Before Brown

In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional in the landmark case Brown vs. Board of Education. Authors Matthew F. Delmont (Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad), Margaret A. Burnham (By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow’s Legal Executioners) Dylan C. Penningroth (Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights), and Cookie Woolner (The Famous Lady Lovers: Black Women and Queer Desire Before Stonewall) look at the Black struggle in the decades before this historic verdict. Black people fought injustices in the criminal legal system, took on discrimination in the armed forces and defense industries, and struggled to make space for Black, queer lives.