LAD #39: Brown v. Board of Education
Summarize: The landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was a 1954 Supreme Court case that marked the start of the Civil Rights Movement. The judges unanimously ruled that segregation within public schools was unconstitutional. As opposed to the earlier court case of Plessy v. Ferguson, this case set the precedent that "separate but equal" was often not equal and, therefore, unconstitutional. In 1896, the Supreme Court had ruled that segregation was an acceptable practice, as long as it was equal. In Plessy v. Ferguson, the court established that laws barring African Americans from buses, schools, and other public facilities (Jim Crow laws) were legal. These laws continued to occur throughout the following six decades. In fact, it was not until the 1950s that this precedent was challenged. The NAACP, or the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People, worked hard to abolish the laws that segregated public schools. In Topeka, Kansas, Oliver Brown filed a