Judicial
From “Separate but Equal” to “With All Deliberate Speed”
The Supreme Court’s May 1896 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson cemented the Jim Crow social order in its declaration that separate spaces for Black and white Americans were “equal.” It was not until Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 that the era of legalized racial segregation began to chip away…
Revolutionary Women
This month marks 29 years since Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor became the first woman to preside over the court, temporarily sitting in for Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. Fourteen years earlier, O’Connor had become the first woman to sit on the Supreme Court, ultimately paving the way for Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. From Sandra Day O’Connor to Sally Ride to Kamala Harris, our history holds countless moments when women broke through barriers and into arenas that had previously been exclusively occupied by men. In this week’s Archives Experience, we spotlight a few trailblazing women from America’s history.