In 1954, in the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racially-segregated schools were unconstitutional which were mainly enforced in the Southern United States. Conservative politicians across the South signed a document known as the Southern Manifesto which tried to defy the court ruling claiming that it was “clear abuse of judicial power” and saying it was in their power of “states rights” to keep the terrible tradition. Some Southern politicians like Albert Gore Sr. and Lyndon B. Johnson refused to sign the racist political stunt.