In September 1953, on learning of the unexpected death of Fred Vinson, the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Felix Frankfurter remarked to two of his law clerks: “This is the first indication that I have ever had that there is a God.” Frankfurter did not intend to sound cruel or acerbic, nor did he especially dislike his chief, however little respect he had for his abilities. It was rather that the Court was about to hear re-argument in the most important and nettlesome case it had been asked to decide in perhaps a century. And all signs indicated that, with Vinson's ineffectual leadership, the Court was about to divide 5–4, an outcome that the justices agreed would be a national calamity.

The case, of course, was the challenge to the constitutionality of racial segregation in public schools. The suit was brought by citizens in several states and included the suit by the parents of Linda Brown of Topeka, Kansas. The cases had been consolidated for purposes of the Court's review. Four of the justices, including Chief Justice Vinson, were inclined to deny that the Court had a basis in law to overturn a social institution of such long standing, an institution that had enjoyed repeated confirmation by both the nation's judicial and legislative systems.