The desegregation of American public school systems in the wake of "Brown v. Board of Education" (1954) was a vast, protracted, and, in many cases, frustrated historical project that impacted individual communities in a multitude of ways. Drawing upon official school board records, court documents, oral histories, newspaper accounts,…

The homepage of the Project on Fair Representation (POFR) features a smiling photo of Abigail Fisher, the young White woman at the center of "Fisher v. the University of Texas," which could end race as a criterion in university admissions. Edward Blum, founder of POFR, a conservative advocacy group, connected Fisher with Wiley Rein LLP,…

Profiles Charles Hamilton Houston, onetime head of Howard University, counsel to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and legal scholar instrumental in framing the strategy that produced the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Houston also argued a number of other important civil rights cases. (SLD)

This biography for younger readers examines the life of Thurgood Marshall, an important legal activist in the history of the civil rights movement and the first African American to be appointed a U.S. Supreme Court justice. The book presents an overview of the civil rights movement in the United States while documenting the key role Marshall…

The appellate argument of Paul Wilson, who represented the Topeka, Kansas, school board in the 1952 Supreme Court case, "Brown v. Board of Education," presents an excellent example of the influence of personal and legal ethics on rhetorical choices. A reluctant advocate of racially segregated education, a policy the Topeka Board of…