May 17 …

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality.

Although there was an elementary school just four blocks from the Topeka, KS, home of Oliver Brown and his family, his eight-year-old daughter, Linda wasn’t allowed to enroll there. Because she was Black, she had to travel by bus to a school 25 blocks away. When Oliver Brown’s request to have Linda transferred to the nearby school was denied, he sued the board of education.

In 1952, the case came before the Supreme Court, which grouped it with four other school-desegregation cases. The key attorney on the desegregation side was NAACP counsel Thurgood Marshall. The decision would affect 12 million children attending segregated schools in 21 states.

Chief Justice Earl Warren announced the Court’s unanimous opinion on May 17, 1954, stating, “We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”

It was ‘the sweetest of days,’ NAACP leader Roy Wilkins later recalled.