Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that ended legal segregation in public schools and became one of the most important victories of the Civil Rights Movement. What the Case Was About Before 1954, many states followed the rule of “separate but equal,” which allowed Black and white children to attend different schools. In reality, Black schools were often overcrowded, underfunded, and unequal. The case began when Oliver Brown and other Black parents in Topeka, Kansas , challenged school segregation after their children were forced to attend distant Black schools instead of nearby white ones. The lawsuit was supported by the NAACP , with Thurgood Marshall as the lead attorney. The Supreme Court Decision On May 17, 1954 , the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional . Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” This decision overtur...