The rules for implementing Brown were provided in the Brown II decision in 1955, which stated that school districts should proceed with "all deliberate speed" to desegregate their schools (Brinkley 900). Even though the Supreme Court's order to desegregate applied only to the school districts involved in the Brown case, the decision established a precedent to which states needed to conform either through voluntary desegregation or through law suits asking the federal courts to enforce desegregation ("Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board" par. 15).
Although some school districts complied with the Brown decision peacefully, more often desegregation met with strong opposition. The "massive resistance" was practiced in most Southern states and school desegregation took place as a result of a federal court ordering a school district to comply with the Brown decision, which, among others, the event of the Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, illustrates (Brinkley 900-901). However, Brown enhanced activism also in many Northern cities where "de facto" segregation existed. For example, Mae Mallory, a New York City parent and Civil Rights Movement leader, complained about unequal conditions in New York City segregated schools and initiated a successful lawsuit on Brown's principles (Weiner 55-61). .
However, it was not only the field of education which was affected by the Brown decision. As Brinkley argues it stimulated the growth of other actions against racial segregation, and gives the boycott of the bus system in Montgomery as an example (902). The boycott inspired other bus boycotts and, more importantly, it legitimized a new form of racial protest which further opened the way for the Civil Rights Movement (Brinkley 902-903). Cook claims that the Brown decision not only bolstered the Civil Rights Movement but that it also inspired Congress to pass the first civil rights legislation in almost a century (9).
