Brown v. Board and the Civil Rights Movement
The Court strikes down school segregation and a movement transforms the law
Quick facts
- Brown v. Board decided
- May 17, 1954, unanimously
- Overturned
- Plessy v. Ferguson's separate but equal
- Civil Rights Act
- July 2, 1964
- Voting Rights Act
- August 6, 1965
What happened
On May 17, 1954, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal, overturning the separate-but-equal doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson and declaring segregated public schools unconstitutional. The decision, bundling five cases begun by the NAACP, energized a mass movement against Jim Crow. Over the next decade, boycotts, sit-ins, freedom rides, and marches, met with violence and mass arrests, forced the issue onto the national agenda. The movement's pressure produced two great federal laws: the Civil Rights Act, signed by President Lyndon Johnson on July 2, 1964, which prohibited discrimination in public places and employment, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed the literacy tests and other devices used to keep Black Americans from voting.
Why it matters
The civil rights movement dismantled the legal structure of segregation and disenfranchisement that had stood since the end of Reconstruction, finally beginning to redeem the promises of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments nearly a century after they were written. Its laws and its tactics reshaped American democracy and became a model for later movements for equality.
How we know
The Brown decision and the 1964 and 1965 civil rights laws survive in the National Archives and the U.S. Reports, and the movement is documented in an enormous record of contemporary news coverage, government files, and participants' accounts.
Sources
- National Archives. Brown v. Board of Education (1954) · Primary source (author-declared)archives.gov · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- National Archives. Civil Rights Act (1964) · Primary source (author-declared)archives.gov · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- National Park Service. Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park: History & Culture · Reputable sourcenps.gov · The domain "nps.gov" is on our Reputable source registry.
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Related timelines
- The Civil Rights Movement → · This is the national-spine view; see the Civil Rights Movement timeline for Montgomery, Birmingham, the March on Washington, Selma, and the movement's leaders and turning points.