May 17th: On This Day in 1954 - Brown v. Board of Education

May 17, 1954: The United States Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Brown v. Board of Education, deciding that racial segregation in public educational facilities is unconstitutional. The case centered on Linda Brown, an African American girl, who had been denied admission to her local elementary school in Topeka, Kansas, because of the color of her skin.

This was a landmark decision, which overturned earlier rulings going back to Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, by declaring that state laws that established separate public schools for black and white students denied black children equal educational opportunities. The Warren Court's unanimous (9-0) decision stated that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." As a result, de jure racial segregation was ruled a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.