July 9, 1868
The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified on this date, granting citizenship and equal protection under the law to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” including formerly enslaved people.
May 18, 1896
On this date, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld state-imposed Jim Crow laws through this “separate but equal” ruling. This became the legal basis for racial segregation in the United States for over half a century.
February 12, 1909
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded by W.E.B. DuBois, Ida Wells-Barnett, Mary White Ovington, and others to use legal action to eliminate lynching and fight racial injustice.
November 21, 1927
The Supreme Court asserted that a Mississippi school district may require a Chinese American girl to attend a segregated Black school rather than a white school.
1935
Charles Hamilton Houston, with the assistance of Thurgood Marshall, began challenging segregation in graduate and professional schools. Houston developed a legal strategy that would be successfully used in Brown v. Board of Education.
1939
Thurgood Marshall succeeded his mentor, Charles Hamilton Houston, as Special Counsel for the NAACP
May 16, 1950
The NAACP launched a test case in Clarendon County, SC in which 20 plaintiffs challenged public school segregation. This case was one that was consolidated by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education.
1950
These two Supreme Court cases led to rulings that stated that segregated school facilities were inherently unequal and interfered with Black students’ abilities to “study, to engage in discussions, and exchange views with other students.”
February 28, 1951
On this date, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was filed in Federal district court in Kansas.
Summer 1951
Robert Carter led the NAACP legal team into trial, and a three-judge panel unanimously decided that Topeka’s schools had “no willful, intentional, or substantial discrimination,” that the physical school facilities in white and Black schools were comparable, and the decisions in Sweatt v. Painter and McLaurin only applied to higher education.
October 1952
The Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in five school desegregation cases collectively, including Briggs v. Elliott, which showed that school segregation was a national issue not just a southern one.
December 9-11, 1952; December 7-9, 1953
First and second rounds of arguments held in Brown and companion cases in the Supreme Court.
March 1, 1954
The Senate confirmed President Eisenhower’s appointment for Chief Justice, Earl Warren.
May 17, 1954
In its ruling for Brown v. Board, the Supreme Court overturned Plessy v. Ferguson by declaring that segregation in public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
May 31, 1955
The Supreme Court handed down Brown II decision regarding remedies and ordered that school desegregation should occur with “all deliberate speed.”
February 25, 1956
The Virginia Legislature calls for “massive resistance” to school desegregation and pledges to close schools under desegregation orders.
September 4, 1957
Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas deploys the Arkansas National Guard to block Nine Black students from entering the previously all-white high school.
November 14, 1960
Six-year-old Ruby Bridges is escorted by federal marshals into William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, becoming the first Black student to integrate an all-white elementary school in the South.
January 11, 1961
A federal district court orders the University of Georgia to admit African American students Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter. After a riot on campus, the two are suspended. A court later reinstates them.
July 2, 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is signed, allowing the federal government to enforce school desegregation (Title IV) and banning discrimination in federally funded programs, including schools (Title VI).
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Students explore Investigation Stations to better understand the pivotal Brown v. Board of Education case that recognized the human and civil rights of all students by declaring school segregation unconstitutional.
