Brown V. Board of Education at Fifty

This collection of persuasive scholarly essays examines, for the first time, the role rhetorical theory played in the development of educational segregation. Contributors consider the NAACP’s development of a series of graduate school cases to challenge Plessy, analyze the Brown decision itself, assess the state response to Brown, and critique the two Supreme Court decisions implementing the Brown decision. By illustrating how rhetorical strategies created, sustained, challenged, and, ultimately, reversed educational segregation in the United States, this work demonstrates the real value of the rhetorical perspective and provides encouragement to those who wish to help further develop this emerging field of judicial rhetoric.

Clarke Rountree is Department Chair of Communication Arts at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.