The Civil Rights Movement Revised Edition

The BrownDecision 31

Its shortcomings aside, Browncontributed mightily to the civil rights
movement. It not only ended legal segregation, it deprived segregation of its
moral validity. Most important, Brownmeant that blacks would no longer
wait for justice from the courts; they would demand it themselves, now that
the law was on their side. The crucial questions remaining were whether and
to what extent the federal government would enforce Brown, and those
answers were not long in coming.