Ed. note: This is cross-posted on the U.S. Department of Justice blog. See the original post here.
On Saturday, May 17, 2014 at 10:00 a.m. ET, Attorney General Eric Holder will deliver remarks of reflection at the Morgan State University commencement ceremony where he will commemorate the 60th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. The address will be live streamed at www.morgan.edu/live.
Decades ago, nearly 200 plaintiffs from across the country joined together in a class-action lawsuit to challenge the doctrine of “separate but equal,” striving to bring the issue of racial segregation before the highest court in the land. Their dangerous, long, and grueling march culminated exactly 60 years ago tomorrow – on May 17, 1954 – at the United States Supreme Court.
On that extraordinary day, a unanimous Court, led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, declared that separate was inherently unequal, effectively outlawing racial segregation in schools and other public accommodations throughout America. This marked a major victory for the cause of equal justice under law, an inflection point in American history, and a spark that in many ways ignited the modern Civil Rights Movement.
Yet our nation did not automatically translate the words of Brown into substantive change. The integration of our schools was a process that was halting, confrontational, and at times even bloody. And, for all the progress our nation has seen over the last six decades, this is a process that continues, and a promise that has yet to be fully realized, even today.
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