Examine the rich cultural and political spectrum that is Brown's legacy and aftermath.
All five of Brown v. Board of Education's cases involved African American plaintiffs. But the historical legacy and aftermath of Brown drew from a richer cultural and political spectrum.
There was 1927's Gong Lum v. Rice in Mississippi, in which a Chinese American girl fought for the right to attend the white school rather than the black school. The Lum family made the case that the girl wasn't black. The court ruled she wasn't white, allowing school officials to categorize children as they saw fit.
In the 1940s — but still pre-dating Brown — there was Mendez v. Westminster School District, when a Mexican American family fought for and won the right to attend integrated schools in California.
The NAACP closely watched the California case, since its concerns mirrored those of the cases that would become Brown. Earl Warren, the man who would later write the Brown decision, was governor of California at the time.
The California case illustrated the layers of segregation and oppression present in mid-20th century America. The Mendez family had moved into the district in which their children faced discrimination because they were called on to oversee the farm of a Japanese American family who had been interned during World War II.
Similar stories are found at the time of the Brown decision. In one school district in rural Texas in the mid-1950s, Mexican American students were held in Spanish-language classrooms — even if they were able to speak English — in 1st and 2nd grades before being integrated with white students.
That doesn't sound too bad, by the standards of the era, but consider this: Most Mexican American students were kept in 1st grade for four years, followed by several years in 2nd grade. Most students reached 3rd grade at precisely the age they dropped out to go to work with their families in the fields.
In 1957, a court ruled the practice was "purposeful, intentional and unreasonably discriminatory" and ordered a new system for assigning students.
Brown, too, would be used to wage battles for inclusiveness on behalf of children with disabilities. At the time of Brown, nearly every state prohibited children with epilepsy from attending public school, even though medications were available to control seizures.
In praising Brown, Lillian Smith of Clayton, Ga., wrote this in a 1954 letter to the New York Times: "All these children, some with real disabilities, others with the artificial disability of color, are affected by this great decision."