6 Lesser-known facts about Brown v. Board of Education

If the landmark Supreme Court case were repurposed as a modern-day legal drama, here are the cliff-hangers and story arcs that might make viewers ooh and ahh!

Brown v. Board of Education—the landmark Supreme Court ruling that desegregated public schools—turns 60 this year, and if someone were tasked with identifying the most interesting parts of the case in order to repurpose it for a Law & Order special, what would that episode look like?

Who were the major characters? Which one of the nine Supreme Court justices held out on his decision until the last minute, and then eventually changed his mind? What was special about the plaintiff, and why did he make it a credible case?

And since the last five minutes of any legal drama are especially juicy because viewers want to see how the courtroom reacts to the verdict, how did the country respond to the 1954 Supreme Court ruling that made the “separate but equal” doctrine unconstitutional?