Brown v. Board of Education: A Documentary History

The 1954 US Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education legally ended state-mandated racial segregation in primary and secondary education and opened the way for the dismantling of the segregation of all public facilities. This book allows primary documents to speak for themselves and also offers a general introduction and extensive commentary of each primary source. Emphasis is not only on the decision itself but on the internal working of the High Court and on the nature of constitutional interpretation. For this fiftieth anniversary edition, Whitman (Towson University) includes a new preface.