Brown v. Board of Education

A Kansas Portrait

On May 17, 1954, by an unanimous vote, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that "separate but equal" education facilities are "inherently unequal," and that segregation in the schools is, therefore, unconstitutional. The landmark case, known as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, involved a Kansas statute permitting racial segregation in some of the state's elementary schools.

In many states, African American students were placed in schools that were inferior to those attended by white children. The plaintiffs in Topeka did not charge that the schools' facilities their children attended were inferior, but that segregation itself did psychological and educational damage to black children forced to attend schools isolated from the other children in the community.

A petition to the school board was drafted and a number of African American citizens began the difficult but successful effort to collect necessary signatures. They were assisted in this effort by volunteers from the Menninger Foundation. When the Board of Education failed to terminate segregation as requested, black Topekans, joined by the NAACP, persuaded the nation's highest court to begin the task of dismantling enforced racial segregation in schools and public accomodations.