On this day, May 17, in 1954

The United States Supreme Court came to a unanimous decision on Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, ruling that separate but equal was not actually equal at all and that public schools could not remain legally segregated. This case, which was actually a consolidation of five similar cases, examined the social and emotional effects of segregation on black children. The ruling to desegregate public schools was met with strong resistance by whites in the South. Because much of this backlash was violent and led by powerful politicians, the public school system was not actually desegregated for another 20 years.