Key Cases

Thurgood Marshall and other members of the N.A.A.C.P. legal defense team who worked on the Brown v. Board of Education case. Credit: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, The New York Public Library.

Essential Question:

What important cases involving change, fairness, and equality were led by Thurgood Marshall?


 

 

Case # 3 – Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

One of the most important Supreme Court cases in U.S. history is Brown v. Board of Education (1954). The Brown v. Board case built on the legal strategy Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall began with the Murray v. Pearson (1936) case: using the law to challenge segregation in the United States.

The Brown v. Board case also connects to an earlier Supreme Court decision: Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). In that case, the Court ruled that segregation was legal if facilities were “separate but equal.” Southern states used this decision to keep African Americans and White people separated. 

This separation was clear in schools. African American children often attended schools that were very different from White schools. Many schools had dirt floors, few windows and little heat. The furniture was often broken, and the books were old with damaged or missing pages. 

During the 1930s, Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall saw these conditions on a trip through the South. Thurgood Marshall was shocked and angry to see the poor conditions in the schools. He also noticed that the schools had talented Black teachers who worked very hard and were not paid very much money. He never forgot that trip. From that day forward, he had a mission: He would improve education for Black children and fight segregation. The NAACP wanted to end racial segregation. Thurgood Marshall dedicated his life to helping them.

In 1954, the Supreme Court heard the Brown v. Board case, along with four other cases about segregation in education. Together, the cases showed that “separate but equal” really meant unequal. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote the Court’s unanimous opinion: segregated schools were not equal. Forcing African American children to attend inferior schools violated the 14th Amendment’s promise of equality and fairness.

The Brown v. Board decision overturned Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). “Separate but equal” was no longer the law. The Brown v. Board (1954) decision was a key turning point in the civil rights movement. It still influences how we look at fairness and equality in education today.