In 1989, television producer Avon Kirkland recorded a rare interview with Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court justice. The Tavis Smiley Show producer Roy Hurst chats with Kirkland about his rare interview with Marshall. May 20, 2004

Reporter Allison Keyes walks us through an exhibit at the California African American Museum that explores the impact of the Brown decision. May 20, 2004

Boston's desegregation battles began 20 years after Brown with the 1974 order by a federal judge to bus black and white students across town to achieve racial balance. But the result was years of violence and lingering questions about the objectives of this grand experiment. The Tavis Smiley Show senior editor Phillip Martin reports. May 19, 2004

Brown v. the Board of Education was actually an umbrella lawsuit including a number of cases challenging school segregation, and not just the case originating in Topeka, Kan. John Stokes was one of the plaintiffs covered under the Brown litigation. He helped lead a student strike of an all-black school because of wretched building conditions. As a result, a federal school integration case known as Davis v. Prince Edward County, Virginia was filed, and became a part of Brown. NPR's Tavis Smiley talks with Stokes.May 19, 2004

NPR's Tavis Smiley speaks with the highest education official in the land, Secretary of Education Rod Paige, about so-called "resegregation", as well as the Bush administration's signature schools program, the controversial "No Child Left Behind Act." May 19, 2004

Chicago filmmaker Peter Gilbert discusses his latest documentary, With All Deliberate Speed. The movie takes a look at how Brown v. Board of Education is impacting education and society 50 years later. Gilbert also produced Hoop Dreams, a documentary that followed the lives of two inner-city African-American basketball prodigies. May 18, 2004

NPR's Tavis Smiley talks to Harvard law professor and civil rights attorney Charles Ogletree about his new book on Brown v. Board of Education, All Deliberate Speed. May 18, 2004

The odyssey of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling began when a rural farmer named Levi Pearson in Clarendon County, S.C., filed a lawsuit demanding equal resources for black school children. That lawsuit led to another case that would be combined into the landmark 1954 Brown decision. Hear a two-part report from Day to Day producer Christopher Johnson. May 17-18, 2004

Fifty years ago, a Supreme Court decision ended the policy of segregated schools. But young African-Americans made it happen, one previously all-white school after another. Hear former students' stories of crossing the color line, in a special broadcast from T.C Williams High School in Virginia. May 17, 2004

In a turning point in American history, the Supreme Court ruled 50 years ago that separate educational facilities for blacks were inherently unequal. A look at how Americans reacted, through the letters they wrote to their president, Dwight D. Eisenhower. May 17, 2004

The legacy of Brown v. Board of Education is still being played out in U.S. public schools -- but many young people may not realize it. WCPN reporter Renita Jablonski explores a theatrical program in Cleveland, Ohio, that allows teens to relive history through oral interpretation May 17, 2004

NPR's Tavis Smiley speaks with Jack Greenberg, a member of the band of lawyers who argued the many desegregation cases combined into Brown v. Board of Education. Greenberg is now a professor of law at Columbia Law School and author of Crusaders in the Courts: Legal Battles of the Civil Rights Movement. May 17, 2004

On the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, The Tavis Smiley Show begins a week-long look at the history and impact of the case. President Bush visits Topeka, Kan., on Monday to dedicate a new national historic site built in large part by the Brown Foundation. Cheryl Brown Henderson, daughter of the lead plaintiff in the case and the head of the Brown Foundation, speaks with NPR's Tavis Smiley about the history and legacy of the case ending "separate but equal" school facilities. May 17, 2004

In 1951, 16-year-old Barbara Johns led students in a rural Virginia county on an historic walkout to protest overcrowding at their all-black school. The resulting court case became part of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling 50 years ago, in which the Supreme Court declared segregation unconstitutional. NPR's Juan Williams has a two-part report on the legacy of events at Moton High School in Prince Edward County, Va. May 13, 2004

In a three-part series, NPR's Michele Norris explores how communities have changed since the Brown ruling, from education to housing. She also talks with former U.S. marshals who were recruited to carry out desegregation orders in the 1950s and '60s.
» Part 1: Georgetown University Law Professor Sheryll Cashin
» Part 2: Parker High: Integration's Unfulfilled Promise
» Part 3: U.S. Marshals, Breaking the Color Barrier
May 4-6, 2004

Prior to the 1970s, children with disabilities seeking education could not attend public schools. Lawyers went to court using the Brown decision and argued that disabled children deserved the same equal education that black children won years earlier. NPR's Joseph Shapiro reports. April 25, 2004

Half a century ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against segregation in schools. Yet patterns of housing and immigration have created in many areas schools that are extremely segregated. NPR's Claudio Sanchez and NPR's Ina Jaffe report from California for a five-part series looking at school segregation in America, then and now. April 5, 2004

In many areas, housing and immigration patterns have created schools that are extremely segregated. In a four-part series, NPR's Claudio Sanchez and NPR's Ina Jaffe report from California, where the level of segregation is as intense as any in 1954. March-April 2004

NPR's Scott Simon talks with former Mississippi Gov. William Winter. During his years in office, from 1980 to 1984, Gov. Winter overhauled an impoverished state's educational system and addressed desegregation. Feb. 28, 2004

Katherine Butler and Addie Laws attended segregated schools and later taught in them. Both stayed in education long enough to see the changes that came over the decades. They reflect on what was gained -- and what was lost -- in the societal transformation brought on by the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision. Jessica Jones of WUNC reports. Dec. 13, 2003

In Brown v. the Board of Education, the legal question was whether the court was right in 1896 when it ruled that segregation of the races met the 14th Amendment's demand for equal protection under the law. NPR's Nina Totenberg reports. Dec. 12, 2003

In the 1940s, psychologist Kenneth Clark and his wife Mami conducted experiments recording black children's responses to black and white dolls. NPR's Margot Adler reports on the story of the experiments, which came to be a symbol -- and a lightning rod -- for the social science research cited by the Supreme Court in the Brown decision. Dec. 11, 2003

In Clinton, La., some parents sent their children to live with relatives in the North or West so they could avoid Jim Crow laws. NPR's Debbie Elliott reports on the ramifications among the generation who stayed, and those who left. Dec. 9, 2003

As the 50th anniversary of the landmark school desegregation case Brown v. Board of Education approaches, NPR presents a series of reports examining the monumental decision and its legacy. In a three-part series for All Things Considered, NPR's Nina Totenberg looks behind the scenes at the Supreme Court deliberations that produced the 1954 unanimous ruling that struck down the nation's "separate but equal" doctrine. Dec. 8, 2003

NPR's Juan Williams traces the story of Thurgood Marshall, who led the fight to desegregate public schools and later went on to become the first African American on the Supreme Court. Hear extended interviews with Marshall's former NAACP colleagues. Dec. 8, 2003

In a three-part story, NPR's Nina Totenberg reviews the cases -- and the politics of the Supreme Court -- that led up to the Supreme Court's 1954 ruling. Read Chief Justice Earl Warren's handwritten draft opinion. Dec. 8-10, 2003