This Day in History: Brown vs. Board of Education

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A man stands in front of the Djingareyber mosque on February 4, 2016 in Timbuktu, central Mali.
Mali's fabled city of Timbuktu on February 4 celebrated the recovery of its historic mausoleums, destroyed during an Islamist takeover of northern Mali in 2012 and rebuilt thanks to UN cultural agency UNESCO.
TO GO WITH AFP STORY BY SEBASTIEN RIEUSSEC / AFP / SÉBASTIEN RIEUSSEC

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May 17, 2012

The Doll Test — Gordon Parks, photographer. Dr. Kenneth Clark conducting the “Doll Test” with a young male child, 1947. Gelatin silver print. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (62)

On this day in 1951, the U.S. Supreme Court declares segregation in public schools unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education decision.

Some of you may recall the Kenneth and Mamie Clark doll test, whereby children were shown two dolls- one black and one white-and asked which doll is ugly, which would they play with, etc. Black children overwhelmingly chose the white doll as the better doll. In 2006, filmmaker Kiri Davis did the experiment again in her film A Girl Like Me and received the same results.

Bearing all this in mind, do you believe desegregation helped children with their feelings of Black inferiority? Why or why not?

Learn how Jim Crow laws kept people segregated and how people struggled for justice.

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