‘Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal’

The Supreme Court handed down its opinion in Brown v. Board of Education on this date in 1954.

We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other “tangible” factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does.

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Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia were effected. Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia had mandatory segregation. Kansas, New Mexico, Arizona and Wyoming had laws that permitted segregation, though the law had never been applied in Wyoming.

The Board of Education in the case title is the Topeka, Kansas, board. The decision actually dealt with four cases from Kansas (Topeka), South Carolina (Clarendon County), Virginia (Prince Edward County), and Delaware (New Castle County).

The decision was 9-0.