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Definition: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka from Brewer's Dictionary of Modern Phrase and Fable

A legal case in which on 17 May 1954 the US Supreme Court ruled unanimously that racial segregation in public schools violated the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which says that no state may deny equal protection of the laws to any person within its jurisdiction. Although the decision was limited to the public schools, it was believed to imply that segregation was not permissible in other public facilities.


Brown v. Board of Education

From Encyclopedia of American Studies
The Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision (347 U.S. 483 [1954]; 349 U.S. 294 [1955]) was actually four cases considered under one rubric, with a companion case, Bolling v. Sharpe (1954). The central question considered was whether legally imposed racial segregation in public primary and secondary education violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, while Bolling took up the segregation issue for the District of Columbia and the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. In Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the Court had upheld segregation, in a case involving intrastate railway transportation, under the separate but equal doctrine, and most court cases upheld this doctrine until the late 1930s. Then the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) began a successful assault on educational segregation, working downward from graduate and professional higher education in a series of cases including Missouri ex rel., Gaines v. …
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Full text Article Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

From The Great American History Fact-Finder
A decision by the U.S. Supreme Court of five cases challenging segregation laws requiring separate public schools for whites and blacks, a landmark of American constitutional history, and a symbol for the cause of civil rights. The case took its name from the lawsuit brought on behalf of Linda…
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Full text Article Brown v. Board of Education

From The SAGE Encyclopedia of Higher Education
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) was a momentous Supreme Court case that officially ended de jure (imposed by law) school segregation in the United States. A significant roadblock to achieving educational equality came in the Supreme Court’s earlier 1896 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson , …
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Full text Article Brown v. Board of Education

From Encyclopedia of American Studies
Map of the United States, showing school...
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Full text Article Brown v. Board of Education

From Gale Encyclopedia of Children's Health: Infancy Through Adolescence
Brown v. Board of Education 347 U.S. 483 (1954), is the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision overruling the constitutionality of the “separate but equal” doctrine that had been the legal basis for racial segregation of public schools in the United States. The full name of the case is Oliver Brown et…
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Full text Article Brown v. Board of Education

From Encyclopedia of Race and Racism
Civil Rights Victory, 1954. The winning attorneys...
The landmark 1954 US Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka marks a historic moment in the struggle for access to a quality education for African Americans in the United States. A full understanding of the importance of the decision and also its limitations in achieving the…
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Full text Article Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

From Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History
The Brown v. Board of Education National Historic...
Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1954 that struck down the “separate but equal” doctrine that had long served as the rationale for racial segregation in American schools. Ruling unanimously that segregation in public schools violated the Fourteenth…
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Full text Article Brown v. Board of Education

From Milestone Documents in American History: Exploring the Primary Sources That Shaped America
Brown v. Board of Education (National Archives...
Author Earl Warren Date 1954 Type Legal Significance Declared that legally mandated segregation in public schools was unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause Overview Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was the 1954 Supreme Court decision that declared that…
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© BETTMANN/HISTORICAL PREMIUM/CORBIS
Holding a...
The United States Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), signaled America's definitive emergence, at least on a legal plane, from an entrenched system of racial segregation. So-called Jim Crow laws and customs, occurring mainly but not exclusively in the South, …
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(1954) U.S. Supreme Court case in which the court ruled unanimously that racial segregation in public schools violated the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The amendment says that no state may deny equal protection of the laws to any person within its jurisdiction. The court declared…
| 180 words
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Full text Article Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

From The Schlager Anthology of Black America: A Student's Guide to Essential Primary Sources Full text Article Double V: African Americans, World War II, and the Cold War
Thurgood Marshall, shown in a 1957 photograph,...
Author Chief Justice Earl Warren Date 1954 Type Legal Signifigance Major Supreme Court decision striking down the legal segregation of educational institutions in the United States Overview A landmark case, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was actually a combination of five cases that…
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