The people we owe a tip of the cap too are the Supreme Court justices who came up with the idea "separate is inherently unequal".
That is not an easy conclusion to reach. The scientific community would probably argue that separate things can be equal.
Without the above, we may still be in a segregated society.
But they also decided women should be able to vote.
Hopefully, this thread does not quickly turn into another tit for tat like so many others. If you want to do that, you can just start to PM the others.