Brown v. Board of Education
The Supreme Court case that declared school segregation unconstitutional — and the fierce resistance it provoked.
The Case
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) was actually five cases consolidated from Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, and Washington D.C. The NAACP, led by attorney Thurgood Marshall (later the first Black Supreme Court justice), argued that segregated schools were inherently unequal and violated the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause.
Marshall used social science evidence — including psychologist Kenneth Clark's 'doll tests,' which showed that Black children internalized negative self-images under segregation — to argue that separate could never be equal.
On May 17, 1954, Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered a unanimous decision: 'In the field of public education, the doctrine of separate but equal has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.' Plessy v. Ferguson was effectively overturned after 58 years.
