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Brown v. Board of Education

By: History.com Editors

Updated: February 27, 2024 | Original: October 27, 2009

Mother and Daughter at U.S. Supreme CourtNettie Hunt and her daughter Nickie sit on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court. Nettie explains to her daughter the meaning of the high court's ruling in the Brown Vs. Board of Education case that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was a landmark 1954 Supreme Court case in which the justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. Brown v. Board of Education was one of the cornerstones of the civil rights movement, and helped establish the precedent that “separate-but-equal” education and other services were not, in fact, equal at all.

Separate But Equal Doctrine

In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that racially segregated public facilities were legal, so long as the facilities for Black people and whites were equal.

The ruling constitutionally sanctioned laws barring African Americans from sharing the same buses, schools and other public facilities as whites—known as “Jim Crow” laws —and established the “separate but equal” doctrine that would stand for the next six decades.

But by the early 1950s, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP ) was working hard to challenge segregation laws in public schools, and had filed lawsuits on behalf of plaintiffs in states such as South Carolina, Virginia and Delaware.

In the case that would become most famous, a plaintiff named Oliver Brown filed a class-action suit against the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, in 1951, after his daughter, Linda Brown , was denied entrance to Topeka’s all-white elementary schools.

In his lawsuit, Brown claimed that schools for Black children were not equal to the white schools, and that segregation violated the so-called “equal protection clause” of the 14th Amendment , which holds that no state can “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

The case went before the U.S. District Court in Kansas, which agreed that public school segregation had a “detrimental effect upon the colored children” and contributed to “a sense of inferiority,” but still upheld the “separate but equal” doctrine.

Brown v. Board of Education Verdict

When Brown’s case and four other cases related to school segregation first came before the Supreme Court in 1952, the Court combined them into a single case under the name Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka .

Thurgood Marshall , the head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, served as chief attorney for the plaintiffs. (Thirteen years later, President Lyndon B. Johnson would appoint Marshall as the first Black Supreme Court justice.)

At first, the justices were divided on how to rule on school segregation, with Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson holding the opinion that the Plessy verdict should stand. But in September 1953, before Brown v. Board of Education was to be heard, Vinson died, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower replaced him with Earl Warren , then governor of California .

Displaying considerable political skill and determination, the new chief justice succeeded in engineering a unanimous verdict against school segregation the following year.

In the decision, issued on May 17, 1954, Warren wrote that “in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place,” as segregated schools are “inherently unequal.” As a result, the Court ruled that the plaintiffs were being “deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.”

Little Rock Nine

In its verdict, the Supreme Court did not specify how exactly schools should be integrated, but asked for further arguments about it.

In May 1955, the Court issued a second opinion in the case (known as Brown v. Board of Education II ), which remanded future desegregation cases to lower federal courts and directed district courts and school boards to proceed with desegregation “with all deliberate speed.”

Though well intentioned, the Court’s actions effectively opened the door to local judicial and political evasion of desegregation. While Kansas and some other states acted in accordance with the verdict, many school and local officials in the South defied it.

In one major example, Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas called out the state National Guard to prevent Black students from attending high school in Little Rock in 1957. After a tense standoff, President Eisenhower deployed federal troops, and nine students—known as the “ Little Rock Nine ”— were able to enter Central High School under armed guard.

Impact of Brown v. Board of Education

Though the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board didn’t achieve school desegregation on its own, the ruling (and the steadfast resistance to it across the South) fueled the nascent civil rights movement in the United States.

In 1955, a year after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. Her arrest sparked the Montgomery bus boycott and would lead to other boycotts, sit-ins and demonstrations (many of them led by Martin Luther King Jr .), in a movement that would eventually lead to the toppling of Jim Crow laws across the South.

Passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 , backed by enforcement by the Justice Department, began the process of desegregation in earnest. This landmark piece of civil rights legislation was followed by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 .

Runyon v. McCrary Extends Policy to Private Schools

In 1976, the Supreme Court issued another landmark decision in Runyon v. McCrary , ruling that even private, nonsectarian schools that denied admission to students on the basis of race violated federal civil rights laws.

By overturning the “separate but equal” doctrine, the Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education had set the legal precedent that would be used to overturn laws enforcing segregation in other public facilities. But despite its undoubted impact, the historic verdict fell short of achieving its primary mission of integrating the nation’s public schools.

Today, more than 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education , the debate continues over how to combat racial inequalities in the nation’s school system, largely based on residential patterns and differences in resources between schools in wealthier and economically disadvantaged districts across the country.

HISTORY Vault: Black History

Watch acclaimed Black History documentaries on HISTORY Vault.

History – Brown v. Board of Education Re-enactment, United States Courts . Brown v. Board of Education, The Civil Rights Movement: Volume I (Salem Press). Cass Sunstein, “Did Brown Matter?” The New Yorker , May 3, 2004. Brown v. Board of Education, PBS.org . Richard Rothstein, Brown v. Board at 60, Economic Policy Institute , April 17, 2014.

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Help inform the discussion

Brown v. Board of Education

May 17, 1954: The 'separate is inherently unequal' ruling forces Eisenhower to address civil rights

Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. . . . We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.

In 1954, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote this opinion in the unanimous Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. Citing a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, the groundbreaking decision was widely regarded as one of America's most consequential legal judgments of the 20th century, setting the stage for a strong and lasting US Civil Rights Movement. Thurgood Marshall, lead counsel on the case, would go on to become a Supreme Court Justice himself.

The Brown decision reverberated for decades. Determined resistance by whites in the South thwarted the goal of school integration for years. Even though the court ruled that states should move with “all deliberate speed,” that standard was simply too vague for real action. Neither segregationists, who opposed to integration on racist grounds, nor the constitutional scholars who believed the court had overreached were going away without a fight.

President Eisenhower didn't fully support of the Brown decision. The president didn't like dealing with racial issues and failed to speak out in favor of the court's ruling. Although the president usually avoided comment on court decisions, his silence in this case may have encouraged resistance. In many parts of the South, white citizens' councils organized to prevent compliance. Some of these groups relied on political action; others used intimidation and violence.

Despite his reticence, Eisenhower did acknowledge his constitutional responsibility to uphold the Supreme Court’s rulings. In 1957, when mobs prevented the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, Governor Orval Faubus saw political advantages in using the National Guard to block the entry of African American students to Central High. After meeting with Eisenhower, Faubus promised to allow the students to enroll—but then withdrew the National Guard, allowing a violent mob to surround the school. In response, Eisenhower dispatched federal troops, the first time since Reconstruction that a president had sent military forces into the South to enforce federal law.

In explaining his action, however, Eisenhower did not declare that desegregating public schools was the right thing to do. Instead, in a nationally televised address , he asserted that the violence in Little Rock was harming US prestige and influence around the world and giving Communist propagandists an opportunity “to misrepresent our whole nation.” Troops stayed in Little Rock for the entire school year, and in the spring of 1958, Central High had its first African American graduate.

But in September 1958, Faubus closed public schools to prevent their integration. Eisenhower expressed his “regret” over the challenge to the right of all Americans to a public education but took no further action, despite what he had done the year before. There was no violence this time, and Eisenhower believed that he had a constitutional obligation to preserve public order, not to speed school desegregation. When Eisenhower left the White House in January 1961, only 6 percent of African American students attended integrated schools.

Eisenhower and integration

Eisenhower urged advocates of desegregation to go slowly. believing that integration required a change in people's hearts and minds. And he was sympathetic to white southerners who complained about alterations to the social order—their “way of life.” He considered as extremists both those who tried to obstruct decisions of federal courts and those who demanded that they immediately enjoy the rights that the Constitution and the courts provided them.

On only one occasion during his presidency—in June 1958—did Eisenhower meet with African American leaders. The president became irritated when he heard appeals for more aggressive federal action to advance civil rights and failed to heed Martin Luther King Jr.’s advice that he use the bully pulpit of the presidency to build popular support for racial integration. While Eisenhower’s actions mattered, so too did his failure to use his moral authority as president to advance the cause of civil rights.

Eisenhower's record, however, included some significant achievements in civil rights. In 1957, he signed the first civil rights legislation since Reconstruction, providing new federal protections for voting rights. In most southern states, the great majority of African Americans simply could not vote because of literacy tests, poll taxes, and other obstacles. Yet the legislation Eisenhower eventually signed was weaker than the bill that he had sent to Capitol Hill. Southern Democrats secured an amendment that required a jury trial to determine whether a citizen had been denied his or her right to vote—and African Americans could not serve on juries in the south. In 1960, Eisenhower signed a second civil rights law, but it offered only small improvements. The president also used his constitutional powers, where he believed that they were clear and specific, to advance desegregation, for example, in federal facilities in the nation's capital and to complete the desegregation of the armed forces begun during Truman’s presidency. In addition, Eisenhower appointed judges to federal courts whose rulings helped to advance civil rights. This issue, which divided the country in the 1950s, became even more difficult in the 1960s.

The attorney: Thurgood Marshall

NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall argued Brown v. Board of Education before the Supreme Court, and during a quarter-century with the organization, he won a total of 29 cases before the nation's highest court. In 1961, Marshall was appointed to the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit by President Kennedy, and in 1965, he became the highest-ranking African American government official in history when President Johnson appointed him solicitor general. Now arguing on behalf of the federal government before the court—Marshall won the majority of those cases as well. In 1967, Johnson nominated Marshall to sit on the court, discussing him with Attorney General Ramsey Clark in a conversation captured on the Miller Center's collection of secret White House tapes:

Featured Video

Eisenhower on integration.

President Eisenhower addresses school integration after the Little Rock Nine.

Brown v. Board of Education: Annotated

The 1954 Supreme Court decision, based on the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, declared that “separate but equal” has no place in education.

Linda Brown Smith, Ethel Louise Belton Brown, Harry Briggs, Jr., and Spottswood Bolling, Jr. during press conference at Hotel Americana, 1964

The US Supreme Court’s decision in the case known colloquially as Brown v. Board of Education found that the “[t]he ‘separate but equal ’ doctrine adopted in Plessy v. Ferguson , 163 US 537, has no place in the field of public education.” The Plessy case, decided in 1896, had found that the segregation laws which created “separate but equal” accommodations for Black Americans, specific to transportation but applicable generally, were not a violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. Segregation in education had been challenged throughout the first half of the twentieth century, and rulings in a number coalesced to propel Brown to the level of the Supreme Court to address segregation in all public schools.

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Below is an annotation of the opinion, with relevant scholarship covering the legal, social and education history leading up to and after the decision. As always, the supporting research is free to read and download.

The red J indicates free access to the linked research on JSTOR . ____________________________________________________________________________

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Brown v. Board of Education, 347 US 483 (1954) (USSC+)

Argued December 9, 1952

Reargued December 8, 1953

Decided May 17, 1954

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF KANSAS*

Segregation of white and Negro children in the public schools of a State solely on the basis of race, pursuant to state laws permitting or requiring such segregation, denies to Negro children the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment —even though the physical facilities and other “tangible” factors of white and Negro schools may be equal.

(a) The history of the Fourteenth Amendment is inconclusive as to its intended effect on public education.

(b) The question presented in these cases must be determined not on the basis of conditions existing when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, but in the light of the full development of public education and its present place in American life throughout the Nation.

(c) Where a State has undertaken to provide an opportunity for an education in its public schools, such an opportunity is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.

(d) Segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race deprives children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities , even though the physical facilities and other “tangible” factors may be equal.

(e) The “separate but equal” doctrine adopted in Plessy v. Ferguson , 163 US 537, has no place in the field of public education.

(f) The cases are restored to the docket for further argument on specified questions relating to the forms of the decrees.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WARREN delivered the opinion of the Court.

These cases come to us from the States of Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware. They are premised on different facts and different local conditions, but a common legal question justifies their consideration together in this consolidated opinion.

In each of the cases, minors of the Negro race, through their legal representatives, seek the aid of the courts in obtaining admission to the public schools of their community on a nonsegregated basis. In each instance, they had been denied admission to schools attended by white children under laws requiring or permitting segregation according to race. This segregation was alleged to deprive the plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment. In each of the cases other than the Delaware case, a three-judge federal district court denied relief to the plaintiffs on the so-called “separate but equal” doctrine announced by this Court in Plessy v. Ferguson , 163 US 537 . Under that doctrine, equality of treatment is accorded when the races are provided substantially equal facilities, even though these facilities be separate. In the Delaware case , the Supreme Court of Delaware adhered to that doctrine, but ordered that the plaintiffs be admitted to the white schools because of their superiority to the Negro schools.

The plaintiffs contend that segregated public schools are not “equal” and cannot be made “equal,” and that hence they are deprived of the equal protection of the laws. Because of the obvious importance of the question presented, the Court took jurisdiction. Argument was heard in the 1952 Term, and reargument was heard this Term on certain questions propounded by the Court.

Reargument was largely devoted to the circumstances surrounding the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. It covered exhaustively consideration of the Amendment in Congress, ratification by the states, then-existing practices in racial segregation, and the views of proponents and opponents of the Amendment. This discussion and our own investigation convince us that, although these sources cast some light, it is not enough to resolve the problem with which we are faced. At best, they are inconclusive. The most avid proponents of the post-War Amendments undoubtedly intended them to remove all legal distinctions among “all persons born or naturalized in the United States.” Their opponents, just as certainly, were antagonistic to both the letter and the spirit of the Amendments and wished them to have the most limited effect. What others in Congress and the state legislatures had in mind cannot be determined with any degree of certainty.

An additional reason for the inconclusive nature of the Amendment’s history with respect to segregated schools is the status of public education at that time. In the South, the movement toward free common schools, supported by general taxation, had not yet taken hold . Education of white children was largely in the hands of private groups. Education of Negroes was almost nonexistent, and practically all of the race were illiterate. In fact, any education of Negroes was forbidden by law in some states. Today, in contrast, many Negroes have achieved outstanding success in the arts and sciences, as well as in the business and professional world. It is true that public school education at the time of the Amendment had advanced further in the North, but the effect of the Amendment on Northern States was generally ignored in the congressional debates. Even in the North, the conditions of public education did not approximate those existing today. The curriculum was usually rudimentary; ungraded schools were common in rural areas; the school term was but three months a year in many states, and compulsory school attendance was virtually unknown. As a consequence, it is not surprising that there should be so little in the history of the Fourteenth Amendment relating to its intended effect on public education.

In the first cases in this Court construing the Fourteenth Amendment, decided shortly after its adoption, the Court interpreted it as proscribing all state-imposed discriminations against the Negro race. The doctrine of “separate but equal” did not make its appearance in this Court until 1896 in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson , supra, involving not education but transportation. American courts have since labored with the doctrine for over half a century. In this Court, there have been six cases involving the “separate but equal” doctrine in the field of public education. In Cumming v. County Board of Education , 175 US 528 , and Gong Lum v. Rice , 275 US 78 , the validity of the doctrine itself was not challenged. In more recent cases, all on the graduate school level, inequality was found in that specific benefits enjoyed by white students were denied to Negro students of the same educational qualifications. Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada , 305 US 337 ; Sipuel v. Oklahoma , 332 US 631; Sweatt v. Painter , 339 US 629; McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents , 339 US 637 . In none of these cases was it necessary to reexamine the doctrine to grant relief to the Negro plaintiff. And in Sweatt v. Painter , supra, the Court expressly reserved decision on the question whether Plessy v. Ferguson should be held inapplicable to public education.

In the instant cases, that question is directly presented. Here, unlike Sweatt v. Painter , there are findings below that the Negro and white schools involved have been equalized, or are being equalized, with respect to buildings, curricula, qualifications and salaries of teachers, and other “tangible” factors. Our decision, therefore, cannot turn on merely a comparison of these tangible factors in the Negro and white schools involved in each of the cases. We must look instead to the effect of segregation itself on public education.

In approaching this problem, we cannot turn the clock back to 1868, when the Amendment was adopted, or even to 1896, when Plessy v. Ferguson was written. We must consider public education in the light of its full development and its present place in American life throughout the Nation. Only in this way can it be determined if segregation in public schools deprives these plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws.

Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship . Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.

We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race , even though the physical facilities and other “tangible” factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does.

Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law , for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system .

Whatever may have been the extent of psychological knowledge at the time of Plessy v. Ferguson , this finding is amply supported by modern authority. Any language in Plessy v. Ferguson contrary to this finding is rejected.

We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal . Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. This disposition makes unnecessary any discussion whether such segregation also violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Because these are class actions, because of the wide applicability of this decision, and because of the great variety of local conditions, the formulation of decrees in these cases presents problems of considerable complexity . On reargument, the consideration of appropriate relief was necessarily subordinated to the primary question—the constitutionality of segregation in public education. We have now announced that such segregation is a denial of the equal protection of the laws. In order that we may have the full assistance of the parties in formulating decrees, the cases will be restored to the docket, and the parties are requested to present further argument on Questions 4 and 5 previously propounded by the Court for the reargument this Term The Attorney General of the United States is again invited to participate. The Attorneys General of the states requiring or permitting segregation in public education will also be permitted to appear as amici curiae upon request to do so by September 15, 1954, and submission of briefs by October 1, 1954.

It is so ordered.

* Together with No. 2, Briggs et al. v. Elliott et al. , on appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina, argued December 9–10, 1952, reargued December 7–8, 1953; No. 4, Davis et al. v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia, et al. , on appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, argued December 10, 1952, reargued December 7–8, 1953, and No. 10, Gebhart et al. v. Belton et al. , on certiorari to the Supreme Court of Delaware, argued December 11, 1952, reargued December 9, 1953.

[Transcript available from the National Archives: https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/brown-v-board-of-education ]

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About Brown v. Board

The 1954 United States Supreme Court decision in Oliver L. Brown et al v. the Board of Education of Topeka (KS) et al. is among the most significant judicial turning points in the development of our country. Originally led by Charles H. Houston, and later Thurgood Marshall and a formidable legal team, it dismantled the legal basis for racial segregation in schools and other public facilities.

By delcaring that the discriminatory nature of racial segregation ... "violates the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees all citizens equal protection of the laws," Brown v. Board of Education laid the foundation for shaping future national and international policies regarding human rights.

Brown v. Board of Education was not simply about children and education. The laws and policies struck down by this court decision were products of the human tendencies to prejudge, discriminate against, and stereotype other people by their ethnic, religious, physical, or cultural characteristics. Ending this behavior as a legal practice caused far reaching social and ideological implications which continue to be felt throughout our country. The Brown decision inspired and galvanized human rights struggles across the county and around the world.

What this legal challenge represents is at the core of United States history and the freedoms we enjoy. The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown began a critical chapter in the maturation of our democracy. It reaffirmed the sovereign power of the people of the United States in the protection of their natural rights from arbitrary limits and restrictions imposed by state and local governments. These rights are recognized in the Declaration of Independence and guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Read more about Brown v. Board.

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Brown v. Board of Education, 344 U.S. 1 (1952)

U.S. Supreme Court

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

Decided October 8, 1952*

In two cases set for argument in October, laws of Kansas and South Carolina providing for racial segregation in public schools were challenged as violative of the Fourteenth Amendment. In another case raising the same question with respect to laws of Virginia, appellants had filed a statement of jurisdiction and a motion requesting that all three cases be argued together. There was pending in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit a case in which segregation in public schools of the District of Columbia was challenged as violative of the Fifth Amendment.

1. The Kansas and South Carolina cases are continued on the docket; probable jurisdiction is noted in the Virginia case; and arguments in all three will be heard in December. Pp. 344 U. S. 2 -3.

2. Judicial notice is taken of the pendency of the District of Columbia case. The Court will entertain a petition for certiorari in that case, which, if presented and granted, will afford opportunity for argument of that case immediately following arguments in the other three cases. P. 344 U. S. 3 .

Page 344 U. S. 2

The following are citations to the reports of the decisions below: No. 8, the Kansas case, 98 F. Supp. 797 ; No. 101, the South Carolina case, 103 F. Supp. 920 ; No.191, the Virginia case, 103 F. Supp. 337 .

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Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.

Case Summary

This case was the consolidation of cases arising in Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, and Washington D.C. relating to the segregation of public schools on the basis of race. In each of the cases, African American students had been denied admittance to certain public schools based on laws allowing public education to be segregated by race. They argued that such segregation violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The plaintiffs were denied relief in the lower courts based on Plessy v. Ferguson , which held that racially segregated public facilities were legal so long as the facilities for blacks and whites were equal. (This was known as the “separate but equal” doctrine.)

Separate but equal educational facilities for racial minorities is inherently unequal, violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered the opinion of the unanimous Court. The Supreme Court held that “separate but equal” facilities are inherently unequal and violate the protections of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court reasoned that the segregation of public education based on race instilled a sense of inferiority that had a hugely detrimental effect on the education and personal growth of African American children. Warren based much of his opinion on information from social science studies rather than court precedent. The decision also used language that was relatively accessible to non-lawyers because Warren felt it was necessary for all Americans to understand its logic.

All content on oyez.org and other sites and projects maintained by Oyez is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License .

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1). (n.d.). Oyez . Retrieved February 4, 2023, from https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/347us483

John Jay College Social Justice Landmark Cases eReader Copyright © by John Jay College of Criminal Justice is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Legal Dictionary

The Law Dictionary for Everyone

Brown v. Board of Education

Following is the case brief for Brown v. Board of Education, United States Supreme Court, (1954)

Case Summary of Brown v. Board of Education:

Oliver Brown was denied admission into a white school
As a representative of a class action suit, Brown filed a claim alleging that laws permitting segregation in public schools were a violation of the 14 th Amendment equal protection clause .
After the District Court upheld segregation using Plessy v. Ferguson as authority, Brown petitioned the United States Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court held that segregation had a profound and detrimental effect on education and segregation deprived minority children of equal protection under the law.

Brown v. Board of Education Case Brief

Statement of Facts:

Oliver Brown and other plaintiffs were denied admission into a public school attended by white children. This was permitted under laws which allowed segregation based on race. Brown claimed that the segregation deprived minority children of equal protection under the 14 th Amendment. Brown filed a class action, consolidating cases from Virginia, South Carolina, Delaware and Kansas against the Board of Education in a federal district court in Kansas.

Procedural History:

Brown filed suit against the Board of Education in District Court. After the District Court held in favor of the Board, Brown appealed to the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.

Issues and Holding:

Does the segregation on the basis of race in public schools deprive minority children of equal educational opportunities, violating the 14 th Amendment? Yes.

The Court Reversed the District Court’s decision.

Rule of Law or Legal Principle Applied:

Separating educational facilities based on racial classifications is unequal in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14 th Amendment.

The Court held that looking to historical legislation and prior cases could not yield a true meaning of the 14 th Amendment because each is inconclusive.

At the time the 14 th Amendment was enacted, almost no African American children were receiving an education. As such, trying to determine the historical intentions surrounding the 14 th Amendment is not helpful. In addition, few public schools existed at the time the amendment was adopted.

Analyzing the text of the amendment itself is necessary to determine its true meaning. The Court held the basic language of the Amendment suggests the intent to prohibit all discriminatory legislation against minorities.

Despite the fact each facility is essentially the same, the Court held it was necessary to examine the actual effect of segregation on education. Over the past few years, public education has turned into one of the most valuable public services both state and local governments have to offer. Since education has a heavy bearing on the future success of each child, the opportunity to be educated must be equal to each student.

The Court stated that the opportunity for education available to segregated minorities has a profound and detrimental effect on both their hearts and minds. Studies showed that segregated students felt less motivated, inferior and have a lower standard of performance than non-minority students. The Court explicitly overturned Plessy v. Ferguson , 163 U.S. 537 (1896), stating that segregation deprives African-American students of equal protection under the 14 th Amendment.

Concurring/ Dissenting opinion :

Unanimous decision led by Justice Warren.

Significance:

Brown v. Board of Education was the landmark case which desegregated public schools in the United States. It abolished the idea of “ separate but equal .”

Student Resources:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/rights/landmark_brown.html https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/347/483

Hugo Black Digital Library

Brown v. Board of Education

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 347 U.S. 483 Brown v. Board of Education Argued: December 9, 1952 Reargued: December 8, 1953 Decided: May 17, 1954

(a) The history of the Fourteenth Amendment is inconclusive as to its intended effect on public education. Pp. 489-490.

(c) Where a State has undertaken to provide an opportunity for an education in its public schools, such an opportunity is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms. P. 493.

(d) Segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race deprives children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities, even though the physical facilities and other “tangible” factors may be equal. Pp. 493-494.

(e) The “separate but equal” doctrine adopted in Plessy v. Ferguson , 163 U.S. 537, has no place in the field of public education. P. 495.

(f) The cases are restored to the docket for further argument on specified questions relating to the forms of the decrees. Pp. 495-496.

Opinion of the Court MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WARREN delivered the opinion of the Court.

In each of the cases, minors of the Negro race, through their legal representatives, seek the aid of the courts in obtaining admission to the public schools of their community on a nonsegregated basis. In each instance, [p488] they had been denied admission to schools attended by white children under laws requiring or permitting segregation according to race. This segregation was alleged to deprive the plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment. In each of the cases other than the Delaware case, a three-judge federal district court denied relief to the plaintiffs on the so-called “separate but equal” doctrine announced by this Court in Plessy v. Fergson , 163 U.S. 537. Under that doctrine, equality of treatment is accorded when the races are provided substantially equal facilities, even though these facilities be separate. In the Delaware case, the Supreme Court of Delaware adhered to that doctrine, but ordered that the plaintiffs be admitted to the white schools because of their superiority to the Negro schools.

The plaintiffs contend that segregated public schools are not “equal” and cannot be made “equal,” and that hence they are deprived of the equal protection of the laws. Because of the obvious importance of the question presented, the Court took jurisdiction. [2] Argument was heard in the 1952 Term, and reargument was heard this Term on certain questions propounded by the Court. [3] [p489]

An additional reason for the inconclusive nature of the Amendment’s history with respect to segregated schools is the status of public education at that time. [4] In the South, the movement toward free common schools, supported [p490] by general taxation, had not yet taken hold. Education of white children was largely in the hands of private groups. Education of Negroes was almost nonexistent, and practically all of the race were illiterate. In fact, any education of Negroes was forbidden by law in some states. Today, in contrast, many Negroes have achieved outstanding success in the arts and sciences, as well as in the business and professional world. It is true that public school education at the time of the Amendment had advanced further in the North, but the effect of the Amendment on Northern States was generally ignored in the congressional debates. Even in the North, the conditions of public education did not approximate those existing today. The curriculum was usually rudimentary; ungraded schools were common in rural areas; the school term was but three months a year in many states, and compulsory school attendance was virtually unknown. As a consequence, it is not surprising that there should be so little in the history of the Fourteenth Amendment relating to its intended effect on public education.

In the first cases in this Court construing the Fourteenth Amendment, decided shortly after its adoption, the Court interpreted it as proscribing all state-imposed discriminations against the Negro race. [5] The doctrine of [p491] “separate but equal” did not make its appearance in this Court until 1896 in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, supra , involving not education but transportation. [6] American courts have since labored with the doctrine for over half a century. In this Court, there have been six cases involving the “separate but equal” doctrine in the field of public education. [7] In Cumming v. County Board of Education , 175 U.S. 528, and Gong Lum v. Rice , 275 U.S. 78, the validity of the doctrine itself was not challenged. [8] In more recent cases, all on the graduate school [p492] level, inequality was found in that specific benefits enjoyed by white students were denied to Negro students of the same educational qualifications. Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada , 305 U.S. 337; Sipuel v. Oklahoma , 332 U.S. 631; Sweatt v. Painter , 339 U.S. 629; McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents , 339 U.S. 637. In none of these cases was it necessary to reexamine the doctrine to grant relief to the Negro plaintiff. And in Sweatt v. Painter, supra , the Court expressly reserved decision on the question whether Plessy v. Ferguson should be held inapplicable to public education.

In the instant cases, that question is directly presented. Here, unlike Sweatt v. Painter , there are findings below that the Negro and white schools involved have been equalized, or are being equalized, with respect to buildings, curricula, qualifications and salaries of teachers, and other “tangible” factors. [9] Our decision, therefore, cannot turn on merely a comparison of these tangible factors in the Negro and white schools involved in each of the cases. We must look instead to the effect of segregation itself on public education.

In approaching this problem, we cannot turn the clock back to 1868, when the Amendment was adopted, or even to 1896, when Plessy v. Ferguson was written. We must consider public education in the light of its full development and its present place in American life throughout [p493] the Nation. Only in this way can it be determined if segregation in public schools deprives these plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws.

Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.

We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other “tangible” factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does.

In Sweatt v. Painter, supra , in finding that a segregated law school for Negroes could not provide them equal educational opportunities, this Court relied in large part on “those qualities which are incapable of objective measurement but which make for greatness in a law school.” In McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, supra , the Court, in requiring that a Negro admitted to a white graduate school be treated like all other students, again resorted to intangible considerations: “. . . his ability to study, to engage in discussions and exchange views with other students, and, in general, to learn his profession.” [p494] Such considerations apply with added force to children in grade and high schools. To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. The effect of this separation on their educational opportunities was well stated by a finding in the Kansas case by a court which nevertheless felt compelled to rule against the Negro plaintiffs: Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system. [10] Whatever may have been the extent of psychological knowledge at the time of Plessy v. Ferguson , this finding is amply supported by modern authority. [11] Any language [p495] in Plessy v. Ferguson contrary to this finding is rejected.

We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. This disposition makes unnecessary any discussion whether such segregation also violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. [12]

Because these are class actions, because of the wide applicability of this decision, and because of the great variety of local conditions, the formulation of decrees in these cases presents problems of considerable complexity. On reargument, the consideration of appropriate relief was necessarily subordinated to the primary question — the constitutionality of segregation in public education. We have now announced that such segregation is a denial of the equal protection of the laws. In order that we may have the full assistance of the parties in formulating decrees, the cases will be restored to the docket, and the parties are requested to present further argument on Questions 4 and 5 previously propounded by the Court for the reargument this Term [13] The Attorney General [p496] of the United States is again invited to participate. The Attorneys General of the states requiring or permitting segregation in public education will also be permitted to appear as amici curiae upon request to do so by September 15, 1954, and submission of briefs by October 1, 1954. [14]

It is so ordered.

Together with No. 2, Briggs et al. v. Elliott et al., on appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina, argued December 9-10, 1952, reargued December 7-8, 1953; No. 4, Davis et al. v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia, et al., on appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, argued December 10, 1952, reargued December 7-8, 1953, and No. 10, Gebhart et al. v. Belton et al., on certiorari to the Supreme Court of Delaware, argued December 11, 1952, reargued December 9, 1953.

^1 . In the Kansas case, Brown v. Board of Education, the plaintiffs are Negro children of elementary school age residing in Topeka. They brought this action in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas to enjoin enforcement of a Kansas statute which permits, but does not require, cities of more than 15,000 population to maintain separate school facilities for Negro and white students. Kan.Gen.Stat. § 72-1724 (1949). Pursuant to that authority, the Topeka Board of Education elected to establish segregated elementary schools. Other public schools in the community, however, are operated on a nonsegregated basis. The three-judge District Court, convened under 28 U.S.C. §§ 2281 and 2284, found that segregation in public education has a detrimental effect upon Negro children, but denied relief on the ground that the Negro and white schools were substantially equal with respect to buildings, transportation, curricula, and educational qualifications of teachers. 98 F.Supp. 797. The case is here on direct appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1253.

In the South Carolina case, Briggs v. Elliott, the plaintiffs are Negro children of both elementary and high school age residing in Clarendon County. They brought this action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina to enjoin enforcement of provisions in the state constitution and statutory code which require the segregation of Negroes and whites in public schools. S.C.Const., Art. XI, § 7; S.C.Code § 5377 (1942). The three-judge District Court, convened under 28 U.S.C. §§ 2281 and 2284, denied the requested relief. The court found that the Negro schools were inferior to the white schools, and ordered the defendants to begin immediately to equalize the facilities. But the court sustained the validity of the contested provisions and denied the plaintiffs admission to the white schools during the equalization program. 98 F.Supp. 529. This Court vacated the District Court’s judgment and remanded the case for the purpose of obtaining the court’s views on a report filed by the defendants concerning the progress made in the equalization program. 342 U.S. 350. On remand, the District Court found that substantial equality had been achieved except for buildings and that the defendants were proceeding to rectify this inequality as well. 103 F.Supp. 920. The case is again here on direct appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1253.

In the Virginia case, Davis v. County School Board, the plaintiffs are Negro children of high school age residing in Prince Edward County. They brought this action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to enjoin enforcement of provisions in the state constitution and statutory code which require the segregation of Negroes and whites in public schools. Va.Const., § 140; Va.Code § 22-221 (1950). The three-judge District Court, convened under 28 U.S.C. §§ 2281 and 2284, denied the requested relief. The court found the Negro school inferior in physical plant, curricula, and transportation, and ordered the defendants forthwith to provide substantially equal curricula and transportation and to “proceed with all reasonable diligence and dispatch to remove” the inequality in physical plant. But, as in the South Carolina case, the court sustained the validity of the contested provisions and denied the plaintiffs admission to the white schools during the equalization program. 103 F.Supp. 337. The case is here on direct appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1253.

In the Delaware case, Gebhart v. Belton, the plaintiffs are Negro children of both elementary and high school age residing in New Castle County. They brought this action in the Delaware Court of Chancery to enjoin enforcement of provisions in the state constitution and statutory code which require the segregation of Negroes and whites in public schools. Del.Const., Art. X, § 2; Del.Rev.Code § 2631 (1935). The Chancellor gave judgment for the plaintiffs and ordered their immediate admission to schools previously attended only by white children, on the ground that the Negro schools were inferior with respect to teacher training, pupil-teacher ratio, extracurricular activities, physical plant, and time and distance involved in travel. 87 A.2d 862. The Chancellor also found that segregation itself results in an inferior education for Negro children (see note 10, infra), but did not rest his decision on that ground. Id. at 865. The Chancellor’s decree was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Delaware, which intimated, however, that the defendants might be able to obtain a modification of the decree after equalization of the Negro and white schools had been accomplished. 91 A.2d 137, 152. The defendants, contending only that the Delaware courts had erred in ordering the immediate admission of the Negro plaintiffs to the white schools, applied to this Court for certiorari. The writ was granted, 344 U.S. 891. The plaintiffs, who were successful below, did not submit a cross-petition.

^2 . 344 U.S. 1, 141, 891.

^3 . 345 U.S. 972. The Attorney General of the United States participated both Terms as amicus curiae.

^4 . For a general study of the development of public education prior to the Amendment, see Butts and Cremin, A History of Education in American Culture (1953), Pts. I, II; Cubberley, Public Education in the United States (1934 ed.), cc. II-XII. School practices current at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment are described in Butts and Cremin, supra, at 269-275; Cubberley, supra, at 288-339, 408-431; Knight, Public Education in the South (1922), cc. VIII, IX. See also H. Ex.Doc. No. 315, 41st Cong., 2d Sess. (1871). Although the demand for free public schools followed substantially the same pattern in both the North and the South, the development in the South did not begin to gain momentum until about 1850, some twenty years after that in the North. The reasons for the somewhat slower development in the South (e.g., the rural character of the South and the different regional attitudes toward state assistance) are well explained in Cubberley, supra, at 408-423. In the country as a whole, but particularly in the South, the War virtually stopped all progress in public education. Id. at 427-428. The low status of Negro education in all sections of the country, both before and immediately after the War, is described in Beale, A History of Freedom of Teaching in American Schools (1941), 112-132, 175-195. Compulsory school attendance laws were not generally adopted until after the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, and it was not until 1918 that such laws were in force in all the states. Cubberley, supra, at 563-565.

^5 . Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 67-72 (1873); Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303, 307-308 (1880): It ordains that no State shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, or deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. What is this but declaring that the law in the States shall be the same for the black as for the white; that all persons, whether colored or white, shall stand equal before the laws of the States, and, in regard to the colored race, for whose protection the amendment was primarily designed, that no discrimination shall be made against them by law because of their color? The words of the amendment, it is true, are prohibitory, but they contain a necessary implication of a positive immunity, or right, most valuable to the colored race — the right to exemption from unfriendly legislation against them distinctively as colored — exemption from legal discriminations, implying inferiority in civil society, lessening the security of their enjoyment of the rights which others enjoy, and discriminations which are steps towards reducing them to the condition of a subject race.See also Virginia v. Rives, 100 U.S. 313, 318 (1880); Ex parte Virginia, 100 U.S. 339, 344-345 (1880).

^6 . The doctrine apparently originated in Roberts v. City of Boston, 59 Mass.198, 206 (1850), upholding school segregation against attack as being violative of a state constitutional guarantee of equality. Segregation in Boston public schools was eliminated in 1855. Mass.Acts 1855, c. 256. But elsewhere in the North, segregation in public education has persisted in some communities until recent years. It is apparent that such segregation has long been a nationwide problem, not merely one of sectional concern.

^7 . See also Berea College v. Kentucky, 211 U.S. 45 (1908).

^8 . In the Cummin case, Negro taxpayers sought an injunction requiring the defendant school board to discontinue the operation of a high school for white children until the board resumed operation of a high school for Negro children. Similarly, in the Gong Lum case, the plaintiff, a child of Chinese descent, contended only that state authorities had misapplied the doctrine by classifying him with Negro children and requiring him to attend a Negro school.

^9 . In the Kansas case, the court below found substantial equality as to all such factors. 98 F.Supp. 797, 798. In the South Carolina case, the court below found that the defendants were proceeding “promptly and in good faith to comply with the court’s decree.” 103 F.Supp. 920, 921. In the Virginia case, the court below noted that the equalization program was already “afoot and progressing” (103 F.Supp. 337, 341); since then, we have been advised, in the Virginia Attorney General’s brief on reargument, that the program has now been completed. In the Delaware case, the court below similarly noted that the state’s equalization program was well under way. 91 A.2d 137, 149.

^10 . A similar finding was made in the Delaware case:I conclude from the testimony that, in our Delaware society, State-imposed segregation in education itself results in the Negro children, as a class, receiving educational opportunities which are substantially inferior to those available to white children otherwise similarly situated.87 A.2d 862, 865.

^11 . K.B. Clark, Effect of Prejudice and Discrimination on Personality Development (Mid-century White House Conference on Children and Youth, 1950); Witmer and Kotinsky, Personality in the Making (1952), c. VI; Deutscher and Chein, The Psychological Effects of Enforced Segregation A Survey of Social Science Opinion, 26 J.Psychol. 259 (1948); Chein, What are the Psychological Effects of Segregation Under Conditions of Equal Facilities?, 3 Int.J.Opinion and Attitude Res. 229 (1949); Brameld, Educational Costs, in Discrimination and National Welfare (MacIver, ed., 1949), 44-48; Frazier, The Negro in the United States (1949), 674-681. And see generally Myrdal, An American Dilemma (1944).

^12 . See Bolling v. Sharpe, post, p. 497, concerning the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

^13 . 4. Assuming it is decided that segregation in public schools violates the Fourteenth Amendment(a) would a decree necessarily follow providing that, within the limits set by normal geographic school districting, Negro children should forthwith be admitted to schools of their choice, or(b) may this Court, in the exercise of its equity powers, permit an effective gradual adjustment to be brought about from existing segregated systems to a system not based on color distinctions?5. On the assumption on which questions 4(a) and (b) are based, and assuming further that this Court will exercise its equity powers to the end described in question 4(b),(a) should this Court formulate detailed decrees in these cases;(b) if so, what specific issues should the decrees reach;(c) should this Court appoint a special master to hear evidence with a view to recommending specific terms for such decrees;(d) should this Court remand to the courts of first instance with directions to frame decrees in these cases and, if so, what general directions should the decrees of this Court include and what procedures should the courts of first instance follow in arriving at the specific terms of more detailed decrees?

^14 . See Rule 42, Revised Rules of this Court (effective July 1, 1954).

This work is in the public d omain in the United States because it is a work of the United States federal government (see 17 U.S.C. 105 ).

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1954: brown v. board of education.

On May 17, 1954, in a landmark decision in the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the U.S. Supreme Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for students of different races to be unconstitutional. The decision dismantled the legal framework for racial segregation in public schools and Jim Crow laws, which limited the rights of African Americans, particularly in the South.

Segregation in Schools

Naacp challenges segregation in court, separate, but equal has 'no place', brown v board quick facts.

What is it? A landmark Supreme Court case.

Significance: Ended 'Separate, but equal,' desegregated public schools.

Date: May 17, 1954

Associated Sites: Brown v Board of Education National Historic Site; US Supreme Court Building

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Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park , Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site

Last updated: July 12, 2023

Educator Resources

Biographies of Key Figures in Brown v. Board of Education

In 1952, the Supreme Court agreed to hear five cases collectively from across the country, consolidated under the name Brown v. Board of Education . This grouping of cases from Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, the District of Columbia, and Delaware was significant because it represented school segregation as a national issue, not just a southern one. Each case was brought on the behalf of elementary school children, involving all-Black schools that were inferior to white schools.

In each case, the lower courts had ruled against the plaintiffs, noting the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling of the United States Supreme Court as precedent. The plaintiffs claimed that the "separate but equal" ruling violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. In 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that state-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th Amendment and was therefore unconstitutional.

The Five Cases Consolidated under Brown v. Board of Education

Brown v. board of education of topeka, kansas.

( Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka et al. )

Linda Brown Linda Brown, who was born in 1943, became a part of civil rights history as a third grader in the public schools of Topeka, KS. When Linda was denied admission into a white elementary school, Linda's father, Oliver Brown, challenged Kansas's school segregation laws in the Supreme Court. The NAACP and Thurgood Marshall took up their case, along with similar ones in South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware, as Brown v. Board of Education. Linda Brown died in 2018.

Oliver L. Brown Oliver Brown, a minister in his local Topeka, KS, community, challenged Kansas's school segregation laws in the Supreme Court. Mr. Brown’s 8-year-old daughter, Linda, was a Black girl attending fifth grade in the public schools in Topeka when she was denied admission into a white elementary school. The NAACP and Thurgood Marshall took up Brown’s case along with similar cases in South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware as Brown v. Board of Education. Oliver Brown died in 1961.

Robert L. Carter Born in 1917, Robert Carter, who served as an attorney for the plaintiffs in Briggs v. Elliott, was of particular significance to the Brown v. Board of Education case because of his role in the Briggs case. Carter secured the pivotal involvement of social scientists, particularly Kenneth B. Clark, who provided evidence in the Briggs case on segregation's devastating effects on the psyches of Black children.

Harold R. Fatzer As Attorney General of Kansas, Harold Fatzer argued the case for the appellees (Kansas) in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. Mr. Fatzer served as Kansas Supreme Court Justice from February 1949 to March 1956.

Jack Greenberg Jack Greenberg, who was born in 1924, argued on behalf of the plaintiffs in the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka case, and worked on the briefs in Belton v. Gebhart. Jack Greenberg served as director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund from 1961 to 1984.

Thurgood Marshall Born in 1908, Thurgood Marshall served as lead attorney for the plaintiffs in Briggs v. Elliott. From 1930 to 1933, Marshall attended Howard University Law School and came under the immediate influence of the school’s new dean, Charles Hamilton Houston. Marshall, who also served as lead counsel in the Brown v. Board of Education case, went on to become the first African-American Supreme Court Justice in U.S. history. Justice Marshall died in 1993.

Frank Daniel Reeves Frank D. Reeves, who was born in 1916, served as an attorney for the plaintiffs in the Brown v. Board decisions of 1954, and 1955 ( Brown II). Mr. Reeves was the first African-American person appointed to the District of Columbia Board of Commissioners, although he declined the position. Frank Reeves died in 1973.

Charles Scott Charles Scott was a Topeka, KS, based lawyer who initially began the Brown case on behalf of Oliver Brown and the other litigants.

John Scott John Scott was a Topeka, KS, based lawyer who initially began the Brown case on behalf of Oliver Brown and the other litigants.

Earl Warren Chief Justice Earl Warren, who was born in 1891, secured a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education, outlawing segregation in public schools and striking down the "separate but equal" doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson. Warren also delivered the opinion in the District of Columbia case, Bolling v. Sharpe. Justice Warren died in 1974.

Briggs v. Elliott

( Briggs et al. v. Elliott et al., Members of Board of Trustees of School District #22 )

Harold R. Boulware Harold Boulware was born in 1913. In 1941, he became the chief counsel for the South Carolina NAACP and led the effort to gain equal pay for equal work for African-American teachers. Boulware gained fame as one of the lead attorneys for the plaintiffs, along with Thurgood Marshall, in the Clarendon County Schools desegregation case, Briggs v. Elliot. Boulware also worked on the briefs in the Belton v. Gebhart case. He died in 1983.

Harry Briggs Harry Briggs and 19 other adults filed suit on behalf of 46 Black children, against R. W. Elliott, Chairman of the Clarendon County School Board of South Carolina . Briggs, who was born in 1913, was a father to three of the children named in the suit, two boys and a girl, as well as legal guardian of a third boy. Mr. Briggs died in 1986.

Kenneth B. Clark Kenneth Clark, who was born in 1914, provided expert social science testimony on behalf of the plaintiffs, illustrating the harmful psychological effects of segregation upon Black schoolchildren, in the Briggs v. Elliott trial. At the time, Clark was an assistant professor of psychology at the New York City College and Associate Director of the North Side School for Child Development in New York City. The Supreme Court cited Clark’s influential research on the harmful effects of segregation in their decision on Brown v. Board of Education.

John W. Davis John W. Davis, who was born in 1872, was a democratic candidate for president in 1924, and former Solicitor General of the United States and ambassador to Great Britain. He served as lead counsel for the state of South Carolina in Briggs v. Elliott.

Joseph Armstrong DeLaine Born in 1898, minister and school principal Reverend J.A. DeLaine inspired some of his Summerton, SC, neighbors to petition the Clarendon County school system in November, 1949, to provide buses for Black students, just as they did for white students. When their efforts were met with resistance, the state chapter of the NAACP stepped in and agreed to sponsor a case that would go beyond transportation and ask for equal educational opportunities in Clarendon County. Harry and Eliza Briggs, the first two signers, lent their names to the case that came to be known as Briggs v. Elliott. Delanie died in 1974.

R. W. Elliott R. W. Elliott, as Chairman of the Clarendon County, SC, Board of Trustees of Summerton High School, was named as the lead defendant in Briggs v. Elliott. Six other members of the board were also named as defendants in the suit.

Robert McCormick Figg, Jr. Born in 1901, Robert McCormick Figg, Jr., was the South Carolina attorney, politician, and legal educator who represented the Clarendon County, SC, school board in Briggs v. Elliott. Figg died in 1991.

Spottswood William Robinson, III Spottswood W. Robinson, III, who was born in 1916, taught law at Howard University, in Washington, DC, and eventually became dean of the school. He made his mark on the history of Brown v. Board of Education case along with his legal partner, Oliver W. Hill, by trying and winning the case Davis v. Prince Edward County School Board, Virginia. Robinson died in 1998.

Julius Waties Waring Judge Waring, as the lone dissenter in the court’s ruling in the Briggs v. Elliott et al. case, alluded to the plaintiffs’ social science testimony regarding the harmful psychological effects of segregation upon black and white children. His dissent would foreshadow the eventual success of Brown v. Board of Education in overturning the Plessy decision based on the argument that “separate but equal” is inherently unequal. Judge Waring was born in 1880 and died in 1968.

Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia

( Davis et al. v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia et al. )

Robert L. Carter Born in 1917, Robert Carter, who served as an attorney for the plaintiffs in Briggs et al. v. Elliott et al., was of particular significance to the Brown v. Board of Education case because of his role in the Briggs case. Carter secured the pivotal involvement of social scientists, particularly Kenneth B. Clark, who provided evidence in the Briggs case on segregation's devastating effects on the psyches of black children.

Dorothy E. Davis On May 23, 1951, a NAACP lawyer filed suit in the federal district court in Richmond, VA, on behalf of 117 Moton High School, Prince Edward County, VA, students and their parents. The first plaintiff listed was Dorothy Davis, a 14-year old ninth grader; the case was titled Dorothy E. Davis, et al. v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia, et. al. It asked that the state law requiring segregated schools in Virginia be struck down.

John Davis John Davis, who was born in 1912, filed suit against the County School Board of Prince Edward County, VA, on behalf of his daughters Dorothy, Bertha, and Inez Davis, who were denied access to their local “whites only” school, in the case Davis et al. v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia, et al.

Oliver White Hill Born in 1907, Oliver Hill served as one of the lead attorneys for the plaintiffs on the case Davis et al. v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia, et al. Hill’s most famous case, Davis v. Prince Edward County, Virginia, became part of the Brown v. Board of Education decision.

Barbara Rose Johns On May 23, 1951, a NAACP lawyer, on behalf of 117 Moton High School, Prince Edward County, VA, students and their parents, filed suit in the Federal District court in Richmond, VA. The suit began, however, as a result of a student strike organized and led by 16 year-old Barbara Rose Johns, in an attempt to force the county to provide facilities equal to those provided to white high school students as required by law. Their case eventually became one of five included in the landmark 1954 case, Brown v. Board of Education.

Spottswood William Robinson, III Spottswood W. Robinson, III, who was born in 1916, taught law at Howard University, in Washington, DC, and eventually became dean of the school. He made his mark on the history of Brown v. Board of Education along with his legal partner, Oliver W. Hill, by trying and winning the case Davis et al. v. Prince Edward County School Board, Virginia. Robinson died in 1998.

Bolling v. Sharpe

( Bolling et al. v. Sharpe et al. )

Sarah Bolling Sarah Bolling and two other adults filed suit, on behalf of five Black children, against C. Melvin Sharpe and 13 others, including members of the Board of Education of the District of Columbia, the Superintendent of Schools, and the Principal of Sousa Junior High School, for denial of admission of the minor plaintiffs to Sousa Junior High School solely because on their race or color.

Spottswood Thomas Bolling In 1951, the case of Bolling v. Sharpe was filed in U.S. District Court, in Washington, DC. This case was named for Spottswood Bolling, the minor-aged son of Sarah Bolling. Spottswood was born in 1939. Ms. Bolling brought suit in her son’s name in the Bolling case, which addressed segregation at the Junior High School level within the District of Columbia. Although Bolling is historically considered one of the Brown v. Board of Education bundle cases, it was a different case due to the legal arguments. The plaintiffs could not argue this case on the basis of a violation of their citizenship rights to equal protection and due process, as in the other cases, because the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was not applicable in the District of Columbia. The Supreme Court rendered a separate opinion on Bolling v. Sharpe., which was argued as a Fifth Amendment case.

Gardner Bishop On September 11, 1950, Gardner Bishop, a minister and community leader, led a group of 11 African-American children to Washington, DC’s new high school for white students, John Philip Sousa Junior High School. Bishop had been organizing parents to take action regarding the poor quality of the school their children were assigned to attend. He approached attorney Charles H. Houston on their behalf, the attorney who eventually represented Bishop, the parents, and their children in the DC segregation case, Bolling et al. v. Sharpe et al.

George Edward Chalmers Hayes George E. C. Hayes argued the cause for petitioners in Bolling v. Sharpe. Hayes was born in 1894 and died in 1968.

Charles Hamilton Houston Born in 1895, Charles Houston was the first African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review, dean of Howard University Law School, chief counsel to the NAACP, and the first African-American lawyer to win a case before the Supreme Court. Houston launched a number of precedent-setting cases that targeted segregated education as the key to undermining the entire Jim Crow system, focused first on segregation in the graduate and professional schools of state universities. Houston provided legal representation for a group of Anacostia, DC, neighborhood parents, the Consolidated Parents Group , in the case Bolling v. Sharpe until serious illness necessitated that he be relieved by James Nabrit, Jr., a colleague from Howard University. Houston died in 1950.

Milton Korman Milton Korman served as Assistant Corporation Counsel for Washington, DC, and Chief Counsel for the District Board of Education in the case, Bolling v. Sharpe. Korman argued the case for the respondents.

James Madison Nabrit, Jr. In late 1949, a group of Anacostia, DC, neighborhood parents, the Consolidated Parents Group, joined with James Nabrit, Howard University professor of law, secretary of the University, and future president of the University, to legally challenge the separate but equal doctrine in the case of Bolling v. Sharpe. Nabrit was born in 1900 and died in 1997.

C. Melvin Sharpe C. Melvin Sharpe, acting as President of the Board of Education of the District of Columbia from 1948 to 1957, was named as the lead defendant in the case Bolling v. Sharpe.

Belton v. Gebhart and Bulah v. Gebhart

( Belton et al. v. Gebhart et al . and Bulah et al. v. Gebhart et al. )

Ethel Louise Belton Ethel Belton and six other adults filed suit on behalf of eight Black children against Francis B. Gebhart and 12 others (both individuals and state education agencies) in the case Belton v. Gebhart. The plaintiffs sued the state for denying to the children admission to certain public schools because of color or ancestry. The Belton case was joined with another very similar Delaware case, Bulah v. Gebhart, and both would ultimately join four other NAACP cases in the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Belton was born in 1937 and died in 1981.

Harold R. Boulware Harold Boulware was born in 1913. In 1941 Harold Boulware became the Chief Counsel for the South Carolina NAACP and led the effort to gain equal pay for equal work for African-American teachers. He gained fame as one of the lead attorneys for the plaintiffs, along with Thurgood Marshall, in the Clarendon County Schools desegregation case, Briggs v. Elliot. Boulware also worked on the briefs in the Belton v. Gebhart case. He died in 1983.

Sarah Bulah Sarah Bulah was born in 1947. In the case Bulah v. Gebhart , she filed suit on behalf of her daughter, Shirley Barbara Bulah, against Francis B. Gebhart and 12 others (both individuals and state education agencies) for denying Sarah and the other named plaintiffs admission to certain public schools because of their color or ancestry . The Bulah case was joined with another very similar Delaware case, Belton v. Gebhart, and both would ultimately join four other NAACP cases in the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education.

Francis B. Gebhart Francis Gebhart, as a member of the State Board of Education of the State of Delaware, was named as the lead defendant in both segregation cases, Bulah et al. v. Gebhart et al. and Belton et al. v. Gebhart et al.

Louis Lorenzo Redding Louis L. Redding, who was born in 1901, became Delaware’s first African-American attorney in 1929. Redding argued the cause for respondents in Gebhart v. Belton. He died in 1999.

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Part xv: brown v. board of education at 70.

Black children arrive for class at the segregated Buchanan Elementary School in Kansas,, prompting the legal suit known as Brown vs. Board of Education.

Breslin is the Joseph C. Palamountain Jr. Chair of Political Science at Skidmore College and author of “A Constitution for the Living: Imagining How Five Generations of Americans Would Rewrite the Nation’s Fundamental Law .”

This is the latest in a series to assist American citizens on the bumpy road ahead this election year. By highlighting components, principles and stories of the Constitution, Breslin hopes to remind us that the American political experiment remains, in the words of Alexander Hamilton, the “most interesting in the world.”

American history is replete with paradigm-shifting, landscape-altering, game-changing moments. Brown v. Board of Education is one of them. Little of what we knew or understood before May 17, 1954 — 70 years ago next month — resembles what came after. Good thing.

Dismantling America’s system of educational apartheid was long overdue. The stigmatization of Black children as inferior to, or lesser than, white children was more than enough to call into question the moral currency of segregation. The Supreme Court would finally call that question in the Brown case. Separating schoolchildren based on race, Chief Justice Earl Warren argued, “affects the hearts and minds [of Black children] in a way unlikely ever to be undone.” We cannot abandon an entire race, he said. State-authorized and legally sanctioned stigmatization can no longer endure.

The court’s simple and profound declaration that the Constitution “neither knows nor tolerates” racial separation was as manifest as it was magnificent. It has been reverberating ever since.

It is certainly true that desegregation was slow in coming on the heels of the Brown decision. It is equally true that de facto school segregation persists . Still, Brown managed to accomplish something essential to a free society. It gave legitimacy and force to an ideal — an Enlightenment ideal that “all men are created equal.”

America needed that. It needed a reminder that a first principle of the republic — equality — was rotting. There was no equivocation on the part of the unanimous court. In unison, all nine justices drifted to the correct corner of the moral universe. To come from the most respected of governmental branches helped — it had the feel, for progressives at least, of a commandment. The court’s unassailable voice made a difference.

Brown emphasized the benefits of classroom diversity. “We must look to the effect of segregation itself on public education,” Warren proclaimed. Segregation has a devastating effect on African-American children, he insisted, but it also robs white children of the “intangible” ability “to study, to engage in discussions and exchange views” with students from other races and dissimilar backgrounds. We can draw a direct line from Brown to the affirmative action cases, which (until Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard ) insisted that classroom diversity was a “compelling state interest.” We can draw a direct line from Brown to the noble efforts around race-integration busing. We can draw a direct line from Brown to the diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEI/DEIB) initiatives at most of America’s secondary and post-secondary schools.

Brown forced a fundamental realignment of the judicial appointment process. Before Brown, presidents nominated judges for their intellect, wisdom and judiciousness. Enter Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Brandeis and Felix Frankfurter. Afterwards, presidents saw that they could advance their partisan agendas through judicial channels. If the NAACP can bypass the traditional democratic branches and win stunning victories in the courts, it is no longer sensible to nominate the most respected legal minds.

Exit Holmes, Brandeis and Frankfurter. Now the goal is to nominate the most politically ideological thinker we can get through the system, the jurist who can best deliver on a particular political platform. Gone are the Robert Borks from the right and the Laurence Tribes from the left. But gone also are the judicial giants — men like William Brennan and Harry Blackmun — who were nominated by presidents of the opposing political party. Impartiality has been replaced by politics, neutrality by partisanship.

Brown’s economic impact is incalculable. The principle of “separate but equal” was always morally dubious, but it was also pragmatically foolish. Studies have exposed the negative economic impact of a segregated America. Prosperity, especially for people of color, is tied to America’s ongoing struggle with de facto segregation. So is mobility. The Washington Center for Equitable Growth says so explicitly: “School integration powers economic growth by boosting human capital, innovation, and productivity, while strengthening the social trust and interpersonal relationships necessary for smoothly functioning markets.”

The enormity of the court’s decision in Brown can never be overstated. Put simply, it is the most important and most consequential Supreme Court decision of the 20th century. It didn’t solve every ailment. Seven decades have passed since the landmark ruling and America still has a race problem. Even so, I suspect almost all of us would prefer to live on this temporal side of the desegregation case. It’s taken a long time — 70 years to reach consensus! But that’s something, and it is most definitely worth celebrating.

Money, power and the Constitution: Fixing the foundation ›
Will it be Chief Justice Roberts who helps save democracy? ›
New year, time for new thinking about the undemocratic nature of the high court ›
70 years after Brown v. Board of Ed., public schools still segregated ›
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka :: 347 U.S. 483 (1954 ... ›
Brown v. Board of Education - Summary & Impact | HISTORY ›
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1) | Oyez ›
Brown v. Board of Education (1954) | National Archives ›

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Brown v. Board of Education 70th Anniversary

The National Museum of African American History and Culture marks the anniversary of a landmark United States Supreme Court decision that profoundly impacted access to education, resulting in a major step toward equality and justice for African Americans.

School Boycott, “No More Segregated Education”, print of 1964 photograph by Frank Espada.

The Road to Brown

A metal double-sided black railroad sign that reads: [WAITING ROOM / FOR WHITES / ONLY / BY ORDER OF / POLICE DEPT.] in white paint. The writing is on a framed square plaque at the top of the sign. The sign post is round and has metal work at the top where the plaque meets the post and that the bottom where the post meets the base. The base is round. There is orange paint that is visible in spots where the black paint has peeled. There is also rust on the bottom of the base.

Sign from segregated railroad station

In 1892 Homer Plessy of New Orleans, Louisiana, volunteered to test the legality of railroad car segregation in that state. He sat in a “whites only” car, refused to move to a segregated car, was arrested, and sued in court. The case eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 1896 that segregation was legal as long as the accommodations were “separate but equal.”

The 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision further reinforced the rise of segregation. The Court rendered this decision despite the reality that separate areas provided for African Americans rarely were equal. John Marshall Harlan, the only dissenting justice, argued against the decision: “The arbitrary separation of citizens, on the basis of race … is a badge of servitude wholly inconsistent with the civil freedom and the equality before the law established by the Constitution.”

Despite the refusal of the courts or politicians to support them, African Americans continued to challenge segregation and demand their equal rights under the Constitution. They pressed forward their fight in the belief that their efforts might eventually result in change.

<p>Sign from segregated railroad station</p>

The arbitrary separation of citizens, on the basis of race…is a badge of servitude wholly inconsistent with civil freedom and the equality before the law established by the Constitution. John Marshall Harlan U.S. Supreme Court Justice

The Struggle Against Segregated Education

In their own words.

Hear directly from those who participated in the Brown v. Board of Education case from our Oral History Initiative .

We use the video player Able Player to provide captions and audio descriptions. Able Player performs best using web browsers Google Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. If you are using Safari as your browser, use the play button to continue the video after each audio description. We apologize for the inconvenience.

The Decision

Baby dolls used by Northside Center for Child Development, 1968.

"Separate but equal" remained standard doctrine in U.S. law until the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, in which the Court ruled that segregation in public education was unconstitutional. The case began in 1951 as a class action suit filed in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas that called on the city's Board of Education to reverse its policy of racial segregation. It was initiated by the Topeka chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) , and the plaintiffs were 13 African American parents on behalf of their children. The named plaintiff was Oliver L. Brown, a welder and an assistant pastor at his local church, whose daughter had to walk six blocks to her school bus stop to ride to her segregated black school one mile away, while a white school was located just seven blocks from her house.

On May 17, 1954, the Court handed down its unanimous 9-0 decision overturning Plessy as it applied to public education, stating that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." As a result, racial segregation laws were declared in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, paving the way for integration and winning a major victory for the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement.

<p>Baby dolls used by Northside Center for Child Development, 1968.</p>

A green Ohio Railways train car with the word "Southern" written in yellow on the top.

Two Landmark Decisions in the Fight for Equality and Justice

Aftermath & legacy.

Diploma for Carlotta Walls from Little Rock Central High School, 1960.

Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Carlotta Walls LaNier

In 1954 the United States Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools were illegal. The case, Brown v. The Board of Education, has become iconic for Americans because it marked the formal beginning of the end of segregation.

But the gears of change grind slowly. It wasn't until September 1957 when nine teens would become symbols, much like the landmark decision we know as Brown v. The Board of Education, of all that was in store for our nation in the years to come.

The Little Rock Nine

Image: Lucinda Todd was the secretary of the Topeka, Kansas branch of the NAACP and the first parent to sign on as plaintiff in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. The dining room of her home was a gathering place both for local members of the NAACP and national figures involved in the case such as Thurgood Marshall, Roy Wilkins, Walter White, and Jack Greenberg. Todd was quoted as saying, "this is where it all started, right here" in reference to the table.

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The Civil Rights Division Marks the 69th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education

Today we commemorate the 69th anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, the unanimous Supreme Court ruling that overturned the “separate but equal” doctrine in America’s public schools. Nearly 70 years after the court declared racially segregated schools unequal and unconstitutional, Brown stands as both a transformative moment in our democracy, and as a promise yet unfulfilled.

On a personal note, the long-standing battle to desegregate public schools in Hartford, Connecticut, by way of the Sheff vs. O’Neill litigation, is what inspired my decision to pursue a career as a civil rights lawyer. As a high school student, I had the opportunity to sit in on the case and I was moved by the fight to ensure a level playing field for Black and Latino students in Hartford. The segregated classrooms and economic disparities in Hartford reflected the picture seen in too many communities across the country.

In fact, in 2022, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that nearly 18.5 million students still attend a segregated school today. The Brown anniversary presents an opportunity to take stock of the progress made while redoubling our commitment to this work. We continue to fight for equal access for students across the nation, through our docket of nearly 140 open desegregation cases. For example, just last week we filed a proposed consent order following hard-fought litigation to desegregate a Louisiana school district. The proposed order, which is pending with the court, will promote students’ ability to transfer schools and pave the way for a robust new magnet school, with the goal of attracting a diverse student body and desegregating a historically Black school zone.

In addition to our desegregation cases, we also enforce Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Building on Brown ’s legacy, the Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974, promote recruitment of diverse faculty, and expanded access for Black students to gifted and talented, Advanced Placement, and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics classes. We also seek to address the many forms of discrimination that limit students’ opportunities, and serve as roadblocks to their success in school and beyond, such as: disproportionate and unfair school discipline; race and gender-based discrimination through dress and grooming codes; segregation and exclusion of students with disabilities; and unchecked harassment of students—sometimes even by school officials—just for being who they are.

In the past year, we have secured settlements with school districts in Iowa , Florida , Alaska , and Washington state to address the discriminatory use of seclusion and restraint against students with disabilities. We have also reached settlements with school districts in Massachusetts and two districts in California to meet the needs of English learners in those districts and to empower parents to participate fully in their children’s education through language access services. And we reached a settlement with a school in Vermont after students were subjected to derogatory epithets and comments based on race and sex.

Brown was an enormous step forward for the nation and has inspired countless students, parents, teachers, and educators to work tirelessly to make an equal education a reality for all students.

Today, much of our work would not be possible without the courageous students, parents and communities who contact us, share their stories, and file complaints to ensure schools are safe, welcoming environments free from discrimination and harassment. Their action to ensure that schools are safe and welcoming, in keeping with the spirit and legacy of Brown, is “the very foundation of good citizenship.”

A few weeks ago, I visited Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas – the place where nine Black students, known as the Little Rock Nine, were blocked from entering the school in defiance of Brown and in resistance to the Court’s integration mandate. The school today is a thriving, high-performing, racially-integrated institution that stands as a model for what all public schools should look like in our country. We remain steadfast in our commitment to using all available tools to make Brown ’s promise real so that we may ensure a future of educational fairness, equity, and justice for all – one in which education is provided, at long last, “to all on equal terms.”

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National Museum of African American History & Culture

Brown v. Board of Education 70th Anniversary

The National Museum of African American History and Culture marks the anniversary of a landmark United States Supreme Court decision that profoundly impacted access to education, resulting in a major step toward equality and justice for African Americans.

The Road to Brown

The Struggle Against Segregated Education

The Decision

Two Landmark Decisions in the Fight for Equality and Justice

The Little Rock Nine

Upcoming Event

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The Civil Rights Division Marks the 69th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education

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