Monday, May 20, 2013

May 17: Brown vs. Board of Education

On this date in History .... May 17, 1954:


U.S. Supreme Court hands down a unanimous decision that racial segregation in schools is unconstitutional in Brown vs. Board of Education. 

The case stemmed from elementary student Linda Brown whose black school was miles further away from her home that the superior white school in her neighborhood. The NAACP took up Ms. Brown’s case with lawyer Thurgood Marshall (future Supreme Court Justice) leading the case. This ruling overturned the 1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson which established the “separate but equal” accommodation in railroad cars and was used to justify segregation in all public facilities.

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