In 1955, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that public schools should be racially integrated, and overturned the separate but equal doctrine established in Plessy v Ferguson decades before. This was made possible by a concerted legal effort spearheaded by the NAACP. Beginning in the 1930s, the NAACP's legal defense fund (led by Thurgood Marshall at the time of the Brown Decision) pursued a strategy of bringing cases to court that would expand the civil rights of Black Americans. This multi-decade effort culminated in the Brown decision, with many other victories along the way. Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now! https://bookshop.org/a/3859/9780316492935 VIDEO SOURCES Rachel Devlin, A Girl Stands at the Door: The Generation of Young Women Who Desegregated America's Schools. New York: Basic Books, 2018. Justin Driver, The Schoolhouse Gate: Public Education, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for the American Mind. New York: Pantheon Books, 2018. Charles Ogletree, Jr. All Deliberate Speed: Reflections on the First Half-Century of Brown V. Board of Education. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2004. James T. Patterson, Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thurgood-Marshall https://www.law.virginia.edu/static/uvalawyer/html/alumni/uvalawyer/f04/klarman.htm Klarman, Michael J. "How Brown Changed Race Relations: The Backlash Thesis." The Journal of American History 81, no. 1 (1994): 81-118. Accessed July 29, 2021. doi:10.2307/2080994. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/26/597154953/linda-brown-who-was-at-center-of-brown-v-board-of-education-dies https://www.nps.gov/people/oliver-brown.htm Watch our videos and review your learning with the Crash Course App! Download here for Apple Devices: https://apple.co/3d4eyZo Download here for Android Devices: https://bit.ly/2SrDulJ Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up at http://www.patreon.com/crashcourse Thanks to the following patrons for their generous monthly contributions that help keep Crash Course free for everyone forever: Dave Freeman, Hasan Jamal, DL Singfield, Lisa Owen, Jeremy Mysliwiec, Shannon McCone, Amelia Ryczek, Ken Davidian, Stephen Akuffo, Toni Miles, Erin Switzer, Steve Segreto, Michael M. Varughese, Kyle & Katherine Callahan, Laurel Stevens, Vincent, Michael Wang, Stacey Gillespie (Stacey J), Jaime Willis, Alexis B, Burt Humburg, Aziz Y, DAVID MORTON HUDSON, Perry Joyce, Scott Harrison, Mark & Susan Billian, Junrong Eric Zhu, Rachel Creager, Matt Curls, Tim Kwist, Jonathan Zbikowski, Jennifer Killen, Sarah & Nathan Catchings, Brandon Westmoreland, team dorsey, Trevin Beattie, Divonne Holmes à Court, Eric Koslow, Jennifer Dineen, Indika Siriwardena, Khaled El Shalakany, Jason Rostoker, Shawn Arnold, Siobhán, Ken Penttinen, Nathan Taylor, Les Aker, William McGraw, ThatAmericanClare, Rizwan Kassim, Sam Ferguson, Alex Hackman, Jirat, Katie Dean, Avi Yashchin, NileMatotle, Wai Jack Sin, Ian Dundore, Justin, Mark, Caleb Weeks __ Want to find Crash Course elsewhere on the internet? Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/YouTubeCrashCourse Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/TheCrashCourse Tumblr - http://thecrashcourse.tumblr.com/ Support Crash Course on Patreon: http://patreon.com/crashcourse CC Kids: null