In 1950, the NAACP changed its tactic in its fight against discrimination against blacks. It decided, for the first time, to try to challenge the earlier Supreme Court ruling, Plessy vs. Ferguson, of 1896, which had stated that segregation was legal as long as the schools in question were equivalent.
Brown vs. the Board first came to the Supreme Court in 1952, and the head of the NAACP legal fund, Thurgood Marshall, argued the case. In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that separate facilities were inherently unequal. It stated that schools could no longer remain segregated. This landmark decision provided the impetus for much of the desegregation of America that was to follow. |
