Gaines v. Canada was a significant legal case in Black history that took place in 1938. Lloyd Gaines, an African American student, applied to the University of Missouri Law School but was denied admission because of his race. He was offered a scholarship for an out-of-state law school for African Americans, but Gaines wanted to attend the University of Missouri.

Gaines filed a lawsuit against the registrar of the University of Missouri, S.W. Canada, arguing that the separate but equal doctrine, established in the Plessy v. Ferguson case of 1896, was not being upheld. The case ultimately reached the United States Supreme Court in 1938.

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Gaines and found that the separate law school created for African Americans did not provide an equal education as the University of Missouri Law School, violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court ordered the University of Missouri to either admit Gaines to its law school or establish a law school for African Americans that would be equal to the University of Missouri's program.

This case helped pave the way for future challenges to segregation and discrimination in higher education and was a significant step towards dismantling Jim Crow-era laws and practices in the United States.