Brown v Board of Education was a landmark Supreme Court case in 1954 that declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. The ruling overturned the precedent set by the 1896 case Plessy v Ferguson which upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the "separate but equal" doctrine. The Brown decision was a major victory for the civil rights movement and paved the way for desegregation in public schools and other institutions.
