56 years ago today the U.S. Supreme court voted to end segregation in schools.
The monumental move was made through the Brown v.s. Board Of Education of Topeka Court Case.
The case takes its name from Oliver Brown, a Kansas man who filed a lawsuit saying that his daughter Linda was denied admission to a nearby white elementary school and forced to attend a segregated Black school further away.
The case included thirteen similar cases from across the country where Black children were denied admission to white schools.
The NAACP represented the case and Brown’s name was used as a legal strategy to have a man at the head of the roster.
On May 17, 1954 the Justices headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered a unanimous 9-0 decision declaring that state laws establishing separate public schools for Black and white students and denying Black children equal educational opportunities unconstitutional.
The victory also meant that the Plessy vs. Ferguson decision, which had declared the legality of “separate but equal” institutions, was unconstitutional and gave Blacks a disadvantage.
Thurgood Marshall served as the chief counsel for the NAACP and argued the case before the Supreme Court.
He later became the first African-American to be made a Supreme Court justice.
Vicki Henderson, Donald Henderson, Linda Brown (Oliver’s daughter), James Emanuel, Nancy Todd, and Katherine Carper
