Race, Racism, and Sociology: From Jim Crow to Brown v. Board

Introduction to the Sociology of Racism

The sociology of racism, according to Clair and Denis (2015), is the study of racial inequality, racial discrimination, and racism and their associated features. Racism is essentially the domination of one group over another based on the perception and preconception that the dominating group is culturally or biologically superior. This belief in superiority is used to justify the mistreatment of people from other races. Racialization has led to people being divided into various groups based on physical characteristics such as skin color, eye shape, hair texture, and language, among others. These groups are then designated as races. Racial discrimination involves the unequal treatment of these groups and manifests most prominently in areas such as education, income, and health.

Race is a construct of society. It has no biological basis, as there are no behavioral differences among humans that can be attributed to factors such as skin color. It does, however, play a significant role in how society is structured. From a sociological standpoint, the primary interest when studying racism is in society's construction of race. In North America, race-driven ideologies were used to justify the appropriation of land, colonial violence against indigenous groups, and the enslavement of people of African descent beginning in the 16th century. Race was also used to justify violence against Black Americans and other minority groups under the infamous Jim Crow laws. How states and nations discussed, understood, and viewed racism changed only in the mid-20th century, as a result of increased immigration of non-Europeans into Western countries, anti-colonial struggles, anti-racial movements gaining prominence, and the activities of the American Civil Rights Movement (Clair & Denis, 2015).

Brown v. Board of Education: Background and Legal Proceedings

The Brown v. Board of Education case comprised a set of appeals challenging the "separate but equal" doctrine as applied to public school segregation in Kansas, South Carolina, the District of Columbia, and Delaware. The five appeals were brought before the Supreme Court nearly simultaneously, and because they all concerned the same issue, the Court decided to hear them together. Since the first case to arrive originated in Kansas, the consolidated case was referred to as Brown v. Board of Education. The plaintiffs were represented by the legal office of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The NAACP lawyers — including Thurgood Marshall, Oliver Hill, and Spotswood Robinson — contended that the rights of Black students were being violated under the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. The key concerns across all the cases involved transportation, school facilities, and inequalities in curriculum (Library of Virginia, 2003).

Supported by the NAACP's local chapter, Oliver Brown and a dozen other parents filed suit against the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas in 1951. The board had denied their children access to the white schools in their neighborhood. The Black children were required to take public transportation to schools located many miles from home. The Board's attorney countered that attending racially separate schools prepared children for a world that was equally segregated, citing figures such as George Washington Carver, Booker T. Washington, and Frederick Douglass as examples of individuals who had succeeded despite the system. While the presiding justices agreed with the plaintiff that segregation was damaging to Black children, they ruled in the Board's favor, relying on the Plessy v. Ferguson legal precedent. Undeterred, Brown filed an appeal on October 1, 1951 (Library of Virginia, 2003).