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Thurgood Marshall and NAACP officials met with Black residents of Clarendon County, SC. They decided that the NAACP would launch a test case against segregation in public schools if at least 20 plaintiffs could be found. By November, Harry Briggs and 19 other plaintiffs were assembled, and the NAACP filed a class action lawsuit against the Clarendon County School Board: Briggs et al. v. Elliott et al -
Oliver Brown files laws suit against Topeka Board of Education.
Because his daughter, Linda Brown, was denied entry into Topeka's all white elementary schools -
On May 23, 1951, two lawyers from the NAACP, Spottswood Robinson and Oliver Hill, filed suit on behalf of 117 students against the school district to integrate the schools. -
The U.S. District Court denied the Briggs plaintiff’s request to order desegregation of Clarendon County, SC, schools -
Belton v Gebhart was brought by parents in Claymont, who were forced to send their children to a run-down segregated high school in Wilmington rather than a school in the community. And Bulah v. Gebhart was brought by Sarah Bulah, a parent who had made several attempts to convince the Delaware Department of Public Instruction to provide bus transportation for black children in the town of Hockessin. The children were denied admission and in 1951, the cases were filed -
a three-judge panel at the U.S. District Court unanimously held in the Brown v. Board of Education case that "no willful, intentional or substantial discrimination" existed in Topeka’s schools. The U.S. District Court found that the physical facilities in White and Black schools were comparable -
the U.S. District court found in favor of the school board under the theory of "separate but equal." The U.S. District Court unanimously rejected the Davis plaintiffs’ request to order desegregation of Prince Edward County, VA, schools, ordering the "equalization" of Black schools instead
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A Delaware court ruled that the plaintiffs in Belton v. Gebhart, and Bulah v. Gebhart. were entitled to immediate admission to White public schools. In the Gebhart cases, the court ruled that the plaintiffs were being denied equal protection of the law and ordered that the 11 children involved be immediately admitted to Delaware’s White schools. But the board of education appealed the decision -
The Supreme Court announced that it would hear oral arguments in Briggs and Brown during the upcoming October 1952 term -
First round of arguments held in Brown and its companion cases. -
Days before arguments were to be heard in Briggs and Brown, the Supreme Court announced a postponement. Three weeks later, the Court announced that it would also hear the Delaware cases, as well as Davis v. Prince Edward County and the District of Columbia case, Bolling. v. Sharpe . The Supreme Court agreed to hear all five of the school desegregation cases collectively. This grouping was significant because it showed school segregation as a national issue, not just a southern one.
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The Supreme Court ordered that a second round of arguments in Brown v. Board be heard in October.
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Chief Justice Fred Vinson Jr. died unexpectedly of a heart attack on September 8th. President Eisenhower nominated California Governor Earl Warren to replace Vinson as interim Chief on June 30th. The Court rescheduled arguments in Brown for December
Justice Earl Warren would go on to deliver the unanimous ruling in the Brown v. Board case -
The second round of arguments occurred in Brown v. Board of Education.
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The Senate confirmed Earl Warren as Chief Justice
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May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously (9–0) that racial segregation in public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. The decision declared that separate educational facilities for white and African American students were inherently unequal.