LinkedIn presents.

I'm Rufus Griskem and this is the next big idea.

Today, schools all over America struggle with a racial academic achievement gap.

Can a small time in Ohio help us figure out how to close it?

Labor Day Weekend is upon us, which means that kids across the country are headed back to school,

finally from the perspective of this parent.

And in light of that, we wanted to bring you a story about schooling in America.

It's a story about race, integration, and equity, a story that's equal parts inspiring and dispiriting.

A story with lessons that, if applied properly, could reshape American education for the better.

Here's our producer, Caleb Visager, to tell you more.

On May 17th, 1954, the Supreme Court handed down a ruling that changed America.

In a unanimous decision, the nine Supreme Court justices ruled racial segregation

in publicly supported schools to be unconstitutional, declaring that it denied equal opportunity.

He's talking, of course, about Brown versus Board of Education.

Today, we remember that case as a watershed moment in a fight for civil rights.

But what many of us don't remember, what we weren't taught,

is that all over the country, the High Court's decision was met with rage.

In Tennessee, pro-segregationists blew up an elementary school,

because it admitted one black student, a six-year-old girl.

In Virginia, officials decided they'd rather close schools than integrate them.

So they shut down an entire school system for five years.

In New York City, 10,000 white parents took to the streets to protest a plan

...