"IN PURSUIT OF FREEDOM AND SOCIAL EQUALITY"
	ducation has always been important to the African American Community. As a result, African American parents came together to challenge unequal access to public schools. Their mission was to ensure equal opportunity for their children and future generations.

To gain equal access to public schools in Topeka, Kansas, some African American parents started a court case against the local Board of Education. This case was known as Brown v. the Board of Education.

They were unhappy that their children had to encounter dangerous and hazardous conditions to get to school.

At the same time African American parents across the nation in the states of Delaware, South Carolina, Virginia, and the District of Columbia, were also challenging local school boards in their communities.

Directed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), its local chapters, and its lawyers, these cases were brought before the United States Supreme Court. In 1954 these parents won their cases when the court decided:

"...that in the field of public education the doctrine of separate but equal has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal...therefore plaintiffs and others...are deprived of the equal protection of the law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution."

You may also wish to visit Panel 11 of the online exhibit "In Pursuit of Freedom & Equality" to learn about those who organized and argued the Brown case.