11. Oliver Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka et al. – commonly simplified as Brown v. Board – overturned racial segregation in 1954
Following legal endorsement by the Supreme Court of racial segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, racial separation became a systemic aspect of American society. Increasingly tarring the image of the United States abroad, the court’s Justices increasingly vocalized opposition to the institution and invited legal challenges. Culminating in a collective suit led by the NAACP concerning most famously the case of Oliver Brown’s daughter, Linda, who was denied enrollment at a nearby school on grounds of her race, a succession of lesser courts upheld the decision by the Board of Education of Topeka citing Plessy v. Ferguson.
Upon arriving at the United States Supreme Court, however, the Justices issued a rare unanimous verdict proclaiming “separate but equal” to be unconstitutional for educational institutions as they were “inherently unequal”. Finding all such facilities to be in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court issued a subsequent order as part of Brown II for all states to desegregate “with all deliberate speed”. Met with anger and resistance throughout much of the American South, the overturning of Plessy v. Ferguson paved the way for the Civil Rights Movement and racial integration despite the ardent opposition the ruling received.