Seventy-one years ago today, on May 17, 1954 (April 15, 1954), the Supreme Court of the United States announced the abolition of the black and white school system. Douglas, Harlan, Reed, Clark, Warren, Burton, Black, Minton, Frank Ford 17, 1954. Today the Supreme Court of the United States outlawed racial segregation in public schools across the country. The justices made a unanimous decision to invalidate the "separate but equal" claim made by the Supreme Court in 1896 and carried forward to this day. Many Southerners were unhappy with the new ruling, and at least some leaders in Georgia and South Carolina vowed to abolish their public schools. "We Southerners have neither complied nor complied with the ruling of such a politically charged court," said Senator James Eastland, Democrat of Mississippi. In Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and other states and the District of Columbia, the resolution will greatly affect 85,000 white and 25,000 black children who attend segregated schools. In a landmark decision, one of the most far-reaching of the century, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote: "In the field of public education, segregation but equality does not work. Separate education systems are doomed to create inequality. "