This Day in History-May 17, 1954

United States Supreme Court Hands Down Brown vs. Board 0f Education decision

In a huge victory for the Civil Rights movement, on May 17, 1954, the United States Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision in the case of Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka. The ruling stated that racial segregation in public education is unconstitutional. The case involved a young black girl, Linda Brown, who had been denied enrollment by her Topeka, Kansas elementary school on account of her race.

Chief Justice Earl Warren

The ruling overturned the historic 1896 decision of Plessy vs. Ferguson, which ruled that “Separate but Equal” accommodations in railroad cars comported with the intent of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection clause and was therefore constitutional. Throughout the proceeding decades, the decision would be used to defend the segregation of all public facilities and public schools, such as the one in Topeka, Kansas, where Linda Brown had been denied admission. The white elementary school that Linda Brown had tried to gain admission to was far more superior to the one for black kids which was closer to her home. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), agreed to take up Linda’s case, and in 1954, it would reach the Supreme Court. The African-American lawyer Thurgood Marshall, who would later on become the first black Supreme Court Justice , led Linda Brown’s legal team, and on May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously decided in favor of Linda, overturning nearly 60 years of Supreme Court precedent.

Thurgood Marshall

The Court’s opinion, authored by Chief Justice Earl Warren, ruled that not only was the “Separate but Equal,” doctrine was unconstitutional in Linda Brown’s case, it was unconstitutional in all cases since segregated Public Education facilities were inherently unequal. In 1955, after a year of hearing arguments regarding the implementation of the court’s ruling, it published guidelines which required that public school systems integrate “with all deliberate speed.”

Throughout the decades of the 1950’s and 1960’s, the Brown vs. Board of Education decision would galvanize the Civil Rights movement and would lead to the abolition of racial segregation in all public facilities.

Source Article: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/brown-v-board-of-ed-is-decided

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