US Judge Robert Carter was one of the principal lawyers who worked with Thurgood Marshall on the cases that made up Brown. In his essay, Judge Carter gives personal accounts of the lessons of Brown at 50. “Despite Brown’s undeniable failure in providing an education and opportunities to Black children equivalent to that of Whites," Judge Carter writes, "Brown succeeded in transforming Blacks’ perception of themselves and their role in this country’s institutions.”

Judge Carter was as a lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund for 24 -four years. During his tenure, he argued twenty-two cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and won twenty-one of them. In 1972, after a few years of private practice, he was appointed as a U.S. District Court judge for the Southern District of New York.