"With All Deliberate Speed": High School Sport, Race, and Brown v. Board of Education

THE LANDMARK 1954 BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF TOPEKA, 347 U.S. 483 decision, sandwiched between the changes resulting from World War II and civil rights legislation of the 1960s, marked a turning point in the history of race relations in the United States. By a unanimous decision the Supreme Court determined that state-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th Amendment and therefore unconstitutional. This decision marked the end of the legally approved “separate but equal” precedent established by the Supreme Court some sixty years earlier and served as a catalyst in the struggle for equal rights of all citizens in this country. To understand the effects of Brown v. Board of Education on interscholastic sport, it is important to examine first the participation patterns of African Americans in high school athletics prior to 1954 and what that participation meant to the African-American community. A significant fact to remember is that prior to the historic decision in 1954 a select number of outstanding African-American athletes outside the South would find their initial success in integrated high school sport and then continue that success in some of the most prestigious