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.

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]

Marshall served on the Court for the next twenty-four years, compiling a liberal record that included strong support for Constitutional protection of individual rights, especially the rights of criminal suspects against the government. His most frequent ally on the Court (the pair rarely voted at odds) was Justice William Brennan, who consistently joined him in supporting abortion rights and opposing the death penalty. Brennan and Marshall concluded in Furman v. Georgia that the death penalty was, in all circumstances, unconstitutional, and never accepted the legitimacy of Gregg v. Georgia, which ruled four years later that the death penalty was constitutional in some circumstances. Thereafter, Brennan or Marshall dissented from every denial of certiorari in a capital case and from every decision upholding a sentence of death.^{[citation needed]} In 1987, Marshall gave a controversial speech on the occasion of the bicentennial celebrations of the Constitution of the United States.^[12] Marshall stated,

"the government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war, and major social transformations to attain the system of constitutional government and its respect for the freedoms and individual rights, we hold as fundamental today."

In conclusion Marshall stated

"Some may more quietly commemorate the suffering, struggle, and sacrifice that has triumphed over much of what was wrong with the original document, and observe the anniversary with hopes not realized and promises not fulfilled. I plan to celebrate the bicentennial of the Constitution as a living document, including the Bill of Rights and the other amendments protecting individual freedoms and human rights."^[13]

Although best remembered for jurisprudence in the fields of civil rights and criminal procedure, Marshall made significant contributions to other areas of the law as well. In Teamsters v. Terry he held that the Seventh Amendment entitled the plaintiff to a jury trial in a suit against a labor union for breach of duty of fair representation. In TSC Industries, Inc. v. Northway, Inc. he articulated a formulation for the standard of materiality in United States securities law that is still applied and used today. In Cottage Savings Association v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, he weighed in on the income tax consequences of the Savings and Loan crisis, permitting a savings and loan association to deduct a loss from an exchange of mortgage participation interests. In Personnel Administrator MA v. Feeney, Marshall wrote a dissent saying that a law that gave hiring preference to veterans over non-veterans was unconstitutional because of its inequitable impact on women.

Among his many law clerks were attorneys who went on to become judges themselves, such as Judge Douglas Ginsburg of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals; Judge Ralph Winter of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit; Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan; as well as notable law professors Dan Kahan, Cass Sunstein, Eben Moglen, Susan Low Bloch, Martha Minow, Rick Pildes, Paul Gewirtz, and Mark Tushnet (and editor of Thurgood Marshall: His Speeches, Writings, Arguments, Opinions and Reminiscences, cited hereafter); and law school deans Paul Mahoney of University of Virginia School of Law, and Richard Revesz of New York University School of Law. See, List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Marshall retired from the Supreme Court in 1991, and was reportedly unhappy that it would fall to President George H. W. Bush to name his replacement.^[14] Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to replace Marshall.

Death and legacy[link]

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

	Screening of Thurgood at the White House Video commemorating Thurgood Marshall's life with the screening of Thurgood, a play starring Laurence Fishburne at the White House as part of Black History Month 2011. The Video discusses Marshall's life and legacy. Screening of Thurgood at the White House Audio only version.
Problems listening to these files? See media help.

Marshall died of heart failure at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, at 2:58 pm on January 24, 1993 at the age of 84. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.^[15][16][17] His second wife and their two sons survived him.

Marshall left all of his personal papers and notes to the Library of Congress. The Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington, opened Marshall's papers for immediate use by scholars, journalists and the public, insisting that this was Marshall's intent. The Marshall family and several of his close associates disputed this claim.^[18] The decision to make the documents public was supported by the American Library Association.^[19] A list of the archived manuscripts is available.^[20]

U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (left) and Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler talk in Lawyer's Mall, near a statue of Thurgood Marshall (October 2007).

There are numerous memorials to Marshall. One, an eight-foot statue, stands in Lawyers Mall adjacent to the Maryland State House. The statue, dedicated on October 22, 1996, depicts Marshall as a young lawyer and it is placed just a few feet away from where the Old Maryland Supreme Court Building stood; the court where Marshall had argued discrimination cases leading up to the Brown decision.^[21] The primary office building for the federal court system, located on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C., is named in honor of Justice Marshall and contains a statue of him in the atrium. In 1976, Texas Southern University renamed their law school after the sitting justice.^[22] In 1980, the University of Maryland School of Law opened a new library which they named the Thurgood Marshall Law Library.^[23] In 2000, the historic Twelfth Street YMCA Building located in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington, D.C. was renamed the Thurgood Marshall Center. The major airport serving Baltimore and the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC, was renamed the Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport on October 1, 2005. The 2009 General Convention of the Episcopal Church added Marshall to the church's liturgical calendar of "Holy Women, Holy Men: Celebrating the Saints," designating May 17 as his feast day.^[24]

The University of California, San Diego renamed its Third College after Thurgood Marshall in 1993.^[25]

In 2006 Thurgood, a one-man play written by George Stevens, Jr., premiered at the Westport Country Playhouse, starring James Earl Jones and directed by Leonard Foglia^[26]. Later it opened Broadway at the Booth Theatre on April 30, 2008 starring Laurence Fishburne.^[27] On 24th February 2011, HBO screened a filmed version of the play which Fishburne had performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The production was described by the Baltimore Sun as "one of the most frank, informed and searing discussions of race you will ever see on TV."^[28][29]. On 16th February 2011 a screening of the film was hosted by the White House as part of its celebrations of Black History Month^[30][31]

Thurgood Marshall Award[link]

The Legislative Assembly of Puerto Rico instituted^[32] in 1993 the annual Thurgood Marshall Award, given to the top student in civil rights at each of Puerto Rico's four law schools. The awardees are selected by the Commonwealth's Attorney General and includes a $500 monetary award.

Timeline[link]

Marshall in 1957

• 1908 – Born July 2 at Baltimore, Maryland, United States.
• 1930 – Graduates with honors from Lincoln University (cum laude).
• 1934 – Receives law degree from Howard University (magna cum laude) and begins private practice in Baltimore, Maryland.
• 1934 – Begins to work for Baltimore branch of NAACP.
• 1935 – Working with Charles Houston, wins first major civil rights case, Murray v. Pearson.
• 1936 – Becomes assistant special counsel for NAACP in New York.
• 1940 – Wins Chambers v. Florida, the first of twenty-nine Supreme Court victories.
• 1943 – Won case for integration of schools in Hillburn, New York.
• 1944 – Successfully argues Smith v. Allwright, overthrowing the South's "white primary".
• 1948 – Wins Shelley v. Kraemer, in which Supreme Court strikes down legality of racially restrictive covenants.
• 1950 – Wins Supreme Court victories in two graduate-school integration cases, Sweatt v. Painter and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents.
• 1951 – Visits South Korea and Japan to investigate charges of racism in U.S. armed forces. He reported that the general practice was one of "rigid segregation."
• 1954 – Wins Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, landmark case that demolishes legal basis for segregation in America.
• 1956 – Wins Browder v. Gayle, ending the practice of segregation on buses and ending the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
• 1957 – Founds and becomes the first president-director counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., a nonprofit law firm separate and independent of the NAACP
• 1961 – Defends civil rights demonstrators, winning Supreme Court victory in Garner v. Louisiana; nominated to Second Circuit Court of Appeals by President John F. Kennedy.
• 1961 – Appointed circuit judge, makes 112 rulings, none of them reversed on certiorari by Supreme Court (1961–1965).
• 1965 – Appointed United States Solicitor General by President Lyndon B. Johnson; wins 14 of the 19 cases he argues for the government (1965–1967).
• 1967 – Becomes first African American named to U.S. Supreme Court (1967–1991).
• 1991 – Retires from the Supreme Court.
• 1992 – Receives the Liberty Medal recognizing his long history of protecting individual rights under the Constitution.
• 1993 – Dies at age 84 in Bethesda, Maryland, near Washington, D.C.
• 1993 – Receives Presidential Medal of Freedom, posthumously, from President Bill Clinton.

For more, see Bradley C. S. Watson, "The Jurisprudence of William Joseph Brennan, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall" in Frost, Bryan-Paul and Jeffrey Sikkenga. eds. History of American Political Thought (Lexington: Lexington Books, 2003). ISBN 0-7391-0623-6; ISBN 978-0-7391-0623-5; ISBN 978-0-393-92886-0.

Books authored[link]

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Thurgood Marshall

• Marshall, Thurgood; Tushnet, Mark V. (Editor); and Kennedy, Randall (Forward by). (2001). Thurgood Marshall: His Speeches, Writings, Arguments, Opinions and Reminiscences. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, Incorporated – Lawrence Hill Books. ISBN 978-1-55652-386-1.. 

See also[link]

	Government of the United States portal
	Law portal
	Biography portal

• List of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States
• List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States
• List of U.S. Supreme Court Justices by time in office
• List of United States Chief Justices by time in office
• United States Supreme Court cases during the Warren Court
• United States Supreme Court cases during the Burger Court
• United States Supreme Court cases during the Rehnquist Court

Notes[link]

Further reading[link]

External links[link]

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Thurgood Marshall

• Ariens, Michael, Thurgood Marshall.
• Booknotes interview with Hunter Clark and Michael Davis on Thurgood Marshall: Warrior at the Bar, Rebel on the Bench, January 3, 1993.
• Booknotes interview with Williams on Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary, October 11, 1998.
• Fox, John, Expanding Civil Rights, Biographies of the Robes, Thurgood Marshall. Public Broadcasting Service.
• Miscellaneous biographies at Answers.com.
• Oyez, official Supreme Court media, Thurgood Marshall.
• Supreme Court Historical Society Thurgood Marshall.
• Thurgood Marshall at Find a Grave
• REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT IN CEREMONY HONORING MEDAL OF FREEDOM RECIPIENTS – November 30, 1993
• Oral History Interview with Thurgood Marshall, from the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library
• FBI file on Thurgood Marshall

v t e United States Solicitors General Bristow • Phillips • Goode • Jenks • Chapman • Taft • Aldrich • Maxwell • Conrad • Richards • Hoyt • Bowers • Lehmann • Bullitt • Davis • King • Frierson • Beck • Mitchell • Hughes • Thacher • Biggs • Reed • Jackson • Biddle • Fahy • McGrath • Perlman • Cummings • Sobeloff • Rankin • Cox • Marshall • Griswold • Bork • McCree • Lee • Fried • Starr • Days • Dellinger (acting) • Waxman • Barbara Underwood (acting) • Olson • Clement • Garre • Kneedler (acting) • Kagan • Katyal (acting) • Verrilli