Separate is Not Equal: Brown v. Board of Education

This exhibition marked the 50th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision that helped end segregation in public schools and was a turning point in the history of race relations in the United States. Using personal stories, artifacts, images, and video presentations, the exhibition portrayed the struggle for social justice before and after the Court’s ruling in the Brown case. It also examined the decision’s impact on contemporary society and challenges visitors to explore what social justice means today.

The exhibition featured:

• a metal tag used to identify enslaved people in Charleston, South Carolina
• a robe and hood from the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s
• a typewriter and Dictaphone belonging to Charles Hamilton Houston, a crusading lawyer in the struggle to end segregated education
• a portion of the Woolworth lunch counter from Greensboro, N.C., site of a 1960 sit-in protest
• the robe of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who had argued the Brown v. Board of Education case before the Court as an attorney for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Online Exhibition

The Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case represented a turning point in the history of race relations in the United States. Learn the story here, and add your thoughts and recollections in a special Reflections area. Visit Web site

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