Introduction

May 17, 1954: Lawyers, reporters, and spectators have gathered at the U.S. Supreme Court for something unusual. The Marshal calls the room to order.

Attention isn't in short supply. The new Chief Justice Earl Warren is preparing to read a momentous opinion - one that will cause a legal and cultural earthquake across the country.

In fact, there are four cases rolled into one. Together, they pose one fundamental question: Does the Constitution allow states to segregate public schools? The opinion is known by the first case before the court: Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, or Brown v. Board.

Warren spends a few minutes explaining the aftermath of a Supreme Court case from 1896, Plessy v. Ferguson. It established the doctrine of so-called "separate but equal" segregation. But at this point, it's still unclear which way the justices have decided. Then, Warren gets to the part that changed history.

We believe that it does. To people in the room, those five words signal what's about to come—a complete reversal of a doctrine that allowed schoolchildren to be educated differently based on the color of their skin. Warren continues:

Earl Warren has added the word "unanimously." People in the room gasp. It is unexpected.

Let's pause here for a quick explanation of what you're hearing. No microphones recorded Warren's words that day in 1954. The court didn't start recording its proceedings regularly until the following year. But this is Warren's voice. Combining other recordings of the Chief Justice with an actor's performance, you're hearing a digitally recreated version of his voice reading the transcript of the Brown decision.

Warren's opinion ends with the standard language indicating that the Supreme Court expects its ruling to be followed across the country:

If only it were that simple. For decades after that 1954 ruling, states would fight the Court's order to integrate schools. And even today, 70 years later, forms of racial segregation remain in the United States. But Brown v. Board marked a turning point, as the nation's highest court began dismantling legal segregation.

On this website, we've recreated the historic oral arguments in the Brown v. Board cases, an epic clash of legal titans that led to the decision. Using the latest voice replication techniques, we've cloned the voices of key participants. That includes Thurgood Marshall, the legendary civil rights lawyer who won this case and who went on to become the first Black justice on the Supreme Court.

We invite you to explore the site and listen in on these oral arguments, which no one outside the Court's marble walls has ever heard before.