Brown v. Board of Education  
 
Thurgood Marshall was an influential leader of the Civil Rights Movement, whose tremendous legacy lives on in the pursuit of racial justice. Marshall attended Howard University Law School; from which he earned his law degree. It was there that he met his mentor and Civil Rights icon, Charles Hamilton Houston. Houston bestowed upon Marshall the mantra, “We should become engineers rather than lawyers when defending cases in court.” Marshall not only held this principle close but personified it through his actions.

 
Brown v. Board of Education was one of Thurgood Marshall’s most prominent court cases. He served as the chief attorney for the plaintiff, Oliver Brown, whose daughter, Linda, was denied entrance to Topeka, Kansas’ all-white elementary schools. Brown’s argument was that the education presented in Black schools was not equal to what was being taught in white schools. He asserted that segregation was a violation of the “so-called” Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

 
Thurgood Marshall and team argued the case before the U.S. District Court in Kansas. On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. This landmark case signaled the end of legalized racial segregation in United States school systems and overruled the “separate but equal” principle outlined in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case.
 

The Brown v. Board of Topeka’s court’s decision brought a greater awareness to the racial inequalities that African Americans faced in the United States. It also galvanized civil rights activists into action and increased efforts to end institutionalized racism throughout American society.