The people involved in Brown v. Board of Education included dozens of families from five states, students who organized their own protests, a team of NAACP attorneys led by Thurgood Marshall, defense counsel headed by former presidential candidate John W. Davis, the U.S. Department of Justice acting as a friend of the court, two lower court judges whose rulings shaped the appeal, and the nine Supreme Court justices who delivered a unanimous ruling on May 17, 1954. The case was not one lawsuit but five consolidated challenges to school segregation, and the participants ranged from a barber in Washington, D.C. to a sixteen-year-old student in rural Virginia.
The Families and Students Who Brought the Cases
The Supreme Court consolidated five lawsuits under the Brown name. Each came from a different community with a different grievance, and each had its own plaintiffs.
Topeka, Kansas: Oliver Brown and Twelve Other Parents
Oliver Brown, a pastor in Topeka, became the lead plaintiff after his seven-year-old daughter Linda was refused enrollment at Sumner Elementary, the all-white school near their home. Linda had to travel twenty-four blocks to reach Monroe Elementary, the nearest school that admitted Black children.1National Park Service. Rev. Oliver L. Brown Brown was one of thirteen plaintiffs representing twenty children. Each parent walked to their local white school and attempted to register their child, knowing they would be turned away. The Topeka NAACP filed suit in federal court on February 28, 1951, and Brown’s name went first on the filing.2Supreme Court Historical Society. Life Story – Linda Brown
Clarendon County, South Carolina: Harry and Eliza Briggs
The South Carolina case started with a bus. Clarendon County operated more than thirty buses for white students and zero for Black students, forcing some children to walk over seven miles each way. Harry Briggs, his wife Eliza, and over a hundred other parents signed a petition to sue the school district in federal court.3U.S. National Park Service. Briggs v. Elliott The Briggs family paid dearly. Harry Briggs was fired from his job, and other petitioners faced swift economic retaliation from the local white community.
Prince Edward County, Virginia: Barbara Johns and Dorothy Davis
The Virginia case was sparked by a student, not a parent. Barbara Johns, sixteen years old, organized a walkout at Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville on April 23, 1951, keeping nearly 400 students out of classes for two weeks. Moton was housing roughly twice the number of students it was built for, and lacked a gymnasium, a cafeteria, and an auditorium with fixed seats that the nearby white high schools had. The school board’s response to years of complaints had been temporary tar-paper buildings students called “shacks.” NAACP attorneys Oliver Hill and Spottswood Robinson agreed to take the case on one condition: the families had to sue to end segregation, not merely to get better facilities. Dorothy Davis, a fourteen-year-old ninth grader, was listed as the first plaintiff among 117 students and parents.4National Archives. Photographs from the Dorothy Davis Case
Delaware: Ethel Louise Belton and Sarah Bulah
Delaware produced two complaints combined for trial. Ethel Louise Belton and other high-school-age students in the Claymont district were forced to make a twenty-mile round trip to Howard High School in Wilmington, the only high school in the state that admitted Black students. Sarah Bulah’s daughter Shirley Barbara was denied admission to Hockessin School No. 29, a modern whites-only elementary school, and instead attended a one-room schoolhouse with almost no resources.5National Park Service. Belton (Bulah) v. Gebhart
Washington, D.C.: Gardner Bishop and Spottswood Bolling
Gardner Bishop, a barber and parent, spent years organizing against the city’s segregated school system. On September 11, 1950, Bishop led eleven Black students to the newly constructed John Philip Sousa Junior High School and demanded their enrollment. The building had empty classrooms, but the students were turned away because of their race.6U.S. National Park Service. Bolling v. Sharpe The case was filed in 1951 and named for Spottswood Bolling, one of the eleven children. Because the District of Columbia is federal territory, the case was argued under the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause rather than the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause, and the Court decided it separately on the same day as Brown.
The NAACP Legal Team
The lawsuits did not emerge spontaneously. They were the product of a decades-long legal campaign designed by Charles Hamilton Houston, then dean of Howard University School of Law, who left academia in 1934 to lead the NAACP’s legal efforts. Houston recruited talented young lawyers and crisscrossed the country documenting racial bias, building the factual record for a constitutional challenge to segregation. Among his recruits was his star student, Thurgood Marshall.7Smithsonian National Museum of American History. A New Legal Team at the NAACP When Houston stepped down in 1938 due to health problems, Marshall took over leadership of what became the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Marshall later summed up his mentor’s legacy in five words: “We owe it all to Charlie.”
By the time the cases reached the Supreme Court, Marshall had assembled a full team. Robert Carter and Jack Greenberg worked alongside him on the overarching legal strategy. Constance Baker Motley wrote the original complaint in the Brown case itself.8NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The Life and Legacy of Constance Baker Motley Spottswood Robinson and Oliver Hill handled the Virginia case. In Delaware, Louis Redding, the first Black attorney admitted to the Delaware bar, represented both the Belton and Bulah families and made the strategic decision to push for full integration rather than mere equalization of facilities.5National Park Service. Belton (Bulah) v. Gebhart James Nabrit Jr. and George E.C. Hayes argued the District of Columbia case, Bolling v. Sharpe, before the Supreme Court.9Library of Congress. Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497 (1954)
Kenneth and Mamie Clark: The Social Scientists
Two psychologists, Kenneth and Mamie Clark, gave the legal team a piece of evidence that reached beyond traditional legal argument. Their doll experiments from the 1940s used four dolls identical except for skin color. Children between the ages of three and seven were asked which doll was “nice,” which was “bad,” and which looked most like them. A majority of Black children preferred the white doll and assigned negative characteristics to the dark-skinned one. The Clarks concluded that segregation produced a feeling of inferiority in African-American children.10National Park Service. Kenneth and Mamie Clark Doll Chief Justice Warren later relied on this kind of evidence in his opinion.
John W. Davis and the Defense
The school boards brought in John W. Davis, one of the most accomplished appellate lawyers in American history and the 1924 Democratic presidential nominee. Davis had argued more cases before the Supreme Court than any living attorney at the time. He represented South Carolina and led the defense across the consolidated cases.11Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Separate Is Not Equal – The Defenders of Segregation
His argument rested on two pillars. He contended that the Fourteenth Amendment was never intended to prohibit segregation in public schools and that its framers had not contemplated that result. He also argued that public education was a matter of local authority, not federal jurisdiction. Various state attorneys general appeared alongside Davis, presenting evidence that their school systems were substantially equal in funding and physical quality. Their core message was that Plessy v. Ferguson remained good law and that any change should come from legislatures.11Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Separate Is Not Equal – The Defenders of Segregation
The U.S. Government as Amicus Curiae
The federal government weighed in on the plaintiffs’ side through an amicus curiae brief filed by the Department of Justice under Attorney General James P. McGranery. The brief argued that racial segregation was hurting the United States on the world stage during the Cold War, providing ammunition for Communist propaganda and creating “doubts even among friendly nations” about America’s commitment to democratic values. The brief cited Secretary of State Dean Acheson, who warned that school segregation had been “singled out for hostile foreign comment” and threatened the country’s “moral leadership of the free and democratic nations of the world.”
Lower Court Judges Who Shaped the Appeal
Two lower court judges deserve mention because their rulings influenced how the cases arrived at the Supreme Court. In Delaware, Chancellor Collins J. Seitz acknowledged he was bound by Plessy v. Ferguson and could not overrule Supreme Court precedent. But he found the Black schools so clearly inferior that he ordered the immediate admission of Black students to the white schools.12Delaware Courts. Brown v. Board of Education His was the only lower court order that actually required integration, which put the school board in the unusual position of being the party appealing to the Supreme Court.
In South Carolina, federal Judge J. Waties Waring wrote a dissent in Briggs v. Elliott that went further than any federal judge had gone before. While the majority upheld segregation, Waring declared that “segregation in education can never produce equality” and that it was “an evil that must be eradicated.” His dissent did not carry legal force, but it signaled that a constitutional argument could persuade federal judges.
The Supreme Court Justices
The case was first argued in December 1952 before a Court led by Chief Justice Fred Vinson. The justices were deeply divided, and Vinson was not inclined to overturn Plessy. The Court ordered reargument for the following term, asking the parties to address the original intent behind the Fourteenth Amendment. Before the case could be reheard, Vinson died in September 1953, and President Eisenhower appointed Earl Warren as chief justice.13Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Separate Is Not Equal – The Justices Coming to a Decision
Warren set about building a unanimous consensus among nine justices with very different judicial philosophies. Justice Hugo Black, a former senator from Alabama, supported the result. Justice Felix Frankfurter, known for judicial restraint, had reservations but ultimately agreed. The final holdout was Justice Stanley Reed, who initially favored upholding segregated education. Historians have debated exactly what changed Reed’s mind. Warren’s personal persuasion likely played a role, and Reed may have concluded that institutional unity mattered more than his individual position.
On May 17, 1954, Warren delivered the opinion of a unanimous Court. The decision held that segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, even when physical facilities and other measurable factors were equal.14Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) Warren wrote that separating children “generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.” With that sentence, the Court reversed Plessy v. Ferguson’s fifty-eight-year-old doctrine.13Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Separate Is Not Equal – The Justices Coming to a Decision