ABSTRACT
No case in American history has had as much impact upon the social, political, and economic fabric of the nation as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, in 1954. But it began the process, and a decade later Congress, in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, made all forms of racial separation in public places illegal. Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Louisiana, and North Carolina all adopted resolutions proclaiming that Brown had no legal force and they would ignore it. As the federal government enforced the rights of blacks to register and to vote, they began electing black sheriffs, council members, and school boards, which did away with segregation. Linda Brown won the suit, and in 1994 Topeka agreed to a new plan that aimed at a truly integrated school system. Since then she has been involved in the Brown Family Foundation, which works to provide educational resources regarding the significance of the original decision.
