Brown v. Board of Education

About

Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case decided on May 17, 1954. It declared that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, effectively ending the "separate but equal" doctrine established by Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. The case began when Oliver Brown and other African American families in Topeka, Kansas, were denied the right to enroll their children in local white schools. They filed a class-action lawsuit against the Topeka Board of Education, arguing that segregation violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court's unanimous decision held that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal," impacting students' psychological well-being and educational opportunities. This ruling was a significant victory for the Civil Rights Movement, though it faced resistance in the South. The decision did not specify how desegregation should occur, leading to a follow-up case, Brown II, which ordered states to desegregate "with all deliberate speed." The impact of Brown v. Board of Education extended beyond schools, influencing broader civil rights efforts in the United States.