Brown v. Board of Education at 50: a celebration and a challenge.

Part history lesson, part celebration, part personal challenge to truly accept that all persons are created equal, the Florida Supreme Court honored the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education with a special ceremony May 17.

From the testimony of Justice Peggy Quince of still going to segregated schools in Virginia a decade after the decision, to a rousing rendition of "Never Give Up" sung by Tallahassee high school teacher Pamela Patterson that had the audience swaying to the beat, the hour-and-a half-program inspired a packed courtroom to take the principles of equality to heart.

Everyone gathered to honor what Chief Justice Harry Lee Anstead called "the most important human rights decision ever rendered."

School children listened in amazement at how things used to be, while their elders who suffered through those shameful times nodded in recognition of an era when blacks could not vote, serve on juries, or go to school with whites, when race riots polarized a nation, and claimed many lives.

Retired Justice Leander Shaw set the scene, detailing history from when the colonies met in Philadelphia to draft the Constitution to a divided nation during the Civil War, to the 1896 Plessey v. Ferguson decision that ushered in the era of "separate but equal" and made a mockery of the equal protections of the 14th Amendment.

Shaw continued his history lesson to the early 1950s, when an 8-year-old third-grader named Linda Brown was barred from a public school conveniently located seven blocks from her house--just because she was black.

"Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas" is one of those rare landmark cases that fundamentally and forever changed the face of America," Shaw said, adding its impact reaches far beyond the simple issue of public school integration.

"It was the opening salvo in the civil rights movement of the '50s and '60s, a movement that changed the social and political fabric in America. It was a giant step in the direction of fulfilling America's promise of freedom, justice, and equality for ail, and equality for all of Florida's citizens," Shaw said.

"In Brown, we see the nation's highest court in a unanimous opinion, ignoring three-quarters of a century of precedent and responding to evolving special values."

An undercurrent to the ceremony's message was that change was still slow to come after the 1954 landmark decision, and the challenge continues to this day.

With passion propelling his words, Miami lawyer H.T...