How did Brown v. Board of Education affect American literature?

The Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education affected American literature in a profound way. The direct connections made possible by the landmark case ordering the desegregation of public schools are there to read about, but consider something further. The decision in that case basically admitted that African Americans had a voice. Literature written by African Americans existed long before the Brown v. Board decision, but this was a legal recognition that black voices matter. The decision arrived during the rising tide of what was later called the Civil Rights Movement, which was, in one sense, an effort to force a place in society for African Americans by demanding the same rights and share of justice, the same voice, for African Americans as for the rest of society. It didn’t technically make possible The Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison or The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, but the Brown v. Board decision certainly made American society, by which we mean white American society, admit those voices into the public discourse.


Brown v. Board of Education (1954) was a Supreme Court case that struck down the idea of "separate but equal" black schools and began a movement towards the racial integration of schools and public facilities. The literature following this landmark case focused on integration, while literature in the period before this point had largely celebrated the Harlem Renaissance and African American artistic achievements. An example of this new type of work is A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, which opened on Broadway in 1959. This play tells the story of a black family in Chicago that wants to move out of a black neighborhood to buy a house in a white neighborhood. A main theme of the play is integration. In addition, the poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks, who became the first black person to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1950, focused during these years on the challenges of the Civil Rights movement. Black literature shifted during these years to capture the aims of this movement, and black literary works gained a broader and more integrated readership.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/gwendolyn-brooks


Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka reshaped American history. The unanimous vote ended segregation between African American students and white students, allowing all races and cultures to attend the same school and ensuring legal equality in educational opportunities for all Americans. The Brown v. Board of Education case helped further the Civil Rights Movement for equality in all aspects of the American life.
A major part of the American culture is literature, but before the Civil Rights Movement, published African American literature was minimal. Most published African American literature before the Civil War consisted of slave narratives written by those who escaped slavery and shared about their experiences of discrimination and racism—for example, the writing of Frederick Douglass.
Although Brown v. Board of Education occurred close to a century after the war, published African American literature did not really blossom until after the case. In the years after the case, many African American writers explored issues about freedom from their own point of view. Richard Wright and Gwendolyn Brooks (she was the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize) are examples of African American writers who wrote about racial segregation. Many important writings, such as Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail," were written by Civil Rights Movement leaders. In the 1970s, African American authors began to win more and more awards, and their work slowly became accepted as a legitimate genre in American literature.
Due to the desegregation resulting from the Brown v. Board of Education case, American literature has become more truly American. Though discrimination in publishing still exists, African American literature has become more and more accepted and is now a vital part of American literature. Many famous and inspiring writers, including Alex Haley and Alice Walker, have shaped American literature into what it is today.
https://www.naacpldf.org/case-issue/landmark-brown-v-board-education/

https://www.nps.gov/brvb/index.htm

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