Brown v. Board of Education
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 9, 1952 Reargued December 8, 1953 Decided May 17, 1954
Full case name	Oliver Brown, et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka, et al.
Citations	347 U.S. 483 (more) 74 S. Ct. 686; 98 L. Ed. 873; 1954 U.S. LEXIS 2094; 53 Ohio Op. 326; 38 A.L.R.2d 1180
Prior history	Judgment for defendants, 98 F. Supp. 797 (D. Kan. 1951)
Subsequent history	Judgment on relief, 349 U.S. 294 (1955) (Brown II); on remand, 139 F. Supp. 468 (D. Kan. 1955); motion to intervene granted, 84 F.R.D. 383 (D. Kan. 1979); judgment for defendants, 671 F. Supp. 1290 (D. Kan. 1987); reversed, 892 F.2d 851 (10th Cir. 1989); vacated, 503 U.S. 978 (1992) (Brown III); judgment reinstated, 978 F.2d 585 (10th Cir. 1992); judgment for defendants, 56 F. Supp. 2d 1212 (D. Kan. 1999)
Holding
Segregation of students in public schools violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, because separate facilities are inherently unequal. District Court of Kansas reversed.
Court membership
Chief Justice Earl Warren Associate Justices Hugo Black · Stanley F. Reed Felix Frankfurter · William O. Douglas Robert H. Jackson · Harold H. Burton Tom C. Clark · Sherman Minton
Case opinions
Majority	Warren, joined by unanimous
Laws applied
United States Constitution, Amendment XIV

Educational separation in the US prior to Brown

Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896 which allowed state-sponsored segregation. Handed down on May 17, 1954, the Warren Court's unanimous (9–0) decision stated that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." As a result, de jure racial segregation was ruled a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. This ruling paved the way for integration and the civil rights movement.^[1]

Background[link]

For much of the sixty years preceding the Brown case, race relations in the U.S. had been dominated by racial segregation. This policy had been endorsed in 1896 by the United States Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson, which held that as long as the separate facilities for the separate races were equal, segregation did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment ("no State shall... deny to any person... the equal protection of the laws.").

The plaintiffs in Brown asserted that this system of racial separation, while masquerading as providing separate but equal treatment of both white and black Americans, instead perpetuated inferior accommodations, services, and treatment for black Americans. Racial segregation in education varied widely from the 17 states that required racial segregation to the 16 that prohibited it. Brown was influenced by UNESCO's 1950 Statement, signed by a wide variety of internationally renowned scholars, titled The Race Question.^[2] This declaration denounced previous attempts at scientifically justifying racism as well as morally condemning racism. Another work that the Supreme Court cited was Gunnar Myrdal's An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (1944). Myrdal had been a signatory of the UNESCO declaration. The research performed by the educational psychologists Kenneth B. Clark and Mamie Phipps Clark also influenced the Court's decision.^[3] The Clarks' "doll test" studies presented substantial arguments to the Supreme Court about how segregation had an impact on black schoolchildren's mental status.^[4]

Brown v. Board of Education[link]

In 1951, a class action suit was filed against the Board of Education of the City of Topeka, Kansas in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas. The plaintiffs were thirteen Topeka parents on behalf of their twenty children.^[5]

The suit called for the school district to reverse its policy of racial segregation. Separate elementary schools were operated by the Topeka Board of Education under an 1879 Kansas law, which permitted (but did not require) districts to maintain separate elementary school facilities for black and white students in twelve communities with populations over 15,000. The plaintiffs had been recruited by the leadership of the Topeka NAACP. Notable among the Topeka NAACP leaders were the chairman McKinley Burnett; Charles Scott, one of three serving as legal counsel for the chapter; and Lucinda Todd.

The named plaintiff, Oliver L. Brown, was a parent, a welder in the shops of the Santa Fe Railroad, an assistant pastor at his local church, and an African American.^[6] He was convinced to join the lawsuit by Scott, a childhood friend. Brown's daughter Linda, a third grader, had to walk six blocks to her school bus stop to ride to Monroe Elementary, her segregated black school one mile (1.6 km) away, while Sumner Elementary, a white school, was seven blocks from her house.^[7][8]

As directed by the NAACP leadership, the parents each attempted to enroll their children in the closest neighborhood school in the fall of 1951. They were each refused enrollment and directed to the segregated schools. Linda Brown Thompson later recalled the experience in a 2004 PBS documentary:

. . . well. like I say, we lived in an integrated neighborhood and I had all of these playmates of different nationalities. And so when I found out that day that I might be able to go to their school, I was just thrilled, you know. And I remember walking over to Sumner school with my dad that day and going up the steps of the school and the school looked so big to a smaller child. And I remember going inside and my dad spoke with someone and then he went into the inner office with the principal and they left me out . . . to sit outside with the secretary. And while he was in the inner office, I could hear voices and hear his voice raised, you know, as the conversation went on. And then he immediately came out of the office, took me by the hand and we walked home from the school. I just couldn't understand what was happening because I was so sure that I was going to go to school with Mona and Guinevere, Wanda, and all of my playmates.^[9]

The Kansas case, "Oliver Brown et al. v. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas," was named after Oliver Brown as a legal strategy to have a man at the head of the roster. Also, it was felt by lawyers with the National Chapter of the NAACP, that having Mr. Brown at the head of the roster would be better received by the U.S. Supreme Court Justices. The thirteen plaintiffs were: Oliver Brown, Darlene Brown, Lena Carper, Sadie Emmanuel, Marguerite Emerson, Shirley Fleming, Zelma Henderson, Shirley Hodison, Maude Lawton, Alma Lewis, Iona Richardson, and Lucinda Todd.^[10][11] The last surviving plaintiff, Zelma Henderson, died in Topeka, on May 20, 2008, at the age of 88.^[12][13]

The District Court ruled in favor of the Board of Education, citing the U.S. Supreme Court precedent set in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), which had upheld a state law requiring "separate but equal" segregated facilities for blacks and whites in railway cars.^[14] The three-judge District Court panel found that segregation in public education has a detrimental effect upon negro children, but denied relief on the ground that the negro and white schools in Topeka were substantially equal with respect to buildings, transportation, curricular, and educational qualifications of teachers.^[15]

Supreme Court review[link]

The case of Brown v. Board of Education as heard before the Supreme Court combined five cases: Brown itself, Briggs v. Elliott (filed in South Carolina), Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County (filed in Virginia), Gebhart v. Belton (filed in Delaware), and Bolling v. Sharpe (filed in Washington D.C.).

All were NAACP-sponsored cases. The Davis case, the only case of the five originating from a student protest, began when sixteen-year-old Barbara Rose Johns organized and led a 450-student walkout of Moton High School.^[16] The Gebhart case was the only one where a trial court, confirmed by the Delaware Supreme Court, found that discrimination was unlawful; in all the other cases the plaintiffs had lost as the original courts had found discrimination to be lawful.

The Kansas case was unique among the group in that there was no contention of gross inferiority of the segregated schools' physical plant, curriculum, or staff. The district court found substantial equality as to all such factors. The Delaware case was unique in that the District Court judge in Gebhart ordered that the black students be admitted to the white high school due to the substantial harm of segregation and the differences that made the schools separate but not equal. The NAACP's chief counsel, Thurgood Marshall—who was later appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967—argued the case before the Supreme Court for the plaintiffs. Assistant attorney general Paul Wilson—later distinguished emeritus professor of law at the University of Kansas—conducted the state's ambivalent defense in his first appellate trial.

Unanimous opinion and key holding[link]

In spring 1953 the Court heard the case but was unable to decide the issue and asked to rehear the case in fall 1953, with special attention to whether the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause prohibited the operation of separate public schools for whites and blacks.^[17]

The case was being reargued at the behest of Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter, who used re-argument as a stalling tactic, to allow the Court to gather a unanimous consensus around a Brown opinion that would outlaw segregation. Chief Justice Vinson had been a key stumbling block. The justices in support of desegregation spent much effort convincing those who initially dissented to join a unanimous opinion. Even though the legal effect would be same for a majority versus unanimous decision, it was felt that it was vital to not have a dissent which could be relied upon by opponents of desegregation as a legitimizing counterargument.

Conference notes and draft decisions illustrate the division of opinions before the decision was issued.^[18] Justices Douglas, Black, Burton, and Minton were predisposed to overturn Plessy.^[18] Fred M. Vinson noted that Congress had not issued desegregation legislation; Stanley F. Reed discussed incomplete cultural assimilation and states' rights and was inclined to the view that segregation worked to the benefit of the African-American community; Tom C. Clark wrote that "we had led the states on to think segregation is OK and we should let them work it out."^[18] Felix Frankfurter and Robert H. Jackson disapproved of segregation, but were also opposed to judicial activism and expressed concerns about the proposed decision's enforceability.^[18] After Vinson died in September 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Earl Warren as Chief Justice.^[18] Warren had supported the integration of Mexican-American students in California school systems following Mendez v. Westminster.^[19]

While all but one justice personally rejected segregation, the self-restraint faction questioned whether the Constitution gave the Court the power to order its end. The activist faction believed the Fourteenth Amendment did give the necessary authority and were pushing to go ahead. Warren, who held only a recess appointment, held his tongue until the Senate, dominated by southerners, confirmed his appointment.

Warren convened a meeting of the justices, and presented to them the simple argument that the only reason to sustain segregation was an honest belief in the inferiority of Negroes. Warren further submitted that the Court must overrule Plessy to maintain its legitimacy as an institution of liberty, and it must do so unanimously to avoid massive Southern resistance. He began to build a unanimous opinion.

Although most justices were immediately convinced, Warren spent some time after this famous speech convincing everyone to sign onto the opinion. Justices Robert Jackson and Stanley Reed finally decided to drop their dissent to what was by then an opinion backed by all the others. The final decision was unanimous. Warren drafted the basic opinion and kept circulating and revising it until he had an opinion endorsed by all the members of the Court.^[20]

Holding[link]

The key holding of the Court was that, even if segregated black and white schools were of equal quality in facilities and teachers, segregation by itself was harmful to black students and unconstitutional. They found that a significant psychological and social disadvantage was given to black children from the nature of segregation itself, drawing on research conducted by Kenneth Clark assisted by June Shagaloff. This aspect was vital because the question was not whether the schools were "equal", which under Plessy they nominally should have been, but whether the doctrine of separate was constitutional. The justices answered with a strong "no":

Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does... Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system... We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Local outcomes[link]

The Topeka middle schools had been integrated since 1941. Topeka High School was integrated from its inception in 1871 and its sports teams from 1949 on.^[21] The Kansas law permitting segregated schools allowed them only "below the high school level."^[22]

Soon after the district court decision, election outcomes and the political climate in Topeka changed. The Board of Education of Topeka began to end segregation in the Topeka elementary schools in August 1953, integrating two attendance districts. All the Topeka elementary schools were changed to neighborhood attendance centers in January 1956, although existing students were allowed to continue attending their prior assigned schools at their option.^[23][24][25] Plaintiff Zelma Henderson, in a 2004 interview, recalled that no demonstrations or tumult accompanied desegregation in Topeka's schools:

"They accepted it," she said. "It wasn't too long until they integrated the teachers and principals."^[26]

The Topeka Public Schools administration building is named in honor of McKinley Burnett, NAACP chapter president who organized the case.

Monroe Elementary was designated a U.S. National Historic Site unit of the National Park Service on October 26, 1992.

Social implications[link]

Not everyone accepted the Brown v. Board of Education decision. In Virginia, Senator Harry F. Byrd, Sr. organized the Massive Resistance movement that included the closing of schools rather than desegregating them.^[27] See, for example, The Southern Manifesto. For more implications of the Brown decision, see Desegregation.

In 1957, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus called out his state's National Guard to block black students' entry to Little Rock Central High School. President Dwight Eisenhower responded by deploying elements of the 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to Arkansas and by federalizing Faubus' National Guard.^[28]

Also in 1957, Florida's response was mixed. Its legislature passed an Interposition Resolution denouncing the decision and declaring it null and void. But Florida Governor Thomas LeRoy Collins, though joining in the protest against the court decision, refused to sign it arguing that the attempt to overturn the ruling must be done in legal methods.

In 1963, Alabama Gov. George Wallace personally blocked the door to Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama to prevent the enrollment of two black students. This became the infamous Stand in the Schoolhouse Door^[29] where Wallace personally backed his "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" policy that he had stated in his 1963 inaugural address.^[30] He moved aside only when confronted by General Henry Graham of the Alabama National Guard, who was ordered by President John F. Kennedy to intervene.

The intellectual roots of Plessy v. Ferguson, the landmark United States Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of racial segregation in 1896 under the doctrine of "separate but equal" were, in part, tied to the scientific racism of the era.^[31][32] However, the popular support for the decision was more likely a result of the racist beliefs held by many whites at the time.^[33] In deciding Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court rejected the ideas of scientific racists about the need for segregation, especially in schools. The Court buttressed its holding by citing (in footnote 11) social science research about the harms to black children caused by segregated schools.

Both scholarly and popular ideas of hereditarianism played an important role in the attack and backlash that followed the Brown decision.^[33] The Mankind Quarterly was founded in 1960, in part in response to the Brown decision.^[34][35]

School desegregation has been argued to have contributed to white flight.^[36]

Legal criticism and praise[link]

U.S. circuit judges Robert A. Katzmann, Damon J. Keith, and Sonia Sotomayor at a 2004 exhibit on the Fourteenth Amendment, Thurgood Marshall, and Brown v. Board of Education

William Rehnquist wrote a memo titled "A Random Thought on the Segregation Cases" when he was a law clerk for Justice Robert H. Jackson in 1952, during early deliberations that led to the Brown v. Board of Education decision. In his memo, Rehnquist argued: "I realize that it is an unpopular and unhumanitarian position, for which I have been excoriated by 'liberal' colleagues but I think Plessy v. Ferguson was right and should be reaffirmed." Rehnquist continued, "To the argument . . . that a majority may not deprive a minority of its constitutional right, the answer must be made that while this is sound in theory, in the long run it is the majority who will determine what the constitutional rights of the minorities are."^[37] Rehnquist also argued for Plessy with other law clerks.^[38] However, during his 1971 confirmation hearings, Rehnquist said, "I believe that the memorandum was prepared by me as a statement of Justice Jackson's tentative views for his own use." Justice Jackson had initially planned to join a dissent in Brown.^[39] Later, at his 1986 hearings for the slot of Chief Justice, Rehnquist put further distance between himself and the 1952 memo: "The bald statement that Plessy was right and should be reaffirmed, was not an accurate reflection of my own views at the time."^[40] In any event, while serving on the Supreme Court, Rehnquist made no effort to reverse or undermine the Brown decision, and frequently relied upon it as precedent.^[41]

Some aspects of the Brown decision are still debated. Notably, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, himself an African American, wrote in Missouri v. Jenkins (1995) that at the very least, Brown I has been misunderstood by the courts.

Brown I did not say that "racially isolated" schools were inherently inferior; the harm that it identified was tied purely to de jure segregation, not de facto segregation. Indeed, Brown I itself did not need to rely upon any psychological or social-science research in order to announce the simple, yet fundamental truth that the Government cannot discriminate among its citizens on the basis of race. . . .

Segregation was not unconstitutional because it might have caused psychological feelings of inferiority. Public school systems that separated blacks and provided them with superior educational resources making blacks "feel" superior to whites sent to lesser schools—would violate the Fourteenth Amendment, whether or not the white students felt stigmatized, just as do school systems in which the positions of the races are reversed. Psychological injury or benefit is irrelevant . . .

Given that desegregation has not produced the predicted leaps forward in black educational achievement, there is no reason to think that black students cannot learn as well when surrounded by members of their own race as when they are in an integrated environment. (. . .) Because of their "distinctive histories and traditions," black schools can function as the center and symbol of black communities, and provide examples of independent black leadership, success, and achievement.^[42]

Some Constitutional originalists, notably Raoul Berger in his influential 1977 book "Government by Judiciary," make the case that Brown cannot be defended by reference to the original understanding of the 14th Amendment. They support this reading of the 14th amendment by noting that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 did not ban segregated schools. Other originalists, including Michael W. McConnell, a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, in his article "Originalism and the Desegregation Decisions," argue that the Radical Reconstructionists who spearheaded the 14th Amendment were in favor of desegregated southern schools.

The case also has attracted some criticism from more liberal authors, including some who say that Chief Justice Warren's reliance on psychological criteria to find a harm against segregated blacks was unnecessary. For example, Drew S. Days has written:^[43] "we have developed criteria for evaluating the constitutionality of racial classifications that do not depend upon findings of psychic harm or social science evidence. They are based rather on the principle that 'distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality,' Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81 (1943). . . ."

In his book "The Tempting of America" (page 82), Robert Bork endorsed the Brown decision as follows:

By 1954, when Brown came up for decision, it had been apparent for some time that segregation rarely if ever produced equality. Quite aside from any question of psychology, the physical facilities provided for blacks were not as good as those provided for whites. That had been demonstrated in a long series of cases . . . The Court's realistic choice, therefore, was either to abandon the quest for equality by allowing segregation or to forbid segregation in order to achieve equality. There was no third choice. Either choice would violate one aspect of the original understanding, but there was no possibility of avoiding that. Since equality and segregation were mutually inconsistent, though the ratifiers did not understand that, both could not be honored. When that is seen, it is obvious the Court must choose equality and prohibit state-imposed segregation. The purpose that brought the fourteenth amendment into being was equality before the law, and equality, not separation, was written into the law.

In June 1987, Philip Elman, a civil rights attorney who served as an associate in the Solicitor General's office during Harry Truman's term, claimed he and Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter were mostly responsible for the Supreme Court's decision, and stated that the NAACP's arguments did not present strong evidence.^[44] Elman has been criticized for offering a self-aggrandizing history of the case, omitting important facts, and denigrating the work of civil rights attorneys who had laid the groundwork for the decision over many decades.^[45] However, Frankfurter was also known for being one of court's most outspoken advocates of the judicial restraint philosophy of basing court rulings on existing law rather than personal or political considerations.^[46][47] Public officials in the United States today are nearly unanimous in lauding the ruling. In May 2004, the fiftieth anniversary of the ruling, President George W. Bush spoke at the opening of the "Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site", calling Brown "a decision that changed America for the better, and forever."^[48] Most Senators and Representatives issued press releases hailing the ruling.

Brown II[link]

In 1955, the Supreme Court considered arguments by the schools requesting relief concerning the task of desegregation. In their decision, which became known as "Brown II"^[49] the court delegated the task of carrying out school desegregation to district courts with orders that desegregation occur "with all deliberate speed," a phrase traceable to Francis Thompson's poem, The Hound of Heaven.^[50]

Supporters of the earlier decision were displeased with this decision. The language “all deliberate speed” was seen by critics as too ambiguous to ensure reasonable haste for compliance with the court's instruction. Many Southern states and school districts interpreted "Brown II" as legal justification for resisting, delaying, and avoiding significant integration for years—and in some cases for a decade or more—using such tactics as closing down school systems, using state money to finance segregated "private" schools, and "token" integration where a few carefully selected black children were admitted to former white-only schools but the vast majority remained in underfunded, unequal black schools.^[51]

For example, based on "Brown II," the U.S. District Court ruled that Prince Edward County, Virginia did not have to desegregate immediately. When another court case in 1959 ruled that the county's schools finally had to desegregate, the county board of supervisors stopped appropriating money for public schools which remained closed for five years, from 1959 to 1964. White students in the county were given assistance to attend white-only "private academies" that were taught by teachers formerly employed by the public school system, while black students had no education at all unless they moved out of the county.^[52]

Brown III[link]

In 1978, Topeka attorneys Richard Jones, Joseph Johnson and Charles Scott Jr. (son of the original Brown team member), with assistance from the American Civil Liberties Union, persuaded Linda Brown Smith—who now had her own children in Topeka schools—to be a plaintiff in reopening Brown. They were concerned that the Topeka Public Schools' policy of "open enrollment" had led to and would lead to further segregation. They also believed that with a choice of open enrollment, white parents would shift their children to "preferred" schools that would create both predominantly African American and predominantly European American schools within the district. The district court reopened the Brown case after a 25-year hiatus, but denied the plaintiffs' request finding the schools "unitary". In 1989, a three-judge panel of the 10th Circuit on 2–1 vote found that the vestiges of segregation remained with respect to student and staff assignment. In 1993, the Supreme Court denied the appellant School District's request for certiorari and returned the case to District Court Judge Richard Rodgers for implementation of the Tenth Circuit's mandate.

After a 1994 plan was approved and a bond issue passed, additional elementary magnet schools were opened and district attendance plans redrawn, which resulted in the Topeka schools meeting court standards of racial balance by 1998. Unified status was eventually granted to Topeka Unified School District No. 501 on July 27, 1999. One of the new magnet schools is named after the Scott family attorneys for their role in the Brown case and civil rights.^[53]

Related cases[link]

• Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896)—separate but equal for schools
• Lum v. Rice, 275 U.S. 78 (1927)-separate schools for Chinese pupils from white schoolchildren
• Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45 (1932)—access to counsel
• Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475 (1954)—the Fourteenth Amendment protects those beyond the racial classes of white or Negro.
• Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944)—non-white voters in primary elections
• Sipuel v. Board of Regents of Univ. of Okla., 332 U.S. 631 (1948)—access to taxpayer state funded law schools
• Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948)—restrictive covenants
• Mendez v. Westminster, 64 F. Supp. 544 (1946)—prohibits segregating Mexican American children in California
• Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950)—segregated law schools in Texas
• McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, 339 U.S. 637 (1950)—prohibits segregation in a public institution of higher learning
• Briggs v. Elliott, 347 U.S. 483 (1952) Brown Case #1—Summerton, South Carolina.
• Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, 103 F. Supp. 337 (1952) Brown Case #2—Prince Edward County, Virginia.
• Gebhart v. Belton, 33 Del. Ch. 144 (1952) Brown Case #3—Claymont, Delaware
• Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497 (1954) Brown companion case—dealt with the constitutionality of segregation in the District of Columbia, which—as a federal district, not a state—is not subject to the Fourteenth Amendment.
• NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449 (1958)—privacy of NAACP membership lists, and free association of members
• Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1 (1958) – Federal court enforcement of desegregation
• Boynton v. Virginia, 364 U.S. 454 (1960) — outlawed racial segregation in public transportation
• Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, 379 U.S. 241 (1964)—held constitutional the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned racial discrimination in public places, particularly in public accommodations even in private property.
• Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967) — banned anti-miscegenation laws (race-based restrictions on marriage).
• Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, 396 U.S. 1218 (1969) – changed Brown's requirement of desegregation "with all deliberate speed" to one of "desegregation now"
• Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1 (1971) — established bussing as a solution
• Guey Heung Lee v. Johnson, 404 U.S 1215 (1971) – "Brown v. Board of Education was not written for blacks alone", desegregation of Asian schools in opposition to parents of Asian students
• Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974) — rejected bussing across school district lines.
• Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1,^[54] 551 U.S. 701, 127 S. Ct. 2738 (2007)—rejected using race as the sole determining factor for assigning students to schools.^[55]
• List of United States Supreme Court Cases

* See Case citation for an explanation of these numbers.

Common misconceptions[link]

• The most common misconception about Brown v. Board of Education is that the case is solely about Linda Brown and whether she should or should not be able to attend the school nearest her home. In fact, Brown was a consolidation of five different cases, from four states, all of which dealt with the same issue. (A similar case from the District of Columbia was handled separately.) Linda Brown was merely the "poster child," as it were, for some 200 plaintiffs altogether. A dozen attorneys and countless community activists were involved in effort to eliminate "de jure" racial segregation in the public schools.^[56]
• The second most common misconception is that the case talks about the hardship that affected Linda Brown because she was not able to attend her local school, because it was for white children only. In fact, the case discusses the hardships collectively faced by all of the children concerned. It also focuses a lot of attention on the psychological well-being of the children in reference to the segregation of schools.^[57]
• It is sometimes thought that Oliver Brown was the named plaintiff in the consolidated cases because he was alphabetically first in the list. In fact Darlene Brown, another plaintiff, (no relation to Oliver Brown) would have been the named plaintiff if that had actually been the case.
• It is also frequently thought that Brown was the first legal challenge to racially segregated schools in the United States. In fact, it was the eleventh case to challenge the 1879 Kansas law, and the third case from Topeka.^[58]

See also[link]

• Timeline of the African American Civil Rights Movement

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Kluger, Richard (1975). Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality. New York: Knopf. ISBN 0-394-47289-6 
• Myrdal, Gunnar (1944). An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy. New York: Harper & Row 
• Ogletree, Charles J., Jr. (2004). All Deliberate Speed: Reflections on the First Half Century of Brown v. Board of Education. New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-05897-2 
• Patterson, James T. (2001). Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-515632-3. 
• Tushnet, Mark (2008). I dissent: Great Opposing Opinions in Landmark Supreme Court Cases. Boston: Beacon Press. pp. 133–150. ISBN 978-0-8070-0036-6 
• UNESCO, The Race Question (1950)

External links[link]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (347 U.S. 483)

• Case Brief for Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka at Lawnix.com
• Case information and transcripts on The Curiae Project
• Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site (US Park Service)
• Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) (full text with hyperlinks to cited material)
• A copy of Florida's 1957 Interposition Resolution in Response to the Brown decision, with Gov. Collin's handwritten rejection of it. Made available for public use by the State Archives of Florida.
• U.S. District Court of Kansas: Records of Browns v. Board of Education, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library
• Documents relating to Brown vs. Board of Education at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library
• Documents from the district court, including the original complaint and trial transcript, at the Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse
• Booknotes interview with Charles Ogletree on All Deliberate Speed: Reflections on the First Half-Century of Brown v. Board of Education, May 9, 2004.

This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2007)

A board of education or a school board or school committee is the title of the board of directors or board of trustees of a school, local school district or higher administrative level.

The elected council helps determine educational policy in a small regional area, such as a city, county, state or province. It usually shares power with a larger institution, such as the government's department of education. The name of the board is also often used to refer to the school system under the board's control.

The government department which administered education in the United Kingdom before the foundation of the Ministry of Education was also called the Board of Education.

See also[link]

• National Association of State Boards of Education

External links[link]

• "US mayors are divided about merits of controlling schools

The tractate Of Education was published in 1644, first appearing anonymously as a single eight-page quarto sheet (Ainsworth 6). Presented as a letter written in response to a request from the Puritan educational reformer Samuel Hartlib, it represents John Milton's most comprehensive statement on educational reform (Viswanathan 352), and gives voice to his views “concerning the best and noblest way of education” (Milton 63). As outlined in the tractate, education carried for Milton a dual objective: one public, to “fit a man to perform justly, skillfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war” (55); and the other private, to “repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love Him, to be like Him, as we may the nearest by possessing our soul of true virtue” (52).

Influences[link]

The influences at work in the tractate are an interesting blend of Renaissance humanism with its emphasis on the via activa, tempered by the more contemplative medieval concern with personal redemption. It is clear, however, that the overwhelming thrust of Milton’s educational programme as outlined in the tractate is centred in the public objective. This is likely a reaction to the scholasticism that dominated the medieval university from the twelfth century, which still held sway in Milton’s time (Ainsworth 25).

Important individual influences on Milton’s tractate include Spanish educator Juan Luis Vives (1492-1540) and Moravian educator John Comenius (1592-1670). Both Vives and Comenius rejected the dialectical approach in education in favour of empirical observation and “the study of things rather than words, nature rather than books” (Lewalski 204). In an interesting fusion of empiricism and morality, both educators promoted the idea that the study of nature was instrumental to the formation of moral character (Viswanathan 352).

Milton’s educational views[link]

Medieval education[link]

The objective of medieval education was an overtly religious one, primarily concerned with uncovering transcendental truths that would lead a person back to God through a life of moral and religious choice (Kreeft 15). The vehicle by which these truths were uncovered was dialectic:

To the medieval mind, debate was a fine art, a serious science, and a fascinating entertainment, much more than it is to the modern mind, because the medievals believed, like Socrates, that dialectic could uncover truth. Thus a ‘scholastic disputation’ was not a personal contest in cleverness, nor was it ‘sharing opinions’; it was a shared journey of discovery (Kreeft 14-15).

The learners in the Middle Ages were the clerics who comprised the literate segment of medieval society and who were responsible for the production, transmission and exposition of scholarly texts, both sacred and classical (Hanning 594). Their ‘shared journey of discovery’ had become, by Milton’s time, an academic exercise so divorced from the practical realities of life as to render medieval education repulsive to Renaissance humanists in general, and to Milton in particular, for whom “the scholastic grossness of barbarous ages” did little more than immerse students in “unquiet deeps of controversy”, leaving them with “ragged notions and babblements” and “such things chiefly as were better unlearned” (Milton 54; hereafter cited by page number alone). Milton dismissed the medieval curriculum which produced such scholars as the “scragged and thorny lectures of monkish and miserable sophistry” (Lewalski 208), and sought to liberate it from the scholastic yoke from which he believed it desperately needed rescuing.

The Medieval curriculum[link]

The medieval curriculum was characterized throughout by a preoccupation with the speculative. It began with the trivium, which included the study of grammar, rhetoric and dialectic. Grammar instruction dominated the early years of a student’s education, where the focus, as Witt explains, was exclusively linguistic: “…in a school program where the student aimed at perfecting a prose style largely divorced from classical precedents, the emphasis in teaching grammar fell on providing instruction more in the mechanics of the language than in ancient literature” (26). The trivium laid the groundwork for the quadrivium, which turned its attention to the theoretical in the world of number, including the study of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. These two foundational programmes prepared the medieval university student for the study of philosophy and theology with its heavy emphasis on dialectical reasoning.

Milton’s proposed curriculum[link]

Milton is clear in the tractate about the “many mistakes” that encumbered the medieval curriculum, which he censures as making “learning generally so unpleasing and unsuccessful” (53) in his time. His first target is the instruction of grammar. Milton is critical both of the amount of time spent on it as well as its mechanical emphasis: “we do amiss to spend seven or eight years merely in scraping together so much miserable Latin and Greek as might be learned otherwise easily and delightfully in one year” (53). Progress, in his view, is delayed by unnecessarily “forcing the empty wits of children to compose theme, verses, and orations” (53); instead, he proposes that after some foundational grammatical instruction, students should “be won early to the love of virtue” by having “some easy and delightful book of education” from among the ancient classics read to them (56). The objective is not simply to teach grammar, but to “inflame [students] with the study of learning” (56). This, for Milton, was best accomplished through the reading of great literature.

After grammar, Milton takes up the cause of curricular sequence. He derides the medieval practice of “present[ing] their young unmatriculated novices, at first coming, with the most intellective abstractions of logic and metaphysics” after having only recently left “those grammatic flats and shallows where they stuck unreasonably to learn a few words with lamentable construction” (54). Instead, he proposes “beginning with arts most easy”; that is to say, those “most obvious to the sense” (54). His method, as Riggs notes, is an inductive one, starting with the study of “sensible things” (52), and progressing to “things invisible” only after mastering the former (Riggs 450). This move effectively inverts the deductive method common in medieval education. The “organic arts” of rhetoric and logic therefore find a place at the end of Milton’s curriculum, rather than at the beginning (59). Noteworthy too is Milton’s inclusion of poetry amongst the other organic arts: “poetry would be made subsequent, or indeed, rather precedent, as being less subtle and fine, but more simple, sensuous, and passionate” (60).

Milton’s proposed curriculum, encompassing as it does grammar, arithmetic, geometry, religion, agriculture, geography, astronomy, physics, trigonometry, ethics, economics, languages, politics, the law, theology, church history as well as the “organic arts” of poetry, rhetoric and logic, is encyclopedic in scope. His main thrust in the educational enterprise remains, however, on that practical erudition which would serve both the individual in a moral sense and the state in a public sense, equipping people “to be brave men and worthy patriots, dear to God and famous to all ages” (56). This stands in contrast to the contemplative and speculative concerns of medieval education.

Influences from Renaissance humanism[link]

As Ainsworth points out, “Milton, like other genuine humanists, cared little for virtue apart from practice, or for talent without principle” (15). Milton’s desire to marry scholarly pursuits to commitments of a professional and public nature is, as Ainsworth implies, an overriding characteristic of Renaissance humanism (Witt 34). Briefly stated, the humanist educational agenda of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries included “a clearer consciousness, among teachers and students, of education as a discipline for active life”, combined with “an insistence on the more extensive reading of ancient writers both classical and Christian as a means of securing this discipline” and “an attitude of severe and hostile criticism toward medieval education and culture” (Ainsworth 8).

The changing demands of society[link]

The shift in educational concerns evident in the Renaissance was informed by the changing structure of society at this time. The ecclesiastical world of the Middle Ages, which was well served by its clerics, slowly gave way, in the sixteenth century, to a burgeoning bureaucratic world, served by the clerks who oiled the machinery of government, “keeping records, accounts, and correspondence” (Viswanathan 349). A linguistic and salvational emphasis in education was no longer tenable as the Puritans came to demand a general and practical education for their children. Education thus became concerned with “instilling into students a consciousness of themselves as national subjects” where moral concerns were public as well as private (Viswanathan 350). Milton’s tractate fits well into this trajectory in its accommodation of education “to the needs of an age” (Ainsworth 42).

References[link]

• Ainsworth, Morley Oliver, ed. Milton on Education: The Tractate of Education with Supplementary Extracts from Other Writings of Milton. New Haven: Yale UP, 1928.
• Hanning, Robert W. “From Eva and Ave to Eglentyne and Alisoun: Chaucer’s Insight in the Roles Women Play.” Signs 2.3 (Spring, 1977): 580-599.
• Kreeft, Peter. Summa of the Summa. San Francisco: Ignatius P, 1990.
• Lewalski, Barbara K. "Milton and the Hartlib Circle: Educational Projects and Epic Paideia." Literary Milton: Text, Pretext, Context. Eds. Diana Benet and Michael Lieb. Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP, 1994. 202-19.
• Luxon, Thomas H., ed. "Of Education." The Milton Reading Room. March 2002. 4 Nov. 2005[1]
• Milton, John. "Of Education." Milton on Education: The Tractate of Education with Supplementary Extracts from Other Writings of Milton. Ed. Morley Oliver Ainsworth. New Haven: Yale UP, 1928. 51-64.
• Riggs, William G. "Poetry and Method in Milton's Of Education." Studies in Philology 89 (1992): 445-69.
• Tinsley, Barbara Sher. “Johann Sturm’s method for humanistic pedagogy.” Sixteenth century journal 20 (1989): 23-39.
• Viswanathan, Gauri. "Milton, Imperialism, and Education." Modern Language Quarterly: A Journal of Literary History 59 (1998): 345-61.
• Witt, Ronald G. “Medieval ‘Ars dictaminis’ and the beginnings of humanism: a new construction of the problem.” Renaissance Quarterly 35.1 (Spring, 1982): 1-35.

John Hope Franklin
Born	(1915-01-02)January 2, 1915 Rentiesville, Oklahoma, U.S.
Died	March 25, 2009(2009-03-25) (aged 94) Durham, North Carolina, U.S.
Alma mater	Fisk University (B.A., 1935); Harvard University (M.A., 1936; Ph.D., 1941)
Occupation	Scholar, historian, author, professor
Spouse	Aurelia Whittington Franklin (m. 1940; d. 1999)

John Hope Franklin (January 2, 1915 – March 25, 2009) was a United States historian and past president of Phi Beta Kappa, the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and the Southern Historical Association. Franklin is best known for his work From Slavery to Freedom, first published in 1947, and continually updated. More than three million copies have been sold. In 1995, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

Early life[link]

Franklin was born in Rentiesville, Oklahoma to attorney, B. C. Franklin and his wife Mollie,^[1] and named after John Hope.^[2] He graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He graduated from Fisk University in 1935 and gained a doctorate in history in 1941 from Harvard University.

Marriage and family[link]

Franklin met and courted Aurelia Whittington at Fisk. They married on June 11, 1940 at her parents' home in Goldsboro, North Carolina. Their only child, John Whittington Franklin, was born August 24, 1952. Aurelia was a librarian. Their marriage lasted 59 years, until January 27, 1999, when she succumbed to a long illness.^[3]

Career[link]

"My challenge," Franklin said, "was to weave into the fabric of American history enough of the presence of blacks so that the story of the United States could be told adequately and fairly."

In his autobiography, Franklin described a series of formative incidents where he confronted racism while seeking to volunteer his services at the beginning of the Second World War. He attempted to respond to the Navy's search for qualified clerical workers, but after he presented his extensive qualifications, the Navy recruiter told him that he was the wrong color for the position. He was similarly unsuccessful in finding a position with a War Department historical project. When he went to have a blood test as required for the draft, the doctor initially refused to allow him into his office. Afterward, Franklin took steps to avoid the draft, on the basis that the country did not respect him or have an interest in his well-being, because of his color.^[3]

In the early 1950s, Franklin served on the NAACP Legal Defense Fund team led by Thurgood Marshall, which helped develop the sociological case for Brown v. Board of Education. This led to the 1954 United States Supreme Court decision ending the legal segregation of black and white children in public schools.^[4]

Professor and researcher[link]

Franklin's teaching career^[5] began at Fisk University. During WWII, he taught at St. Augustine's College and North Carolina College.

From 1947 to 1956, he taught at Howard University. In 1956, Franklin was selected to chair the history department at Brooklyn College, the first person of color to head a major history department. Franklin served there until 1964, when he was recruited by the University of Chicago. He spent 1962 as a visiting professor at the University of Cambridge, holding the Professorship of American History and Institutions.

David Levering Lewis, who has won the Pulitzer Prize for history, said that while he was deciding to become a historian, news came that Franklin, his mentor, had been named departmental chairman at Brooklyn College.

"Now that certainly is a distinction. It had never happened before that a person of color had chaired a major history department. That meant a lot to me. If I had doubt about (the) viability of a career in history, that example certainly helped put to rest such concerns."^[6]

In researching his prize-winning biographies of W. E. B. Du Bois, Lewis said he became aware of Franklin's

"courage during that period in the 1950s when Du Bois became an un-person, when many progressives were tarred and feathered with the brush of subversion. John Hope Franklin was a rock; he was loyal to his friends. In the case of W. E. B. Du Bois, Franklin spoke out in his defense, not (about) Du Bois's communism, but of the right of an intellectual to express ideas that were not popular. I find that admirable. It was a high risk to take and we may be heading again into a period when the free concourse of ideas in the academy will have a price put upon it. In the final years of an active teaching career, I will have John Hope Franklin's example of high scholarship, great courage and civic activism."^[6]

From 1964 through 1968, Franklin was a professor of history at the University of Chicago, and chair of the department from 1967 to 1970. He was named to the endowed position of John Matthews Manly Distinguished Service Professor, which he held from 1969 to 1982. He was appointed to the Fulbright Board of Foreign Scholarships, 1962–69, and was its chair from 1966 to 1969.

In 1976, the National Endowment for the Humanities selected Franklin for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities.^[7] Franklin's three-part lecture became the basis for his book Racial Equality in America.^[8]

Franklin was appointed to the U.S. Delegation to the UNESCO General Conference, Belgrade (1980).

In 1983, Franklin was appointed the James B. Duke Professor of History at Duke University. In 1985, he took emeritus status. Franklin was also Professor of Legal History at the Duke University Law School from 1985-92.

[edit] Racial Equality in America

Racial Equality in America is the published lecture series that Franklin presented in 1976 for the Jefferson Lecture sponsored by the National Endowment for Humanities. The book divides into three lectures, given in 3 different cities, chronicling the history of race in the United States from revolutionary times to 1976. These lectures explore the differences between some of the beliefs related to race with the reality documented in various historical and government texts as well as data gathered from census, property, and literary sources. The first lecture is titled “The Dream Deferred” and discusses the period from the revolution to 1820. The second lecture is titled “The Old Order Changeth Not” and discusses the rest of the 19th century. The third lecture is titled “Equality Indivisible” and discusses the 20th century.

Later life[link]

In 2005, at the age of 90, Franklin published and lectured ^[9] on his new autobiography, Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin. In 2006, he received the John W. Kluge Prize and as the recipient lectured on the successes and failures of race relations in America in Where do We Go from Here?^[10]

In 2008, Franklin endorsed presidential candidate Barack Obama.^[11]

Franklin died at Duke University Medical Center on the morning of March 25, 2009.^[12]

Honors[link]

In 1991, Franklin's students honored him with a festschrift The Facts of Reconstruction: Essays in Honor of John Hope Franklin (edited by Eric Anderson & Alfred A. Moss, Jr. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, c1991).

Franklin served as president of the American Historical Association (1979), the American Studies Association (1967), the Southern Historical Association (1970), and the Organization of American Historians (1975). He was a member of the board of trustees at Fisk University, the Chicago Public Library, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association.

Frankin was elected as a foundation member of Fisk's new chapter of Phi Beta Kappa in 1953, when Fisk became the first historically black college to have a chapter of the honor society.^[13] In 1973-76, he served as President of the United Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa.^[5]

Additionally, Franklin was appointed to serve on national commissions, including the National Council on the Humanities, the President's Advisory Commission on Ambassadorial Appointments, and One America: The President's Initiative on Race.

Franklin was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. He was an early beneficiary of the fraternity's Foundation Publishers, which provides financial support and fellowship for writers addressing African-American issues.

The John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture resides at the Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library and contains his personal and professional papers.^[14] The archive is one of three academic units named after Franklin at Duke. The others are the John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies, which opened in February 2001 and the Franklin Humanities Institute. Franklin had previously rejected Duke's offer to name a center for African-American Studies after him, saying that he was a historian of America and the world, too.^[4]

In 1994, the Society of American Historians (founded by Allan Nevins and other historians to encourage literary distinction in the writing of history) awarded Franklin its Bruce Catton Prize for Lifetime Achievement.^[15]

In 1995, Franklin was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

In 1997, Franklin was selected to receive the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award, a career literary award given annually by the Tulsa Library Trust. Franklin was the first (and so far only) native Oklahoman to receive the award. During his visit to Tulsa to accept the award, Franklin made several appearances to speak about his childhood experiences with racial segregation, as well as his father's experiences as a lawyer in the aftermath of the 1921 Tulsa race riot.^[16][17][18]

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante included Franklin on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.^[19]

On May 20, 2006, Franklin was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters at Lafayette College's 171st Commencement Exercises.

On November 15, 2006, John Hope Franklin was announced as the third recipient of the John W. Kluge Prize for lifetime achievement in the study of humanity. He shared the prize with Yu Ying-shih.^[20][21]

Partial bibliography[link]

References[link]

Specific references:

General references:

External links[link]

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (September 2009)

• An excerpted portion of an oral history interview with Franklin from StoryCorps, broadcast on NPR March 27, 2009
• In Depth interview with Franklin, October 1, 2006
• Oral History Interview with John Hope Franklin from Oral Histories of the American South
• John Hope Franklin, The History Makers biography
• Tavis Smiley interviews Franklin, first broadcast February 15, 2006
• Charlie Rose interviews Franklin
• John Hope Franklin's oral history video excerpts at The National Visionary Leadership Project
• UNC-TV Webcast interview with John Hope Franklin
• APM-The Story (with Dick Gordon) interview with John Hope Franklin 2/7/07
• John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies
• John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute
• John Hope Franklin Collection of African and African American Documentation, Duke University Libraries
• Tar Heel of the Year, 1998: John Hope Franklin, News & Observer
• Historian Helped Blaze a Civil Rights Path, Wil Haygood, The Washington Post, March 26, 2009
• Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture - Franklin, John Hope

Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall, 1976.
Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court
In office October 2, 1967[1] – October 1, 1991
Nominated by	Lyndon B. Johnson
Preceded by	Tom C. Clark
Succeeded by	Clarence Thomas
32nd United States Solicitor General
In office August 1965 – August 1967
President	Lyndon B. Johnson
Preceded by	Archibald Cox
Succeeded by	Erwin N. Griswold
Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
In office August 1961 – August 1965
Nominated by	John F. Kennedy
Preceded by	New Seat
Succeeded by	Wilfred Feinberg
Personal details
Born	(1908-07-02)July 2, 1908 Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
Died	January 24, 1993(1993-01-24) (aged 84) Bethesda, Maryland, U.S.
Spouse(s)	Vivian "Buster" Burey (1929-1955) (her death) Cecilia Suyat (1955-1993) (his death)
Alma mater	Lincoln University Howard University School of Law
Religion	Episcopalian

Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, serving from October 1967 until October 1991. Marshall was the Court's 96th justice and its first African-American justice.

Before becoming a judge, Marshall was a lawyer who was best remembered for his high success rate in arguing before the Supreme Court and for the victory in Brown v. Board of Education. He argued more cases before the United States Supreme Court than anyone else in history.^[2] He served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit after being appointed by President John F. Kennedy and then served as the Solicitor General after being appointed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965. President Johnson nominated him to the United States Supreme Court in 1967.

Early life[link]

Henry Highland Garnet School (P.S. 103) where Marshall attended elementary school

Marshall was born in Baltimore, Maryland on July 2, 1908, the great-grandson of a slave^[3] who was born in modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congo.^[4] His grandfather was also a slave.^[2] His original name was Thoroughgood, but he shortened it to Thurgood in second grade because he disliked spelling it. His father, William Marshall, who was a railroad porter, and his mother Norma, a teacher, instilled in him an appreciation for the Constitution of the United States and the rule of law.^[5]

Education[link]

Marshall graduated from Frederick Douglass High School in Baltimore in 1925 and from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania in 1930. At Lincoln University, Marshall was initiated as a member of the first black fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha.

Marshall wanted to apply to his hometown law school, the University of Maryland School of Law, but the dean said he would not be accepted because of the school's segregation policy. Marshall instead attended Howard University School of Law, where he graduated from, first in his class, in 1933. Three years later, Marshall would successfully represent his client in bringing suit against the University of Maryland Law School for its policy, ending segregation there (see Murray v. Pearson).

Marriage and family[link]

Marshall was married twice. He married Vivian "Buster" Burey in 1929. After her death in February 1955, Marshall married Cecilia Suyat in December of that year. They were married until his own death in 1993 and had two sons together,^[6] Thurgood Marshall, Jr., a former top aide to President Bill Clinton, and John W. Marshall, a former United States Marshals Service Director and Virginia Secretary of Public Safety.

Law career[link]

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2010)

Marshall set up a private practice in Baltimore in 1936. That year, he began working with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Baltimore.

He won his first major civil rights case, Murray v. Pearson, 169 Md. 478 (1936). This was the first challenge of the "separate but equal" doctrine that was part of the Plessy v. Ferguson decision. His co-counsel on the case, Charles Hamilton Houston, developed the strategy. Marshall represented Donald Gaines Murray, a black Amherst College graduate with excellent credentials, who had been denied admission to the University of Maryland Law School because of its segregation policy. Black students in Maryland wanting to study law had to accept one of three options, attend: Morgan College, the Princess Anne Academy, or out-of-state black institutions.

In 1935, Thurgood Marshall argued the case for Murray, showing that neither of the in-state institutions offered a law school and that such schools were entirely unequal in quality to the University of Maryland. Marshall and Houston expected to lose and intended to appeal to the federal courts. The Maryland Court of Appeals ruled against the state of Maryland and its Attorney General, who represented the University of Maryland, stating, "Compliance with the Constitution cannot be deferred at the will of the state. Whatever system is adopted for legal education must furnish equality of treatment now." While it was a moral victory, the state court's ruling had no authority outside of Maryland.

Chief Counsel for the NAACP[link]

At the age of 32, Marshall won his first U.S. Supreme Court case, Chambers v. Florida, 309 U.S. 227 (1940). That same year, he was appointed Chief Counsel for the NAACP. He argued many other civil rights cases before the Supreme Court, most of them successfully, including Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944); Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948); Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950); and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, 339 U.S. 637 (1950). His most famous case as a lawyer was Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), the case in which the Supreme Court ruled that "separate but equal" public education, as established by Plessy v. Ferguson, was not applicable to public education because it could never be truly equal. In total, Marshall won 29 out of the 32 cases he argued before the Supreme Court.

During the 1950s, Thurgood Marshall developed a friendly relationship with J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In 1956, for example, he privately praised Hoover's campaign to discredit T.R.M. Howard, a maverick civil rights leader from Mississippi. During a national speaking tour, Howard had criticized the FBI's failure to seriously investigate cases such as the 1955 killers of George W. Lee and Emmett Till. In a private letter to Hoover, Marshall "attacked Howard as a 'rugged individualist' who did not speak for the NAACP."^[7] Two years earlier Howard had arranged for Marshall to deliver a well-received speech at a rally of his Regional Council of Negro Leadership in Mound Bayou, Mississippi only days before the Brown decision.^[8] According to historians David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, “Marshall’s disdain for Howard was almost visceral. [He] 'disliked Howard’s militant tone and maverick stance' and 'was well aware that Hoover’s attack served to take the heat off the NAACP and provided opportunities for closer collaboration [between the NAACP and the FBI] in civil rights.'"^[7]

Court of Appeals and Solicitor General[link]

President John F. Kennedy appointed Marshall to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1961 to a new seat created on May 19, 1961 by 75 Stat. 80. A group of Senators from the South, led by Mississippi's James Eastland, held up his confirmation, so he served for the first several months under a recess appointment. Marshall remained on that court until 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him to be the United States Solicitor General, the first African American to hold the office.^[9] As Solicitor General, he won 14 out of the 19 cases that he argued for the government.

U.S. Supreme Court[link]

Thurgood Marshall photographed in 1967 in the Oval Office

On June 13, 1967, President Johnson nominated Marshall to the Supreme Court following the retirement of Justice Tom C. Clark, saying that this was "the right thing to do, the right time to do it, the right man and the right place." Marshall was confirmed as an Associate Justice by a Senate vote of 69–11 on August 30, 1967.^[10] He was the 96th person to hold the position, and the first African American. President Johnson confidently predicted to one biographer, Doris Kearns Goodwin, that a lot of black baby boys would be named "Thurgood" in honor of this choice.^[11]