--- title: Brown v. Board of Education: Few Revolutions Are Ever Truly Complete description: Sixty years since the historic Supreme Court ruling, the work of making equal opportunity real for all Americans is not over. canonical: https://time.com/103002/brown-v-board-of-education-60th-anniversary/ author: Jon Meacham article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-05-17T04:01:25.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:54:06.901Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Brown v. Board of Education: Few Revolutions Are Ever Truly Complete og:description: Sixty years since the historic Supreme Court ruling, the work of making equal opportunity real for all Americans is not over. og:url: https://time.com/103002/brown-v-board-of-education-60th-anniversary/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Brown v. Board of Education: Few Revolutions Are Ever Truly Complete twitter:description: Sixty years since the historic Supreme Court ruling, the work of making equal opportunity real for all Americans is not over. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # _Brown v. Board of Education_: Few Revolutions Are Ever Truly Complete > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Inside TIME: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Inside TIME is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. A closer look at TIME's latest cover and our most compelling stories. Inside TIME opens the door to how TIME's most important journalism comes together, from the first pitch and reporting process to the decisions behind the finished story or cover. Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs takes readers inside the newsroom, revealing the journalists, ideas and editorial choices behind the stories shaping the global conversation. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent.  by [Jon Meacham](https://time.com/author/jon-meacham/)  ## Jon Meacham May 17, 2014 4:01 AM UTC  by [Jon Meacham](https://time.com/author/jon-meacham/)  ## Jon Meacham May 17, 2014 4:01 AM UTC It was supposed to have been a slow news day. Reporters covering the Supreme Court had been told not to expect very much on Monday, May 17, 1954, when the court’s press officer shifted signals. “Reading of the segregation decisions is about to begin in the courtroom,” said Banning E. Whittington, while putting on his coat and leading a pack of journalists up a flight of marble steps into the chamber, and into history, [according to _The New York Times_](http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/990517onthisday%5Fbig.html). It was 1 p.m. when newly confirmed Chief Justice Earl Warren began to read the opinion of the court in _Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka_. The key sentence was unpoetic, but it belongs in American scripture as surely as any words of Jefferson’s or Lincoln’s do: “in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place.” With these words the American Revolution that had begun in the aftermath of the French and Indian War on the North American continent in the latter half of the 18th century entered a new and dazzling phase. In his important history of the pre-_Brown_ South, the late writer John Egerton brilliantly captured the moment of Warren’s announcement 60 Mays ago. “In the most fundamental way, everything came together around this court decision, around the issue of race and education,” Egerton wrote in his 1994 book _Speak Now Against the Day_. --- > “” --- Two points come to mind on this 60th anniversary. The first is about the primacy of politics and the indispensability, in our system of popular government, of at once respecting and shaping public opinion. The nation was fortunate that Warren was where he was when the crisis of the _Brown_ decision came. As a politician—a former Republican governor of California and vice-presidential nominee on the 1948 GOP ticket that lost to President Truman—Warren knew that a unanimous court was essential in such a difficult hour. And so he worked hard behind the scenes to produce a 9-0 decision, work that included bringing around justices from Alabama and Kentucky. The _Brown_ opinion was the work of a man who respected politics despite its inherent limitations and frustrations. The second point, and it is related to the first, is that few revolutions are ever truly complete. The 1954 decision was epochal—but it was only the beginning. The following year the court returned with an enforcement decision to make clear that it was quite serious about ending the segregationist order made possible by _Plessy v. Ferguson_. And as we all know, the work of making the promise of equal opportunity real for all Americans is not over even now. That’s worth remembering on even the slowest of news days. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/103002/brown-v-board-of-education-60th-anniversary/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/103002/brown-v-board-of-education-60th-anniversary/"},"headline":"Brown v. 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