ROLE-PLAYING EXERCISE

Lesson 4

DIRECTIONS

1. Write a brief summary of the Brown case, identifying the important issues in the case, outlining arguments from both sides and explaining the legal and constitutional implications (Fourteenth Amendment, Plessy v. Ferguson).

2. As best you can, explain how the Brown decision gives (or does not give) blacks leverage to uproot the following facets of legal and de facto segregation:

• separate but equal university systems;

• segregated drinking fountains, swimming pools, and state parks;

• segregated restaurants, hotels, retail stores, and private businesses;

• race-based restrictions on voting rights (literacy tests, poll taxes, grandfather clauses);

• segregated housing (public and private).