May 3 – In Hernandez v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that Mexican Americans and all other racial groups in the United States are entitled to equal protection under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

May 17 – In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans. and in Bolling v. Sharpe, the U.S. Supreme Court rules against the separate but equal doctrine, overturning Plessy v. Ferguson and saying that segregation of public schools is unconstitutional.

July 30 – At a special meeting in Jackson, Mississippi called by Governor Hugh White, T.R.M. Howard of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership, along with nearly one hundred other black leaders, publicly refuse to support a segregationist plan to maintain separate but equal in exchange for a crash program to increase spending on black schools.

September 2 – In Montgomery, Alabama, 23 black children are prevented from attending all-white elementary schools, defying the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

September 7 – The District of Columbia ends segregated education; Baltimore, Maryland follows suit on September 8

September 15 – Protests by white parents in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia force schools to postpone desegregation another year.

September 16 – Mississippi abolishes all public schools with an amendment to its State Constitution; private segregation academies are founded for white students.

September 30 – Integration of a high school in Milford, Delaware collapses when white students boycott classes.

October 4 – Student demonstrations take place against integration of Washington, DC public schools.

October 19 – Federal judge upholds an Oklahoma law requiring African-American candidates to be identified on voting ballots as negro.

October 30 – Desegregation of U.S. Armed Forces said to be complete.

Frankie Muse Freeman is the lead attorney for the landmark NAACP case Davis et al. v. the St. Louis Housing Authority, which ended legal racial discrimination in the citys public housing. Constance Baker Motley was an attorney for

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