LAD #39: Brown V. Board of Education

Brown v. Board of education began the civil rights movement in 1954 when the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional. The supreme court had previously ruled in Plessy vs. Ferguson that public facilities and schools are allowed to be segregated as long as they were separate but equal. In 1954 however, Brown served the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas because his daughter Linda Brown was denied entrance into an all white school. Brown said the schools for black children were not equal to those of white children and cited the 14th Amendment which states that States cannot "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."  The supreme court combined this case with other cases dealing with school segregation and ruled on all of them under Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. Marshall was the chief attorney for the plaintiffs, and he later became the first African American on the Supreme Court. The Court ruled that segregated schools are "inherently unequal," and decided that African American students were being "deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment." 

Affirmative Action was enacted by John F Kennedy with executive order 10925 and furthered the civil rights movement.