Thurgood Marshall Wins Brown v. Board of Education

On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, in a case argued by NAACP chief counsel Thurgood Marshall. The decision overturned the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling that had provided constitutional cover for Jim Crow segregation across American life. Brown v. Board is the most consequential legal victory in the history of the civil rights movement and one of the most important Supreme Court decisions in American history.