WHILE Marshall waited for the Court’s decision, he went on the road giving speeches at NAACP fund-raisers. The legal team had run up huge bills, and they needed more donations. In January, at a national meeting of black publishers in Tuskegee, Alabama, Marshall thanked the publishers for placing special ads soliciting contributions to the NAACP, which had brought in almost eighteen thousand dollars. On an upbeat note, he predicted that the Supreme Court would end segregation.
Unbeknownst to anyone, the Justices started voting secretly at their Saturday conferences in late February. According to notes taken by Justice Frankfurter, they still argued as they thrashed out aspects of the case. But they had agreed that no word ought to leak out before they made their decision.
On March 1, Warren was confirmed as Chief Justice and sworn in.
Meanwhile, Marshall traveled around the country gathering pledges for financial support. At an event in Charlottesville, Virginia, he told the audience that “come Hell or high water, we are going to be free by ’63.” He asked them to remember President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and said, “On freedom’s 100th anniversary we will be free as we should have been in 1863.”
In April, there was still no announcement of a ruling. Marshall wondered if there would be more delays. When would the Court make a decision? Would there be dissenting opinions from some of the justices?
On Sunday, May 16, Marshall spoke in Mobile, Alabama. The next day he planned to go to Los Angeles. But that night he received a phone call telling him to change his schedule and go to Washington instead. Marshall never revealed the identity of the caller, but he caught the next flight to D.C.
On Monday, May 17, Marshall went to the Supreme Court and sat in the lawyers’ section. The nine justices appeared and took their seats. At 12:52 p.m., Chief Justice Warren said, “I have for announcement the judgment and opinion of the Court in No. 1—Oliver Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka.” Warren began reading the decision on the four state cases in a “firm, clear, unemotional” voice.
“In these days it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education . . . a right which must be made available to all on equal terms,” he said. “To separate [black children] from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.”
“We conclude,” he said, and looked up to add the word “unanimously,” “that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”
A muffled gasp went through the room.
Marshall later said that when he heard those words, “I was so happy I was numb.”
Warren added that the court would schedule time in the fall term to hear from the attorney generals throughout the South and the rest of the United States concerning means for putting the ruling into effect. Then Warren read the opinion on the District of Columbia case, Bolling v. Sharpe. “In view of our decision that the Constitution prohibits the states from maintaining racially segregated public schools, it would be unthinkable that the same Constitution would impose a lesser duty on the Federal Government.”
The justices filed out of the court, and reporters who had been standing in the back of the room swarmed Marshall. Before answering any questions he turned to his Washington, D.C., colleagues, Nabrit and Hayes, who had argued the Bolling v. Sharpe case, and said, “We hit the jackpot.”
From left to right: Attorneys George E. C. Hayes, Thurgood Marshall and James Nabrit on the steps of the Supreme Court Building congratulating each other on the Brown decision. May 17, 1954
To a reporter for the Afro he said, “It is the greatest victory we ever had . . . the thing that is gratifying to me is that it was unanimous and on our side.”
Reporters dashed to the pressroom and sent out bulletins.
Marshall ran out into the hall to a pay phone and called Greenberg with the news. Greenberg, at the NAACP office in New York, called other members of the staff. Then, as photographers snapped pictures, Marshall raced down the steps to catch a plane to New York.
In Topeka, Linda Brown’s mother, Leola, was doing the family ironing when she heard the news over the radio. She said, “All the kids were in school, my husband had gone to work and I’m at home doing that. And when it came over [the radio] and they said . . . segregation had been defeated, was outlawed, oh, boy, I think I was doing the dance there at home all by myself. I was so elated. I could hardly wait until my kids and my husband got home to relate to them.”
When Oliver Brown heard the Court’s ruling he told a reporter for the Kansas City Times, “I feel that this decision holds a better future, not for one family, but for every child indicated.” Linda attended Curtis Junior High, an integrated school. She said, “The media started coming and wanting to take pictures. It was really unbelievable that they were here to see me. It was exciting to all the children to have media at school and photographers taking pictures of the classes.” Up till then she had been unaware of the ongoing litigation. “I really didn’t even think about it that much,” she said. But she added, “I’m proud that the decision carries my name.”
McKinley Burnett, president of the Topeka branch of the NAACP, who had invited Oliver and Linda Brown to a meeting four years before, said, “I’m completely overwhelmed. . . . It makes me feel that I’m an American citizen in the true sense of the word.”
He said that although the court had not decided “the time and means for abolishing segregation,” it had “broken the back of segregation.” That night the NAACP of Topeka held a victory party at Monroe School, the black school Linda Brown and her sisters had attended.
In Washington, D.C., Spottswood Bolling, Jr., fifteen and a high school sophomore, read the front-page news with his mother. She congratulated him on the headline in the Washington Post: “Separate but Equal Doctrine is Thrown Out. Equal Education for All.”
Spottswood Thomas Bolling Jr. and his mother Sarah Bolling in Washington, D.C. May 17, 1954
Ethel Belton, seventeen, had just graduated from Howard University when she heard the “good news.” She said, “I felt kind of great. It wasn’t everybody who took a stand like my mother and me. I feel very privileged to be a part of the change in Delaware.”
Barbara Johns, who had led the Moton strike, was attending Spelman College in Atlanta when the Court rendered its decision. Her younger sister Joan, who had taken part in the strike and was now a student at the new Moton High School in Farmville, called her on the phone. Joan said, “Barbara was so excited she shouted with happiness. We never knew it [the strike] would end up being a historical event.”
Joan Marie Johns at graduation from the new Robert R. Moton High School, Farmville, Virginia. 1955
In South Carolina, Eliza Briggs said, “I wonder why a little town like Clarendon changed history.” Her son Harry Briggs, Jr., was thirteen and attending Sumerton Elementary School. Her husband, Harry Briggs, the plaintiff for whom the case was named, had moved to Miami, Florida, to find work because no one in Sumerton would hire him after he had signed the petition.
That night in New York, Marshall celebrated with his entire staff. “We always had parties . . . after winning,” he said, “but that was the best. I thought I was going to win but not unanimously.”
His opponent, John W. Davis, called him to congratulate him on his victory.
“I beat him,” said Marshall, “but you can’t name many people who did.” During the festivities Marshall toasted Kenneth Clark to honor him for his contribution to the case. People at the party kept saying the NAACP’s work was done and soon all the schools in the nation would be integrated. One staff member said that they “just sat there looking at one another. The only emotion we felt at that moment was awe—every one of us felt it.”
“It was all so awesome,” wrote Greenberg. “We still didn’t know what it meant or where it would lead.”
After midnight Marshall’s mood turned somber, and he said, “I don’t want any of you to fool yourselves, it’s just begun, the fight has just begun.”
Demonstrating a voting machine at Howard High School, Wilmington, Delaware. 1954
