Elisha Scott, Sr.

Elisha Scott was raised in a modest household in Topeka's Tennesseetown. As a youth he possessed a strong drive and a quick wit, which attracted the eye of the prominent minister Charles M. Sheldon. With financial support from Sheldon and his own abilities to succeed, Elisha Scott earned his law degree from Washburn College in 1916. During his long career as an attorney, he argued many civil rights and school segregation cases throughout Kansas and the Midwest. Scott's two sons, John and Charles, joined him in his law firm of Scott, Scott, Scott, and Jackson. Together they helped to prosecute at the local level the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education.