The online collection consists of scanned copies of the Brown's 1951 complaint, a 1951 court order related to the case, and a 1953 memorandum from Eisenhower to the Secretary of Defense in reference to school segregation on army posts. In addition, correspondence from 1953 between Eisenhower and governors Shivers of Texas, Byrnes of South Carolina and Kennon of Louisiana about school desegregation is included. Finally, two personal letters to boyhood friend Swede Hazlett contain comments on desegregation.

"In 1950, members of the Topeka, Kansas, Chapter of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) challenged the "separate but equal" doctrine governing public education through a class action suit when they were denied the opportunity to enroll their children in the white only schools. When the Topeka case made its way to the United States Supreme Court it was combined with other NAACP cases from Delaware, Virginia, South Carolina and Washington, D.C. The combined cases became known as Oliver L. Brown et. al. vs. The Board of Education of Topeka (KS). On May 17, 1954 the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision overturning "separate but equal" as unconstitutional, stating that segregation in public schools was a violation of the 14th amendment."--Eisenhower Library Web site.

The Civil Rights Digital Library received support from a National Leadership Grant for Libraries awarded to the University of Georgia by the Institute of Museum and Library Services for the aggregation and enhancement of partner metadata.

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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