Robert L. Carter, a senior United States district judge, Southern District of New York, was chief assistant to Thurgood Marshall from 1945 to 1956. In the May 3rd issue of The Nation, he recounts the thinking and planning that went into choosing the cases that lead up to Brown v. Board of Education in an article titled The Long Road To Equality.
In fact, the whole issue is right interesting. I have to read Brown at 50 by Eric Foner & Randall Kennedy to see if I'm still annoyed at Randall.