave, and be arrested under the law.

They hired Albion W. Tourgée, a Republican author and politician at the time, and filed a lawsuit to challenge the Separate Car Act. Judge John H. Ferguson upheld the state law, which led to Plessy filed writs of prohibition, certiorari, and error against Judge Ferguson. Simply put, these writs stated Plessy felt the ruling was illegal and demanded Judge Ferguson to send the case to the next higher court, eventually allowing the case to reach the U.S. Supreme Court. This is why the case is known as Plessy v. Ferguson and not, for instance, Plessy v. Louisiana.

The U.S. Supreme Court, however, ruled against Plessy in a 7-1 decision. Justice Henry Billings Brown delivered the court's opinion, stating so long as the facilities provided 'equal' accommodations:

"We cannot say that a law which authorizes or even requires the separation of the two races in public conveyances is unreasonable"

Justice John Marshall Harlan alone dissagreed with the outcome of the case. In a fiery opinion known as the Great Dissent, he wrote:

"If laws of like character should be enacted in the several States of the Union, the effect would be in the highest degree mischievous...there would remain a power in the States, by sinister legislation, to interfere with the blessings of freedom....In the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our constitution is colorblind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful"

Despite his dissent the rest of the U.S. Supreme Court's Justices agreed with the defense that any feelings of inferiority were perceived by people of color. Even if they weren't, the constitution only protected civil rights not social status. They accepted that Homer Plessy, who was 1/8th black and 7/8ths white, was a person of color. This implied that anyone who wasn't 100% white could be discriminated against. This is what would later become the 'One Drop Rule.' It would later be paired with 'Separate but Equal' to influence the law of the land.

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South Carolina mandated racial segregation in public schools when it adopted its constitution in 1895. The following year, The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that separate facilities were constitutional so long as the facilities were equal, reinforcing many states segregation policies. Following the decision, South Carolina underfunded African American schools for decades to come.

By the 1940’s, the average South Carolina school district was spending $221 per white student and only $45 per Black student in its schools. Clarendon County, the site of the Briggs v. Elliott case, spent $179 per white student and only $42 per Black student. Author and historian, Richard Kluger, would say of Clarendon County “If you were looking anywhere in the union where life for Negroes had changed the least since slavery, look no further than Clarendon County.”

This county had provided schools for white students complete with running water, electricity, libraries, classrooms for each grade level, and transportation to and from school. Meanwhile they provided few if any of those same accommodations for Black students.

African American parents in Clarendon County started with a simple request, a school bus. The district had more than 30 buses for white students, yet none for Black students. Some Black students had to walk more than seven miles each way to attend school.

Rev. Joseph A. DeLaine, an educator and minister in Clarendon County, fostered a meeting between the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Pearson brothers, Levi and Hammett, to put together a petition to the school board for a single bus for Black students.

Despite the effort, the petition was ignored. It wasn’t until Harold Boulware and Thurgood Marshall filed a formal lawsuit that they even received the attention of white officials. The lawsuit was then hung up on a technicality. Levi Pearson’s property spanned more than one district. He paid taxes in both districts, and sent children to school in both districts, but his house sat in only one district while the lawsuit was in another. Boulware and Marshall dropped the suit.

Rather than back down completely, the NAACP and the community rallied for a larger assault on segregation. Instead of focusing on transportation or filing in state courts, they would focus on “equal everything,” as DeLaine would say, and file in federal court.

The NAACP sent a petition for the community to sign to begin a new court case which arrived November 11, 1949. Parents and their children walked from St. Mark AME Church to the home of Harry and Eliza Briggs just to sign it. Harry and Eliza Briggs signed first for “educational advantages and facilities equal in all respects to that which is provided for whites,” followed by children Harry Jr., Thomas Lee and Katherine. By the end, 107 parents and their children had signed the petition to sue the school district in federal court.

Before long, the list of petitioners’ names was posted at the courthouse in Manning, South Carolina, for all to see. Petitioners faced intense backlash such as being fired from their jobs, denied service when trying to purchase supplies for their farms, or being turned down for loans on their properties. DeLaine himself was warned of death threats, and during one such warning was attacked by six white men. He only managed to survive by pretending he had a gun in his pocket and leaping into the passing truck of another petitioner.

On May 16, 1950, the lawsuit had been filed. Named Briggs v. Elliott, for Harry Briggs, the first signatory, and R. W. Elliott, the president of the Clarendon County School Board. During the proceedings, it was decided by the petitioners and even the national NAACP board that rather than simply seeking a bus or even equal facilities, they would pursue “nonsegregation” instead. Even Judge J. Waties Waring agreed with seeking nonsegregation and dismissed the initial case so they could re-file and challenge segregation instead of unequal facilities.

Trying to reduce the amount of backlash, when the NAACP re-filed Briggs, they limited their petition to just 20 people, only 17 adults signed the petition a second time. Briggs v. Elliott was re-filed Dec. 22, 1950.

A three-judge panel at the U.S. District Court was presented with substantial psychological evidence and expert testimony presented on African American school conditions. The court ruled that Black schools in South Carolina were inferior to white schools but denied the plaintiffs’ request to abolish school segregation. Instead, they ordered the school board to begin equalization of the schools.

In a lone dissenting opinion from the Briggs decision, Judge Julius Waring adamantly opposed segregation in public education.

Gov. James F. Byrne, a former U.S. Supreme Court associate justice, had already began the process of “equalizing” schools, statewide. He instituted a 3-cent sales tax to be put toward building of equal school buildings as an effort to preserve segregation by eliminating the NAACP’s argument of unequal education. In his own words, Byrne believed “This is a white man’s country and will always remain a white man’s country.”

The NAACP appealed the decision, heading to the U.S. Supreme Court, the first of five lawsuits challenging segregation that would be consolidated into the Brown v. Board of Education case.

The U.S. Supreme Court announced that it would hear both the Briggs and Brown cases in the 1952 term. Three short weeks later, they announced that they would also hear cases from Delaware, and Washington D.C., bundled alongside Briggs and Brown and later even included a case from Virginia creating what would become the Brown v. Board of Education case.

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Following the events of World War II, the United States was embroiled in a cold war against totalitarianism. It presented itself as a beacon of freedom and justice around the world. Yet the nation’s capital, Washington D.C., still segregated most of its public facilities either by law or practice.

Facilities had been segregated since the American Civil War and had hardly lived up to the “Separate But Equal” decision from the Plessy v. Ferguson case just before the turn of the century. While Black schools were so overcrowded, they had to begin holding classes in shifts, neighboring white schools were half empty.

School authorities responded to the overcrowding by allowing students at Browne Junior High School to hold satellite classes in former white primary schools that were in disrepair. The school’s PTA demanded that Black students be allowed to attend white schools, which had plenty of space. Meanwhile Gardner L. Bishop, a local barber and father of a student at Browne Junior High School called on parents to boycott the school. With others, he formed the Consolidated Parent Group to file a grievance with the school board.

Bishop and the Consolidated Parent Group organized and crusaded against the school board for years. On September 11, 1950, Bishop led a group of 11 students to the newly constructed John Pilip Sousa Junior High School and demand their enrollment.

Despite having several empty classrooms in the new building, the students were denied enrollment at the new facility. Bishop then reached out to attorney Charles Hamilton Houston, the special counsel to the NAACP, who began to build a case against the school.

Unfortunately, Houston suffered a heart attack, and asked a colleague, James Nabrit, Jr., to lead the case instead. Rather than focusing on differences between the facilities, Nabrit chose to challenge segregation itself. It was a risky position.

Bolling v. Sharpe was filed in U.S. District Court in 1951, named for Spottswood Bolling, one of the 11 children that had accompanied Bishop the year before.

The U.S. District court dismissed the case based on a recent ruling by the Court of Appeals in Carr v. Corning that segregated schools were constitutional in the District of Columbia.

Nabrit filed an appeal and was awaiting a hearing when the U.S. Supreme Court sent word that it was interested in considering the case along with the other four school segregation cases already pending.

Nabrit, along with a colleague from Howard University, George E.C. Hayes, would argue the case before the U.S. Supreme Court during the first round of arguments, and Hayes alone presented their argument during the second round.

The U.S. Supreme Court rendered a separate opinion on Bolling v. Sharpe based on the Fifth Amendment because the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was not applicable in the District of Columbia.

Kluger, Richard. 2004. Simple justice: The History of Brown V. Board of Education and Black America’s Struggle for Equality. Vintage.

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The Commonwealth of Virginia was no stranger to racial tensions. For many African Americans it dates to 1619 when the privateer ship, The White Lion, arrived at Point Comfort, Va., carrying human beings as cargo for sale. This started a cycle of discrimination that was nearly impossible to escape from. From enslavement to emancipation, incarceration to equalization, for African Americans progressing in society was slow and it seemed like two steps forward, one step back.

Despite the challenges, people of color pushed forward in Virginia regardless. Over the centuries Virginia had seen its share of protests and challenges by people of color who were demanding equality. However, it wasn’t until a boycott by African Americans of segregation in street cars in Richmond, Va., that lasted two years in the early 20th century that laws were passed in Virginia transforming what were once just accepted practices into official segregation of public facilities. Though organized and willing to push back, the African American population in Richmond didn’t yet have the resources in the legal community to commit to an all-out confrontation with the state legislature.

Around the same time, the only way an African American student in Virginia could receive a high school diploma was attending a private academy. These academies were largely operated by churches around the state. Public schools for Black students were elementary schools only reaching the eighth grade, operated primarily by county school boards. Since most of the schools were associated with county school boards, rather than cities and towns, meant they had a relatively rural population of students attending most school districts.

Prince Edward County’s public schools were considered relatively progressive, compared with their neighboring districts. This was thanks mainly to fundraising efforts by the Farmville Colored Women’s Club. They were able to aid in the addition of grades 9-12 being added to the Robert Russa Moton High School. Originally constructed in 1938 to house 180 students and alleviate overcrowding, students flocked to the facility from neighboring districts for a better education and the population soon swelled to over 450 students by 1951. To keep pace with the growing population, tar paper shacks were constructed to house the students.

Reverend Francis Griffin wanted to use his position was the President of the local NAACP chapter and Chair of the Robert Russa Moton High School PTA to leverage a deal with the school board to build a new facility for the ever-increasing number of students. However, his request fell on deaf ears, and the school board took no action for several months.

Frustrated with the overcrowding and inaction of the school board the students themselves decided to act. April 23rd, 1951, the school principal, M. Boyd Jones, was called away on a false claim of racial problems at the bus station downtown, and Moton teachers received notes to bring their classes to the auditorium. After the students had gathered, a committee of students, led by sixteen-year-old Barbara Johns, asked the teachers to leave.

The committee had called the students together so they could address their classmates. Johns discussed the inadequate conditions and mistreatment they suffered through indifference by county school officials. She swayed the students to march out onto the school grounds, and strike in front of the school until county officials agreed to build a new school building.

Barbara was the niece of Vernon Johns, an outspoken activist who had been the pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church from 1947 until 1952, just two years before Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would be selected as the new head pastor of the same church. Despite being in Montgomery, Ala., at the time, many people reported that Vernon Johns gave students advice and counsel during the protest.

For two weeks, more than 450 students protested their conditions while Barbara Johns and Carrie Stokes, a fellow student, pleaded for assistance from the NAACP branch office in Richmond, Va. And meeting with the school superintendent to make their demands. NAACP Attorneys Spottswood Robinson III and Oliver Hill responded to the students, telling them they would act on the students’ behalf only if they could garner their parents support and were willing to challenge the constitutionality of segregation itself, not just lobby for a new school. The students agreed and returned to school May 7, 1951.

After a few weeks of preparation, Robinson and Hill filed suit on behalf of one hundred seventeen students who were willing to sign on to the court case on May 23, 1951. Despite Johns being one of the fundamental forces behind the strike, the case was instead named after Dorothy E. Davis, the first name to appear on the petition.

Robinson was called to assist on another case, but Hill stayed on to argue the Davis v. County Schoolboard of Prince Edward County case. Hill argued that the conditions the students were forced to endure were unequal and unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. The county officials had hired the best attorneys they could find in Richmond, Va., and they were in turn assisted by the state Attorney General, J. Lindsay Almond. They would argue that segregation was core to Virginia’s way of life, and that the district was empowered to segregate under the Plessy Decision.

A three-judge panel at the U.S. District Court unanimously rejected the NAACP’s argument stating, "We have found no hurt or harm to either race." They ruled in favor of segregation, however they ordered the school board to ‘equalize’ the Robert Russa Moton High School.

The case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, who consolidated the case alongside Brown v. Board and three others. When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the ruling and ordered desegregation, white Virginians launched a campaign of massive resistance. The Board of Supervisors for Prince Edward County refused to appropriate any funds for the County School Board for the period 1959-1964, effectively closing the public schools rather than integrate them. Prince Edward County schools remained closed for five years.

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Delaware was one of the few sites, and the only site of those involved in the Brown case, to see victory in the lower courts.

The state had long maintained a mixed point of view on segregation. As a border state during the U.S. Civil War, Delaware had permitted slavery, yet did not side with the confederacy in rebellion. Later, when drafting laws regarding segregation, the state’s legislature sided with the opinions of the state’s southern traditions and enforced the separation of whites and people of color.

While less prominent that in rural communities, the city of Wilmington still segregated many public facilities and many African Americans found it extremely difficult to find work outside of the service and labor industries and it was the Wilmington chapter of the NAACP that began to coordinate an effort in and around the city to challenge the states many segregation laws. The NAACP commissioned the services of Louis Redding, Delaware’s only African American attorney at the time.

Redding had grown up in Wilmington during the height of “Jim Crow” segregation in Delaware. Employers were even allowed to refuse to hire someone simply based on their race, so most families in his African American neighborhood were poor as the “good” jobs were reserved for whites. Redding’s father, however, became one of the first Black postmen in the state, and worked a second job for a caterer so Redding and his siblings could focus on school rather than work.

Redding went to high school at Howard High, the school that would later become the center of one of the two Delaware segregation cases to be bundled with Brown. Redding later attended Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, one of only half a dozen or so Black men in his class at the Ivy League University. He was later accepted at Harvard Law School as the only Black student in his 1928 graduating class.

While Delaware didn’t outlaw Black attorneys explicitly, they did require prospective attorneys to be sponsored by a practicing attorney, and none had ever sponsored a Black applicant. Redding and his father were able to convince Judge Daniel Hastings to sponsor him, however, and Redding would go on to pass the bar and become the first African American attorney in Delaware.

Redding worked with the Wilmington chapter of the NAACP to find cases he felt had the highest likeliest chance to win a challenge against segregation. It was reported that Redding had even refused payment for his services on segregation cases, encouraging the NAACP chapter to instead raise funds for court costs. So it was Redding himself, that decided to take on both the Belton v. Gebhart and Bulah v. Gebhart cases.

Even though Ethel Belton’s local high school offered courses and activities not available at her school and had plenty of space for more students, it was only available to white students. She had to travel past this school to attend the only school in the county that provided a complete high school education, Redding’s own alma mater Howard High School.

While Belton was attending Howard, classes were overcrowded, the teachers were less qualified, lacked a sufficient gymnasium, and the curriculum less substantial than her local high school. Students wanting any vocational classes had to attend the Carver Building, an annex nine blocks away, for lessons after their regular school day had ended.

Belton’s parents and several others contacted Redding through the NAACP. He recommended they petition the school board to admit their children in the nearby white schools, so they may sue when they were denied.

Meanwhile, Shirley Bulah, an eight-year-old girl from Hockessin, was not provided transportation to attend Hockessin No. 107c, two miles from her home, despite a school bus driving directly in front of her home twice a week. Her mother, Sarah, petitioned the school board, and wrote to the Department of Public Instruction and even the Governor himself to allow Shirley to ride the bus instead of walk, her letters fell on deaf ears and her petition was denied as the bus was for whites only.

Sarah approached Redding about representing her in a lawsuit against the school. Much of Sarah’s community withdrew support and even pressured her not to pursue a case, fearing the retaliation they would face from the white community would be harsh. However, the support from the Wilmington chapter of the NAACP was firm. Redding would take both the Belton and Bulah cases.

Filed in 1951, both Belton and Bulah were argued by Louis Redding, with Jack Greenburg from the NAACP assisting. Rather than attempt to achieve equalization, Redding pushed for integration of the students instead. He pointed out the inferior facilities at the Black schools compared to the whites, the lack of transportation provided for the Black schools, and the unequal curriculum available to the students. In Belton’s case, requiring additional time and travel for equivalent classes that were available during the school day in the high school in Claymont. Redding argued all these inequalities between the plaintiffs’ experience and their white neighbors violated the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment.

“No state shall deny equal protection of the law to any person within its jurisdiction.”

The case had been heard in the Court of Chancery rather than the U.S. District Court at the request of the state. In the Chancery the two cases were consolidated into a single case Belton (Bulah) v. Gebhart named for the plaintiffs and Francis Gebhart, the first name on the list of members of the State Board of Education. The case was heard without a jury before a recently appointed chancellor, Collin Seitz.

In a groundbreaking decision, Chancellor Seitz ruled that the plaintiffs were being denied equal protection of the law and ordered that the eleven children involved be immediately admitted to the white school. However, Chancellor Seitz did not rule that the state had violated the fourteenth amendment’s equal protection clause with its segregation laws, only that there was substantial inequality in these two cases.

Unhappy with the order to integrate two of its schools, the Board of Education appealed the decision. When the consolidated case eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, it was further consolidated alongside four others into Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

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Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was the culmination of a plan by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to integrate public schools in the United States as part of their larger mission to achieve equity, political rights, and social inclusion for all people of color.

The case resulted in a decision on May 17, 1954, by the U.S. Supreme Court to eliminate segregation in public schools, as highlighted by this excerpt from the opinion written by Chief Justice Earl Warren.

“We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”

However, this decision faced intense resistance and lack of enforcement. After a year of deliberating, the U.S. Supreme court issued the resolution to the Brown decision, often referred to as Brown II, on May 31, 1955, instructing segregated states to begin integrating their schools ‘with all deliberate speed.’

Background

Racial discrimination in the Americas is much older than the United States. Even institutionalized racial slavery began as early as 1619 in Point Comfort Virginia with the first document slave ship carrying human beings as cargo for sale. Slavery persisted in the United States until December 6, 1865, with the ratification of the 13^th amendment. Even this allowed for slavery as punishment for a crime.

White supremacists in the United States who had supported slavery began to put ‘Black Codes’ in place, which set different and discriminatory laws for people of color, but not whites. The Black Codes lasted until July 9, 1868, with the passing of the 14^th amendment guaranteeing “equal protection of the law.”

Instead of being removed, however the Black Codes evolved into Jim Crow: laws which pass as fair and equal on paper, but in practice are discriminatory. Laws such as literacy tests to vote were meant to make it more difficult for former enslaved people to vote, as it was illegal to teach them to read during enslavement.

We also begin to see segregation laws cropping up across the country. Kansas, despite being a free state, allowed for segregation of elementary schools in cities with populations of 15,000 or more as early as 1879. Parents began to challenge these laws as early as 1881. By 1950, 11 court challenges to segregated schools had reached the Kansas State Supreme Court. Unfortunately, none of them were successful.

The NAACP was also facing its own share of difficulties trying to integrate public schools. Their initial plan was to focus on areas where there were few Black opportunities compared to whites, and physical conditions themselves were discriminatory. What they were met with, despite winning several cases, were rulings to ‘equalize’ the schools in question. Equalization was a way to allow school board to throw a little bit of money at the inferior schools they had build for children of color and hope the lawsuits would go away.

Brown

The NAACP needed to build a case to challenge segregation without the risking an 'equalization' order by the courts. They set their sights on Kansas where schools were built with the idea of 'Equal but Separate.' If they could prove segregation itself was unconstitutional it would be a huge step forward. Topeka was somewhat unique because it tried to create as equal facilities as possible, while still maintaining segregated schools.

The local NAACP chapter in Topeka began recruiting families to enroll their children in white schools. Many children had to travel across town to reach a Black school, while white schools were much closer. Every child was refused admission.

The Topeka NAACP filed suit on their behalf in February of 1951, but by August, the U.S. District Court ruled that, although segregation might be detrimental, it was not illegal. Citing the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the judges denied relief on the grounds that the black and white schools in Topeka were equal with respect to buildings, transportation, curricular, and educational qualifications of teachers.

The plaintiffs appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1952 and were joined by four similar NAACP-sponsored cases from Delaware, South Carolina, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. The court ruling combined these five cases under the heading Oliver L. Brown et. al. vs. the Board of Education of Topeka, (KS) et. al. Mr. Brown was the assigned lead plaintiff in the Kansas class action suit and became namesake of the court decision. Chief Council for the NAACP Thurgood Marshall argued before court that separate school systems for blacks and whites were inherently unequal, and thus violated the "equal protection clause" of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Marshall also argued that segregated school systems tended to make black children feel inferior to white children, and thus such a system should not be legally permissible.

The Decision

The Supreme Court Justices heard the case in the spring but were unable to decide the issue by the end of the court's term in June. The Justices decided to rehear the case in the fall with special attention paid to whether the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause prohibited the operation of separate public schools based on race. In September Chief Justice Fred Vinson, who had been a key stumbling block to a unanimous decision, died and was replaced by Governor Earl Warren of California. Warren had supported the integration of Mexican American students in California school systems in 1947, after Mendez v. Westminster and when Brown v. Board of Education was reheard, Warren was able to bring the Justices to a unanimous decision. On May 14, 1954, Chief Justice Warren delivered the opinion of the Court, stating:

"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 …

… We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment."

The decision in Brown v. Board of Education forced the desegregation of public schools in 21 states and intensified resistance in the South, particularly among white supremacist groups and government officials sympathetic to the segregationist cause. In Virginia, U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd, Sr. started the Massive Resistance movement, which sought to pass new state laws and policies as a means of keeping public schools from being desegregated. In one of the most notorious instances of resistance to the decision, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus called out the National Guard in 1957 to keep black students from entering Little Rock Central High School.

For African Americans, the Supreme Court's decision encouraged and empowered many who felt for the first time in more than half a century that they had a "friend" in the Court. The strategy of education, lobbying, and litigation that had defined the Civil Rights Movement up to that point broadened to include an emphasis on a "direct action." This included boycotts, sit-ins, Freedom Rides, marches, and other tactics that relied on mass mobilization, nonviolent resistance, and civil disobedience all of which would come to define the Modern Civil Rights Movement.

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Last updated: June 27, 2024

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The Story of Brown

Setting the Stage

The Brown Decision

Reflect

Slavery and Oppression

1619

Reflect

Reconstruction

Black Codes

Civil Rights

Reflect

The Road to Brown

Separate but (Un)Equal

The Birth of Jim Crow

Plessy v. Ferguson — 1896

Reflect

Case of the Century

NAACP Enters the Scene

Charles Hamilton Houston

Brown v. Board of Education — 1954

The Argument for Segregation

The Argument Against Segregation

Psychology

The Decision

The Legacy of Brown

The Fallout

Little Rock Nine — 1957

Ruby Bridges — 1960

Modern Civil Rights Movement

Montgomery Bus Boycotts — 1955-1956

Sit-Ins — 1960-1961

Freedom Riders — 1961

Civil Rights act of 1964

Civil Rights Expanding

Reflect on the World Today

The Kindergarten Room

Education in Topeka

Kindergarten Class — 1949

Exodusters

Education in the Age of Jim Crow

Master Teacher Mamie Williams

Monroe and Randolph Grade Schools — 1949

Auditorium as Lunchroom

Linda Brown

Segregated Preparation

Topeka's African-American Teachers — 1949

Grades 3 & 4

Grades 5 through 8

Graduating 'Scholars'

Further Reading

Enslavement & Civil War

Black Codes

Who was Jim Crow?

Roberts v. Boston

Plessy v. Ferguson

The Margold Report

Charles Hamilton Houston

Murray v. Pearson — 1936

Gaines v. Canada — 1938

Reflect

Sweatt v. Painter — 1950

Briggs v. Elliott — 1949

Bolling v. Sharpe — 1951

Davis v. Prince Edward County — 1951

Belton (Bulah) v. Gebhart — 1951

Brown v. Board of Education — 1951

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