In 1896, the Supreme Court held that a railway law segregating the races into separate cars or trains was permissible as long as equal accommodations were provided, stating that this practice did not stamp African-Americans with “a badge of inferiority.” The Court’s decision in Plessy v. Ferguson subsequently was used to uphold segregation in other aspects of public life. Not until 1954 and Brown v. Board did the Court confront the constitutionality of its “separate but equal” doctrine.

Brown v. Board arose when a Topeka elementary school denied admission to the daughter of an African-American railroad worker. Writing for a unanimous Court, Chief Justice Earl Warren declared that segregation made African-American school children feel inferior “in a way unlikely ever to be undone.” The Court held that, because a student who felt inferior would have difficulty learning, separate schools “are inherently unequal.” School segregation therefore violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which requires the equal treatment of all citizens.

Although Brown v. Board failed to bring about immediate school integration, its principle formed the basis for federal laws desegregating other public facilities and helped pave the way for the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

PostScript: Warren was the Republican Party’s candidate for Vice President on the unsuccessful 1948 ticket headed by Thomas Dewey. Thurgood Marshall, who argued the Brown case as counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, joined Warren in 1967, thus becoming the first African-American elevated to Supreme Court Justice.