Brown v. Topeka Board of Education
Oral History Collection
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8.1 Appendix A: Biographies of the Interviewees
Jack Alexander
Mr. Jack Alexander was born on December 7, 1930, in Iola, Kansas, to
Agnes Stewart Alexander and James Alexander. Throughout the time he
was growing up, the family resided on the east side of Topeka, around
Washington School, in an area called Mudtown because of its un-surfaced
streets. Mr. Alexander attended Washington Grade School (his father
worked for the administration and an uncle worked as a custodian there),
East Topeka Junior High, and Topeka High School. He was attending Topeka
High when the Brown case was filed. At that time, only the grade schools
were segregated, although there were separate sports teams at the at
the high school level.
Because of his father’s job, and the fact that he helped out
when he was older, Jack Alexander had the distinct advantage of seeing
a different side of a key participant in the African American schools
and community than others did. He had a close relationship with Mr.
Harrison Caldwell (who was sort of the Superintendent of the African
American Schools and principal at Washington), often accompanying him
on trips out of town on school business while in high school.
After high school, he attended Washburn University before he entered
the U.S. Navy in March of 1952; he remained in the Navy until 1956.
In 1972, Mr. Alexander became the first and only African-American to
be elected as the Topeka city water commissioner. He served in that
capacity until 1985. That year he went to work at the Kansas Department
of Health and Environment; when he left the agency, he was the chief
of permits’ compliance and enforcement.
Vera Jones Allen
Vera (Jones) Allen was born in Charles City, Virginia, in 1913. She
graduated from Virginia State College (now Virginia State University)
with both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree. She continued
postgraduate study at the University of North Carolina. Her career included
serving as a primary grade teacher, a visiting teacher supervisor and
a principal. She retired in 1980 from the position of director of instruction.
Vera met her husband, Edward Allen, while in college. Once they married,
the new couple moved to Farmville, Virginia. That move associated her
with the school integration care of Davis v. Prince Edward County (one
of the companion cases under Brown v. the Board of Education). Vera
Allen taught school in Prince Edward County in a two room segregated
school for African American children.
As her career progressed she became one of the first women hired by
the school district as director of instruction. Vera Allen found herself
involved in efforts to integrate county schools when in 1951 her daughter
Edwilda Allen joined a student strike protesting conditions at segregated
Morton High School. In 1995 Vera Allen again found herself associated
with the historic school case. As head of the Martha E. Forrester Council
of Women, she organized efforts to preserve the old high school building.
The organization’s efforts were successful and the old school
building once an overcrowded reminder of segregation is now a Historic
Landmark. The R.R. Morton High School building will eventually be used
as a museum and conference center. Mrs. Allen still resides in Farmville.
Her daughter Edwilda is now a band teacher at Farmville’s integrated
high school.
Anonymous
Mr. XXXXX was born in Topeka, Kansas. He graduated from Monroe School
on June 3, and did not receive any other formal education. While attending
Monroe School, he played on the softball and soccer teams. In the 1920s,
he worked for Himer’s Grocery Store and the City Hotel in Holton,
Kansas. From the 1920s to the 1970s Mr. XXXXX worked for Santa Fe Railroad
in the Store Department. He also served in the Army during World War
II (1941-1945). During the interview, Mr. XXXXX talks about his various
memories of Topeka from the 1910s on.
Charles Batson
Mr. Charles Batson was born in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, on April
24, 1917, to Bertha Dysort and Irvin Batson. His father’s family
escaped slavery in Texas to Missouri where they came established the
family farm. His mother died in 1924, and his father passed away eleven
years later in 1931. He attended grade school and junior high school
there, but only went to high school for two years at Kansas Vocational
Tech in Topeka.
After Mr. Batson finished high school, he worked at Postal Wade Glass
Company in Kansas City, Missouri, for a time. He spent some time in
the service during World War II, and after his discharge, he moved to
Topeka to stay. Mr. Batson first worked out at Forbes Field when he
returned to the area; after that he was transferred to the Oklahoma
Air Command (the old supply depot across the street from Forbes) where
he worked until 1960. After that, he was transferred to the VA Hospital
and stayed there until retiring in 1973.
Mr. Batson married Edith Crouder of Sedalia, Missouri. The couple has
a daughter who lives in Louisiana. Edith Batson passed away in March
of 1982. Mr. Batson was a member of the executive committee of the local
chapter of the NAACP at the time the Brown case was filed; he passed
away on January 1, 1993.
Eliza Briggs
Eliza Briggs was born in Clarendon County, South Carolina. Her family
lived on a farm raising cotton, corn and pigs. Unlike some African Americans
in the county, the land belonged to their family. Mrs. Briggs’
mother had inherited the land from her parents. As a child Eliza and
her siblings were only able to attend school six months out of the school
year. They attended Liberty Hill Elementary School and later St. Paul.
During the remaining months the children helped around the farm. At
one time there were six children in the family. Three of her siblings
died at an early age.
Eliza recalls the poor conditions at Liberty Hill Elementary, where
classrooms did not have desks. She and her classmates sat on benches
and school assignments were completed while holding paper and books
on their laps. For African-American high school students, education
ended at 10th grade. Four years after graduating from St. Paul, Eliza
married Harry Briggs. The two had grown up in the same neighborhood.
The Briggs family grew over the years to five children. They were typical
parents concerned about education and opportunities for children.
Rev. J. A. DeLaine was a man Mr. & Mrs. Briggs knew and respected.
It was his urging that encouraged the Briggs family and others to join
the case against the county school board. They were all concerned about
the hardship created by not having bus transportation for their children.
Even after the strategy moved from buses to dismantling segregated schools,
the Briggs family agreed to stay involved. Although there were more
than 30 plaintiffs in the NAACP case, the name of Harry Briggs headed
the list of petitioners. All who signed on as petitioners faced various
forms of backlash. The Briggs family was no longer able to find anyone
to gin their cotton. Mr. Briggs was fired from his job at a local gas
station. The timing of his job loss was particularly painful since it
took place on Christmas Eve.
After the Briggs case met with success as part of the U.S. Supreme
Court’s Brown decision, the family moved to Florida. From there
they moved to New York living in the city for 16 years before returning
to Summerton in Clarendon County, South Carolina. Harry Briggs died
in 1986 and was survived by his wife and children. Mrs. Eliza Briggs
died in 1998.
Onan Burnett
Mr. Onan Burnett was born on August 24, 1921, in Oskaloosa, Kansas,
to Edna (born in Perry, Kansas) and Jesse Burnett (born in Oskaloosa).
The couple had three other children: Oleta, Eldon, and Evelyn. The Brunettes
can trace their roots back to slavery in Tennessee. The family moved
to Topeka when Onan was nearly two years old; his father got a job at
the Diagnostic Center (the former vocational and technical school).
The couple has a son, Kevin. Mr. Burnett's parent are both buried in
Topeka.
Mr. Burnett attended the partially integrated, rural Rice Elementary
School in Shawnee County. He attended seventh grade at Monroe School,
even though his family lived two blocks from Van Buren School, and ninth
grade at Crane Junior High. He attended Highland Park High School so
that he could play football and basketball. His sister, Oleta Burnett,
was a student teacher at Monroe School at the time the Brown case.
Mr. Burnett went into the Air Force in 1941, and was among the first
group of African Americans to attend the Army Air Force Maintenance
School in Amarillo, Texas. His group had the highest GPA of any class
that went through the school. His bitterest memories of that time centered
around the fact that at Fort Knox the German and Italian prisoners of
war were allowed to go to the movies, but the African American service
men could not. After leaving the service in 1946, Mr. Burnett did his
undergraduate study at Washburn University and graduate study at both
the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Kansas.
Mr. Burnett and his wife, Norma Jean, were married on July 15, 1956.
Norma Jean was born in Emporia, Kansas, in 1928. Mr. Burnett passed
away on January 1, 2000.
Broadus Butler, Sr.
Mr. Broadus Butler, Sr., was born in Greenville County, South Carolina.
He grew up on a farm, and he himself was a farmer. He attended the school
that was just outside the town of Simpsonville; at that time the school
was for first through eleventh grade (students graduated after the eleventh
grade). He went to college at South Carolina State after the end of
World War II.
The school outside of Simpsonville was a segregated school. Mr. Butler
had to walk 41/2 miles to and from school; this walk took him right
by the white school located in the town. The roads in the area were
not paved and the white school bus would often splash water on the children
walking after it had rained. Like most African American schools at the
time, the students at Simpsonville School had desks and textbooks that
were "hand-me-downs" from the white school. The school term
was only five, maybe six, months long. It started in late October, after
harvest, and ended in the spring, around planting time. In addition
to this, the students would go back to school during the summer, during
July and for part of August, in what was called the lay-by time; this
was during the hottest part of the summer.
At South Carolina State Mr. Butler's concentration was in vocational
agriculture. He wanted to teach vocational agriculture and to be a school
principal eventually. Back then, after graduation a member of the State
Board of Education interviewed the graduates and assigned them to their
first position. His first position consisted of teaching at the school
in St. Paul, as well as the principal there, and he was also the supervisor
of three other schools in the area. Understandably, Mr. Butler did not
like having that much responsibility involved with his first job. It
was there that six years later he met his future wife.
Mr. Butler was a non-active member of the NAACP at this time, but
was encouraged by the NAACP leaders not to attend the meetings because
he would be fired. As a result of the Briggs, School Districts 4 and
22 were combined into one district, and a few select African American
students were chosen to attend the white schools. It was shortly after
this that Clarenton Hall, a private white academy, was built and the
all white Summerton High School was abandoned. In 1971 Mr. Butler became
the first African American superintendent in South Carolina. However,
after seven years he asked to be moved back to principal of the high
school so that he could get it “straightened out.” He retired
in 1984, but was elected to the county school board in 1992.
Judge Robert Carter
U.S. District Judge Robert Carter was born in Florida in 1917. He received
his bachelor’s degree from Lincoln University in 1937 and law
degrees from Howard and Columbia universities in 1940 and 1942 respectively.
Although, Mr. Carter started college with the intent of pursuing political
science, he was recruited and offered a scholarship to Howard University
Law School. While at Howard he was mentored by famed attorney Charles
Hamilton Houston and befriended by classmate Thurgood Marshall. After
receiving his law degrees he served in the Air Force during World War
II.
He was hired by Thurgood Marshall to assist the legal team of the
NAACP. During his early years with the organization he visited with
Esther Brown the Kansas women who initiated the Webb case in 1949. She
was an active member of the NAACP. He praised her for the work she did
in keeping her local chapter going. Robert Carter was assigned to assist
the Topeka NAACP attorneys with the development of their case against
the local school board regarding ending the practice of segregating
elementary school children. He worked along side Topekans Charles Bledsoe,
Charles Scott, John Scott, McKinley Burnett and Lucinda Todd.
During the Brown case, Carter traveled to Topeka on several occasions.
His role was to assist with development and agreement of the Topeka
case. As a result he appeared in Federal District Court under presiding
judge and former Kansas Governor Walter Huxman.
Mr. Carter’s career as an attorney has placed him firmly in the
history books as part of the legal team in Brown v. the Board of Education.
He was appointed to the bench for the Southern District of New York
in 1972. He is the father of two sons. One is a lawyer working for the
New York District Attorney’s Office and the other is in finance.
Judge Carter remains on the U.S. District Bench.
Geraldine Crumpler
Geraldine Crumpler was born in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1941, the second
of six children. Her parents were from North Carolina, but moved to
Wilmington when her father got a job with Wurtz Steel. She attended
grades 1st through 6th in a one room schoolhouse. For grades seven through
12, she went to school in Claymont. Mrs. Crumpler’s family did
not talk about the desegregation cases, and the problems in Arkansas
were the only desegregation issue she remembered. She did not know that
her father was one of the petitioners in the case so that she could
attend school at Claymont. Mrs. Crumpler had to take a city bus to attend
school at Claymont.
She had not had much contact with whites prior to this. But she did
not give it much thought; as she puts it, “You didn’t see
the color, you just went to school.” At first, during the 7th
grade, there was some name calling, but by the end of the year it had
stopped; white students were partnered up with black students, so they
got to know each other better. U.S. District Judge Robert Carter was
appointed to the bench for the Southern District of New York in 1972.
Deborah Dandridge
Born in Topeka, Kansas on November 9, 1946, Deborah L. Dandridge attended
Washington Elementary School, one of the city’s schools designated
for African Americans before the 1954 Supreme Court decision. The school
continued to maintain a predominantly African American faculty and student
population until it’s closing in the 1960’s. She was a student
at Washington School from kindergarten (1951) through the sixth grade
(1957).
Her mother, Mildred Brown Dandridge, who was also born and raised
in Topeka, owned and operated Dawn’s Beauty Shop from 1937 until
the late 1940’s. When her mother died in January of 1951, her
father, Milburn Dandridge, hired friends and relatives to take care
of her during the day while he worked at the Santa Fe Shops as a boilermaker.
With her father’s marriage to Jeanette Temple, she enjoyed the
advantages for having two parents; she graduated from Topeka Junior
High School and Topeka High School.
After having earned a B.A. degree in history from Washburn University,
she pursued graduate studies at Southern University in Baton Rouge,
Louisiana. In the fall of 1968, she began attending graduate school
in Georgia at Atlanta University where she received an M.A. in history
in 1970. After serving as a full-time instructor in history at Washburn
University, she entered the Ph.D. program in history at the University
of Kansas, passed the comprehensive exams, and became a Ph.D. candidate.
She later began a career in archives and has served as the field archivist
for documenting the African American experience in the Kansas Collection
in the Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas since 1986.
Deborah is a member of the Episcopal Church and the Alpha Kappa Alpha
Sorority. She still resides in Topeka.
Jeanette Dandridge
Jeanette Ruth Dandridge is the second child of Mr. John and Mrs. Pearl
Temple and the sister of James, Alberta, and Frederick. Born on February
27, 1912, she is a native Topekan who attended Monroe School, graduated
from Topeka High School, and earned a B.A. degree from Washburn University
in 1933. After acquiring several years of teaching experience at Kansas
Technical Institute, an African American vocational school located outside
the city limits of Topeka, she joined the faculty of Monroe School and
taught fourth-grade classes.
More interested in teaching on a college level, Mrs. Dandridge earned
an M.A. degree from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois in
1942. From the 1940’s until the summer of 1953, she served on
the faculties of African American colleges, including Langston University
in Oklahoma, Barber Scotia College in North Carolina and Morgan State
College in Maryland. During this period, she also toured the South as
a concert performer in literary interpretation.
On December 28, 1952, she married Milburn Dandridge, a widower and
Topeka native who had been raising his six-year-old child, Deborah Dandridge,
by himself. From 1959 until her retirement in 1976, she served as an
instructor in the Speech Department at Washburn University. Jeanette
was a member of the Episcopal Church and the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority.
Mrs. Dandridge passed away on April 22, 2001, in Topeka.
Maurita Davis
Maurita (Burnett) Davis was born October 8, 1923, at home at 1522 Quincy
Street, Topeka, Kansas. Her mother, Nina Jones Burnett, was born and
raised in the little town of Perry, Kansas. McKinley Burnett, her father,
hailed from Oskaloosa, a neighboring community to Perry. Her maternal
grandparents also had Kansas roots in Bonner Springs. Her paternal grandparents
were from the state of Tennessee. Maurita was one of five children.
Once the Burnett children reached school age they had only to travel
next door to the segregated Monroe Elementary School. As a consequence
they attended grades 1-8 at Monroe. Junior high schools in Topeka were
integrated for 9th grade. Topeka High School was the only facility at
that level, and except for extracurricular activities, was fully integrated.
Maurita’s father, McKinley Burnett, garnered his interest in civil
rights during military service in WWII. He insisted on being treated
fairly and was quick to protest the treatment of his fellow African
American soldiers. His commitment was further fueled by segregation
at home in Topeka. In 1948 Burnett was selected to head the Topeka Branch
of the NAACP. From that vantage point he started down a road leading
to the end of legal racial segregation. In 1948 Maurita watched her
father’s crusade on behalf of the Topeka NAACP.
For a period of two years he attempted to persuade the Topeka Board
of Education to integrate their elementary schools. Undaunted by the
board’s refusal, he decided to organize a legal challenge under
the auspices of the NAACP. He worked tirelessly to find plaintiffs.
Fortunately, chapter secretary Lucinda Todd as well as legal counsel
Charles Scott, John Scott, and Charles Bledsoe, aided him. The resulting
case became known as Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka.
Maurita’s late husband, James Parker Davis, served in the Kansas
Legislature from 1959 to 1973. He represented Kansas City, Kansas, in
Wyandotte County. Mrs. Davis still resides in Kansas City.
Joseph “Joe” Douglas
Mr. Joseph “Joe” Douglas was born on June 9, 1928, in Topeka,
Kansas, to Imogene and Joseph Douglas. Mr. Douglas attended Monroe Elementary
School from 1933 to 1939. He was a member of the only class from the
African American elementary schools that attended junior high for only
the eighth and ninth grades because of a rule change that went into
effect that put all the grade schools, African American and white, on
the same system of K-6.
Topeka Junior High was not the first time Mr. Douglas was exposed to
an integrated situation. He lived in an integrated neighborhood, where
African American, white, and Hispanic kids played together and ate at
one another’s house. However, it was the first time he encountered
an integrated education system. He strongly felt the lack of eye contact
between him, and the other African American students, and the white
teachers. It was during this time that Mr. Douglas started to feel left
out of the educational system because it did not relate to him anymore.
This feeling, along with the feeling of simply being treated unfairly
by the teachers in relation to grading, continued at Topeka High School.
Eventually this, along with a few other incidents, led him to leave
high school in 1946, his senior year, and join the military.
Mr. Douglas did not pay a great deal of attention to the Brown case,
but he was aware of who was involved with it (like the Scotts). There
was a feeling that the case would not be successful, so therefore he
did not follow it; he was unaware that similar cases had been filed
in other states. At the time that the case was filed, he had been with
the Fire Department for four years. He worked for the Topeka Fire Department
for just over 39 years; he served as the first African American city
fire chief from 1983 to 1989. He also served on the school board for
eight years.
Claude Emerson
Claude Arthur Emerson was born July 11, 1942. His only living sibling,
a brother named George, Jr., was born in 1945, also in Topeka. The family
was deeply rooted in the city since his mother Marguerite (Harrison)
Emerson was born in Topeka in 1919. His father George, Sr., was born
in Columbia, Missouri. The Emerson family found themselves involved
in a class action suit to bring about integration in Topeka’s
elementary schools. Mrs. Emerson was among the parents recruited by
NAACP secretary Lucinda Todd. This group would comprise the roster of
plaintiffs once their case was filed. The Emersons were friends with
Oliver Brown for whom their case would eventually be named. The family
lived next door to Brown’s brother.
During the NAACP’s work to organize a legal challenge, Claude
and George Emerson attended segregated Buchanan Elementary School. Had
it not been for segregation, the boys would have attended Lowman Hill,
an elementary school closer to their home. In spite of the public stance
taken by Mrs. Emerson on behalf of her children, Claude’s world
did not change. The family lived in an integrated neighborhood. Children
of all races spent their free time playing together. However, because
of school segregation policies they could not attend the same school.
By the time the U.S. Supreme Court rendered a decision in the Brown
case, Claude was in junior high school. Secondary schools were already
integrated.
Florence Nicholson, Claude’s wife, was born in Sabetha, Kansas,
in 1953. The couple, who were married in Topeka in 1974, has seven children.
Claude Emerson along with his wife and children still resides in Topeka.
Annie Gibson
Annie Gibson was born in 1910 or 1911 in the small farming community
of Summerton, South Carolina. The town sits in the midst of Clarendon
County, which became famous during the case of Briggs v. Elliot. This
case was filed in an attempt to integrate public schools in Clarendon
County. Like most families of Annie Gibson’s time, farming provided
both food and money for her family. Unlike many other farm families,
her father was a teacher. Her mother ran a local diner.
Annie and her three sisters all attended the segregated schools of Summerton.
The community operated two elementary schools for African American children,
St. Paul and Spring Hill. Scotts Branch was their segregated high school.
At the time Annie Gibson attended school, high school ended with 10th
grade. Although she wanted to become a teacher, she never pursued a
college education.
Annie married a local man in 1935. They began living on the farm her
husband had lived on since he was born. His family had been tenant farmers.
Unfortunately, once Annie agreed to participate in the movement to integrate
the county’s public schools, her family was evicted from the land.
Mrs. Gibson never wavered and remained committed to the goal of better
education for their children. This public stand resulted in the family
having to rent a smaller farm that faltered because white business owners
refused to extend credit to Mr. Gibson. Annie herself was fired from
her job as a maid at a local motel. The pressure applied throughout
the community made it impossible for the Gibson’s to find work.
Annie Gibson supported Rev. J. A. DeLaine in his mission to improve
the plight of African American people. Her determination to participate
in the case of Briggs v. Elliot was firmly in place. She wanted her
children to have classrooms with desks and up-to-date educational resources.
She wanted a bus for other African American children who walked great
distances to school. Staying the course along with numerous fellow plaintiffs
ultimately paid off. Their case became part of the U.S. Supreme Court
decision to end segregated schools. Mrs. Gibson still resides in Clarendon
County, South Carolina.
Barbara Gibson
Barbara (Caldwell) Gibson was born in Topeka, Kansas, on December 21,
1995. Her parents are Margerite Mallory and Hiram O’Neal (Neal)
Caldwell. Mrs. Caldwell was born in Topeka, while her husband Hiram
was born in Atlanta, Georgia. Her family attended church at St. Johns’
AME. She met her late husband, William Gibson, in Washington, D.C.;
they were married on November 28, 1958, in Washington. Mr. Gibson was
born in Toledo, Ohio.
Mrs. Gibson attended Monroe Elementary School and Crane Junior High;
she also went to Topeka High School. During school, she wrote for the
school paper. After a semester at Washburn, she transferred to Howard
University where she majored in math and German.
One of Mrs. Gibson’s favorite hobbies is tennis, although she
just watches it now instead of actually playing. She also enjoys reading
and bowling. Her first job after leaving Howard University was helping
with the 1950 Census. Later she worked in statistics for the Department
of the Army. She was really excited when she was asked to work at the
David Taylor Model Basin in the new Applied Mathematics Laboratory.
George Goebel
Mr. George Goebel grew up in Western Kansas. From 1934 to 1936 he attended
Kansas State Teacher’s College of Emporia (now Emporia State University),
but due to difficulties caused by the Depression, he returned to where
he grew up to teach. He taught in both Jetmore and Hanston, Kansas.
After serving in the military during the war, Mr. Goebel finished his
teaching degree at Kansas State Teacher’s College and moved to
Topeka, with his wife, to teach the 5th grade.
In 1951 he took the job as principal at Quinton Heights and taught both
the 5th and the 6th grade for part of the day. Mr. Goebel recalls seeing
African American student going past his school on their way to Monroe.
Mr. Goebel recalls that the first African American teacher hired to
teach at Quinton Heights was very uncomfortable there. He tried to draw
her out, include her in things, and spoke with her during evaluations
about what he could do to make it easier for her, but she was just not
comfortable with the situation. Other African American teachers seemed
to have an easier time of fitting in at Quinton.
The antagonistic attitudes of some of the students seemed to be influenced
by their parents, but mostly things went relatively smoothly, after
a period of adjustment, given that everyone lived in the same general
area. He is very proud of all of his students; he recalls two who went
on to become prominent dentists in the area, and the successes of Sharon
Woodson and Wanda Scott.
Jack Greenberg
Jack Greenberg was born into a family that placed high value on education.
He spent his childhood in a Bronx, New York, neighborhood of Irish and
Jewish families. Jack attended PS 56 Elementary School and graduated
from DeWitt Clinton High. His parents inculcated him with an abiding
concern for others. At an early age Jack was involved in efforts to
help those less fortunate. Bertha Rosenberg, his mother, came to America
from Romania. His father was born in Poland. Both Jack and his brother
Daniel were influenced by their parents’ belief that education
and caring about the work you choose were fundamental elements of a
successful life.
Jack went on to study Chinese culture at Columbia University, became
a civil rights lawyer in 1949, and pursued his interest in international
human rights in the 1960s. He was one of the founders of the Mexican
American Legal Defense and Education Fund and attempted to set up a
similar organization for Native Americans. He also created the first
private national poverty law program (National Office for the Rights
of the Indigent). His brother Daniel became the first journalist to
specialize in the politics of science. Jack served in the military during
World War II. The Navy sent him to Cornell University as part of officer
training. While at Cornell, he developed an interest in the law. He
spent his tour of duty as a naval officer.
Jack Greenberg began his career with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in
1949 at the age of 24. During his tenure there, he litigated numerous
school cases, voting rights cases, and won the legal right for Martin
Luther King, Jr., to lead a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
He was part of the legal team in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision
in Brown v. Board of Education.
From 1961-1984 Jack served as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund director-counsel;
he succeeded Thurgood Marshall. From 1989 to 1993 he served as dean
of Columbia College and is currently a professor with Columbia Law School.
L. L. Hall
Mr. L. L. Hall was born in Ahoskie, North Carolina; when he was six
years old, his family finally settled in Portsmouth, Virginia. His father
worked in the Norfolk navy yard during World War II.
Mr. Hall finished his elementary education in Portsmouth and attended
Longwood Industrial School (now St. Paul College) before going to New
York University for a year. He started his career in physical education,
but decided he did not want to coach. In 1946 he received a bachelors
degree in education from Virginia State University in Petersburg. During
his career in Farmville, he was a coach, a teacher, and a principal.
One of Mr. Hall’s responsibilities as principal was the mapping
of the school bus routes for the county. He was a principal from 1943
to July 1, 1959, when the schools were closed down.
In Farmville, the county school board, except for the private white
academy, controlled the schools. Although the schools were segregated,
there was only the one school board and one superintendent. The African
American schools had to supply their own equipment and textbooks, although
they usually got "hand-me-downs” from the white schools whenever
they would get new equipment and books.
Chris Hansen
Chris Hansen was born on October 18, 1947, in Chicago, Illinois. His
father was a financial analyst and his mother was a homemaker. The family
included Chris and his two sisters. In 1969 he received a bachelor’s
degree from Carlton College and pursued a childhood dream of becoming
an attorney. By 1972 he received his law degree from the University
of Chicago. Chris began his career working as an attorney for the Legal
Aid Society of New York City.
He was responsible for criminal defense cases. In 1973, after one year
with Legal Aid, he joined the staff of the American Civil Liberties
Union. His primary assignment was mental health litigation. In 1984
he was assigned to the reopened case of Brown v. the Board of Education,
which was focusing on whether or not Topeka Public Schools had, in fact,
ever complied with the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision.
When Chris Hansen joined the local legal team working on this case,
he replaced fellow ACLU attorney Richard Larsen. The substitution was
made because Larsen’s caseload limited the time he could devote
to the Topeka litigation. After two years of preparation the case was
heard in Federal District Court, in October of 1986. Four years later
in October of 1992, the Federal Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the
petitioners, stating that Topeka Public Schools did in fact have facilities
that were racially identifiable and as a result the school board must
develop a plan for remedy. The school district complied by constructing
magnet schools and has since been granted unitary status. During the
court proceeding, Chris lived in Topeka for one month. He is still with
the ACLU and resides in New York.
Cheryl Brown Henderson
Cheryl Brown was born December 20, 1950, in Topeka, Kansas. The family
included two other girls: Linda, born in 1942, and Terry, born in 1947.
Her mother Leola was born in Marvel, Arkansas, and moved to Topeka when
she was two years old. Her father Oliver was a Topeka native. In 1950
the Brown family found themselves involved in a class action suit to
bring about integration in Topeka’s elementary schools. Mr. Brown
was among the parents recruited by NAACP attorney Charles Scott. This
group would comprise the roster of plaintiffs once their case was filed.
In 1953 Oliver Brown became the pastor of St. Mark’s AME Church,
and the family moved to another integrated neighborhood, this one in
North Topeka. One year later the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the NAACP
case named for Oliver Brown. In the fall of 1955 Cheryl began school
in the newly integrated elementary system of Topeka; she attended Grant
Elementary. In 1959 Rev. Oliver Brown was assigned to Benton Ave AME
Church in Springfield, Missouri, where Cheryl attended Boyd Elementary
School. Her father died in June of 1961 and Mrs. Brown moved the family
back to Topeka.
In 1961 Cheryl attended 6th grade at Sumner Elementary School. She graduated
from Roosevelt Junior High in 1965, attended Topeka High School her
sophomore year, and graduated from Highland Park in 1968. Cheryl received
a B.A. degree in education from Baker University in 1972 and an M.S.
in Counseling from Emporia Kansas State College (now Emporia State University)
in 1976. She married Larry Henderson on August 5, 1972.
After serving as a classroom teacher and a guidance counselor, she joined
the administrative staff of the Kansas State Department of Education.
In 1988 she, along with a co-worker, established the Brown Foundation
for Educational Equity, Excellence, and Research. In 1990 she successfully
worked with Congress and the Department of Interior to establish the
Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site. She serves on various
national, state, and local boards and is a member of the Alpha Kappa
Alpha Sorority. Cheryl still resides in Topeka, along with her husband,
son, her mother, and sisters.
Zelma Henderson
Zelma Henderson is listed among the thirteen parent plaintiffs in the
Brown decision. As a case petitioner she is noted as Mrs. Andrew Henderson.
Zelma was born in Colby, Kansas, a small town 60 miles from the Colorado
border. Her date of birth is February 29, 1920. Her parents were also
born in small Kansas towns. Her father Thomas Hurst started life in
Ozawkie, and her mother Bansy Belle Hurst in Oskaloosa, both communities
are located just north of Topeka. Her parents married and moved to Kansas
City where the first three of their five children were born. Her father
left his job at a Kansas City packinghouse to move his family to Oakley,
Kansas, near Colby. His plan was to homestead and farm. Two more children
were born including Zelma.
The Hurst children attended integrated rural schools through high school.
For most of that time they were the only African American family in
the county. When Zelma Hurst graduated from Oakley High School in 1940,
she moved to Topeka to find work and attend the Kansas Vocational School
at Topeka, a segregated training school for African Americans. Not many
years after arriving in Topeka she married Andrew Henderson and completed
cosmetology training. She quickly became an entrepreneur opening a beauty
salon in her home. Her aspirations were fueled by the discrimination
present in the Topeka job market. Zelma had been an AA” student
with excellent typing skills, but when she applied for clerical work
she was always, turned down and offered domestic work instead.
Now as Mrs. Andrew Henderson, she continued to be active in her church,
St. John AME, other and civic endeavors. Two years after their 1943
marriage, the Hendersons started a family with the birth of daughter
Vicky, followed later by son Donald. Having grown up in a small community
where schools were integrated Mrs. Henderson was not keen on the idea
of her children being forced to attend a certain school based solely
on race. She and her husband, who worked at Goodyear Tire and Rubber
Co., provided a good life for their family. It did not take her long
to agree to become a plaintiff in the NAACP case to challenge segregated
schools. She was asked to join the effort by the Charles and John Scott.
In addition, the NAACP President, McKinley Burnett, had been a long
time family friend. Mrs. Henderson shared the growing concern about
the African American schools not always receiving up to date textbooks;
she also did not want her children being separated from other children.
Zelma Henderson and her son Donald still live in Topeka. Her husband
Andrew and daughter Vicky are both deceased.
Barbara Henry
Barbara Henry was born in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1947. Her mother
came to Delaware from Florida to attend college, and her father also
came from there in search of his brother and work after an incident
on his job in Florida. Her family lived in the Hickman Road housing
development that was built to house the African American workers at
Worth Steel.
Ms. Henry attended State Line Grade School. She has very fond memories
of Mrs. Dyson and the overall atmosphere there. It was in sixth grade
that she first went to Claymont High. Ms. Henry did not feel that the
transition from a one-room school to Claymont was difficult because
of the sense of love and security that was provided by Mrs. Dyson and
her parents. She felt that the African American boys had a harder time
with the teachers, and others at school, than the girls did. There were
no African American teachers while she was at Claymont.
Ms. Henry recalls being discouraged from taking college-prep classes
and directed towards business courses so she could work in secretarial
positions. She went to Delaware State College (Now Delaware State University),
which was an African American college, but she really wanted to go to
the University of Delaware. What Ms. Henry really wanted was to be a
teacher, but at the time she did not realize that UD was integrated.
Rev. E. B. Hicks
Reverend Elder Barney (E. B.) Hicks was born to Daniel Henry and Carrie
Smith Hick on July 11, 1907, in Wichita, Kansas, the youngest of five
children. After his mother’s death, when he was three, he moved
to Topeka with his sister, one brother, his aunt, and his maternal grandmother,
although he was primarily raised by his aunt and uncle. They lived in
an integrated neighborhood.
Rev. Hicks attended McKinley Grade School, Quincy Junior High, and Topeka
High. He recalls wondering why he had to walk past other schools that
were four or five blocks away to get to McKinley, which was twelve blocks
from his house. After two years at Topeka High, Rev. Hicks dropped out
to help support the family after his uncle came down with rheumatism.
However, he was able to continue his education later, through night
school, and ended up receiving four degrees.
Rev. Hicks severed as a First Lieutenant in the army Chaplain Corps
during World War II. He served at several different posts throughout
the United States during the war. His involvement in the Brown case
was through the alliance of African American pastors from the Interdenominational
Ministries; his actual involvement came about because somehow his name
came to be in a newspaper ad against the Board of Education.
Rev. Hick married his first wife, Effie Mae, in 1927. She passed away
in 1960. He remarried on October 10, 1961, in Grahm County, Kansas.
His second wife was Roena Sayers. Rev. Hicks had four children: three
sons and a daughter. Rev. Hicks passed away in August of 1992.
Charles Hill
Mr. Charles Hill was born in July of 1937 in Wilmington, Delaware. Before
working as the community and school nurse in Claymont, his mother was
the private duty nurse for the duPont family. His father worked in the
wholesale food business. When Mr. Hill started at Claymont School, it
contained grades K-12, with two classes for each grade. The school had
tremendous community support and involvement. It served as a focal point
in the community; Claymont was unincorporated so there was no town hall
or other place to gather.
He was unaware that some African American students tried to enroll at
Claymont in 1951; he does not recall there being anything in the paper
about it. When school started in the fall of 1952, the students were
told that African American students would be attending school at Hickman
Road. Mr. Hill felt that the students just accepted this; the incidents
of name calling, and the like, seemed to be under circumstances that
mostly any kid would do so on any day. During the elementary grades
they would go to the State Line School and students there would go to
Claymont on occasion, so they had been around each other before. Mr.
Hill felt that it was Mr. Stall’s reputation and the "Red
Hummer” (his paddle) that kept things from getting out of hand
with those students who would have been more active and vocal in their
dislike of attending school with the African American students. It was
later that they learned that Mr. Stall, the school superintendent, had
allowed this despite the State Board of Education ordering him not to.
Mr. Hill had not thought much about Claymont’s role in the Brown
case until years later when an article appeared in Life Magazine, when
he and a student he helped through nursing school talked about it some
(he started a scholarship at Claymont in his mother’s name) and
when Claymont was closed between1990 and 1991. Over the years, he slowly
began to realize that something more significant had happened there
than anyone thought at that time.
Oliver Hill
Oliver Hill was born May 1, 1907, in Richmond, Virginia. During his
childhood the family lived in Roanoke, where Oliver attended elementary
school. By the time he reached age twelve, formal education for African
Americans had been extended beyond 7th grade. He was among the first
group to attend the newly established 8th & 9th grade classes. His
mother, and by then stepfather, moved the family to Washington, D.C.
It was there that Oliver Hill completed high school.
According to Hill, the turning point in his life came by way of an uncle
who died and left him an annotated copy of the U.S. Constitution. It
was the receipt of this document that resulted in his interest in the
law, and he decided to become a lawyer. While he was working on an undergraduate
degree at Howard University, the school itself was undergoing a major
change. University President Dr. Mordicia Johnson was determined to
make Howard’s fledgling law school into a first class program.
He began by hiring the scholarly and ambitious Charles Hamilton Houston,
a recent Harvard Law School graduate. Houston was to be both the dean
of the Law School and one of its prominent professors. When Oliver Hill
applied to Howard’s Law School, it was fast becoming, for African
Americans, the best in the nation. He and Thurgood Marshall were classmates.
After graduation he passed the Virginia Bar exam. However, several years
passed before he began practicing law in Virginia.
After serving in the Army during World War II, he returned to Richmond
and immediately became involved in cases to equalize teachers’
salaries. In addition, the firm Hill was now employed by had taken on
a school integration case in Montgomery County. It was during this time
that he received a call from sixteen-year-old Barbara Johns explaining
that students in Farmville, Virginia, were staging a strike for better
schools; they needed his help. Oliver Hill was persuaded to assist the
striking students. His actions ultimately led to the case of Davis v.
Prince Edward County School Board. Oliver Hill still resides in Richmond,
Virginia.
Christina Jackson
Christina Jackson was born on August 15, 1926 in Topeka, Kansas. Her
parents were Georgia and Jess Edwards. She only attended school through
the 11th grade, having dropped out to get married, but received various
kinds of training through her positions as a volunteer coordinator and
a receptionist for the Kansas Department of Motor Vehicles. Over the
years she has been involved in numerous community activities and programs.
She and her husband Enoch have eight children.
Mrs. Jackson attended Washington Grade School, East Topeka Junior High,
and Topeka High School. The thing that stands out the most in her mind
about Washington was the music; every morning, at a certain time, principal
Ridley would lead the whole school in singing "Lift Every Voice
and Sing.” The school also had a Health Room where some students
were served breakfast. Ms. Jackson also recalls the fact that the teachers
there were very strict; students did not get away with talking back
to the teachers. Even her children, who attended Monroe School and were
then transferred to State Street School, recalled being surprised by
students being allowed to talk back to the teachers. She also remembers
the stressing of African American History at Washington, and the other
African American schools, by Mr. Ridley.
The Brown case impacted Mrs. Jackson’s children. They started
out attending Monroe School, but after the case, they were transferred
to State Street School. She recalls that the faculty at the school really
tried to integrate the students; they were generally accepted, and the
students were told how to behave towards one another. Not having to
bundle up her kids and walk them down to the bus in the freezing cold
was the best thing that resulted from the case as far as she was concerned;
the white schools were not. Children felt that they were treated better
at State Street than they were later on at Holliday Junior High. This
was not necessarily better to her, but it was closer to where she lived.
She partly attributed this to the fact that the kids at State Street
knew her children from the neighborhood. It was at Holliday that Mrs.
Jackson’s children ran into problems with instances of name-calling
and such.
Eugene Johnson
Mr. Eugene Johnson was born on October 15, 1920, in Little Rock, Arkansas.
He moved to Topeka with his aunt and great-aunt when he was just three-years-old.
At that time his mother, Theota Lee Johnson, was attending the normal
school in Topeka. Mr. Johnson married Charline Hoard on September 22,
1952, in Lawrence, Kansas.
Mr. Johnson attended Monroe Grade School, Crane Junior High, and Topeka
High School. In 1925 he started attending Monroe. At that time it was
the old two-story building. It was in 1926 that the Monroe School that
people are more familiar with was built. To help prepare the students
for the integrated setting at Crane Junior High, special teachers were
brought in once a month to help with penmanship, music, and drawing.
The hardest thing to adjust to at Crane for Mr. Johnson was the fact
that students had a homeroom, but other than that, students went from
classroom to classroom. The athletic teams were integrated, unlike at
the high school level. Topeka High was a lot larger than the students
coming from Monroe had imagined. There were no African American teachers
at Topeka High at this time. While the school choir was integrated,
the sports teams were not, except for tack. However, the intramural
teams were integrated, so that is how many of the African American students
got to play football against some of the white students.
The Booker T. Washington Club there was a type of Asocial club”
for the male African American students at Topeka High. There were separate
dances (prom, etc.) for the white and African American students. Mr.
Johnson remained active in the Boy Scouts during high school; the scouts
gave out baskets during the Depression. The Gay Knights was a group
of African American guys who hung out together. The group was made up
of Mr. Johnson, Charles Scott, and some guys from Tennessee Town, as
well as a few guys from other parts of Topeka. This was the "in”
group; they had parties and even had a sister club, the Stella Puellas.
The Bachelor Boys were a group of older guys who formed around the same
time as the Gay Knights. Other clubs included the Owl Club and the Pleasure
Mirrors.
In 1938, he dropped out of high school after his junior year to go through
the conservation course before enlisting in the army. When he returned
to Topeka, after leaving the army in 1945, he passed the equivalency
test for high school and started working at his aunt’s restaurant,
Jean’s Sandwich Shop. In 1947 he started working as a reliever
at the Motive Power Building at Santa Fe. He joined the Army Reserves
and reenlisted in September of 1950, but was discharged in August of
1951.
The "Back Home Reunion” was co-founded by Eugene Johnson,
along with Charles Scott and Carl Williams. It’s an attempt to
reunite former classmates from the four African American grade schools.
They started out meeting every two years, but moved it back to every
three years to make it easier to organize and for people to come.
Lois Johnson
Lois Johnson was born in Hockessin, Delaware, in 1940, the third of
eight children. She was born in the house next door to the one where
she currently lives. At the age of six she started attending school
at Hockessin School 107; the school was about two blocks away from her
home. She has very fond memories of the school and its teachers. The
children usually went home for lunch, and there was a nice playground,
even though there was not a lot of equipment for the children to play
on. Ms. Johnson was aware of the Bulah v. Gebhart case, but did not
pay much attention to it at first. However, she did know Shirley Barbara
from school and church.
Ms. Johnson started attending Howard High School in 1954 or 1955, after
it had been integrated. Her mother prepared her for this by telling
her about the case and what had happened to some of the children who
went there. She was reluctant to go; she did not grasp what integration
was since she played with white, African American, and Latino children.
However, the white children she played with at home did treat her differently
at school. The principal, who was also one of Ms. Johnson’s teachers,
read a note in class from the mother of one of the white children saying
she did not want her child going to school with African American children.
This really hurt her because she played with this woman’s child
and did not realize that she felt this way.
Katherine A. King
Katherine A. King was born in Topeka, Kansas, the oldest of a family
that included one brother and four sisters. Her mother Bessie Hicks
King was born in Tonganoxie, Kansas, one of twenty-six children. She
died on March 10, 1966, and is buried at Mt. Hope Cemetery along with
her husband who died on November 3, 1957. Her father, Richard Leonard
King, was born in the farming community of Neely, Kansas; the town is
now defunct.
Katherine began her formal education at Clay School. This was an all
white school, except for her family. In sixth grade she was transferred
to Buchanan Elementary, a segregated school for African American children.
She graduated from Topeka High School and received her B.A. Degree from
Washburn University, a master’s from the University of Kansas,
and engaged in postgraduate study at Emporia State and Colorado State
Universities.
Ms. King began her teaching career in a one-room school in Hugoton,
Kansas, where she was responsible for all elementary grades. She distinguished
herself while teaching in Topeka by serving as a building representative,
on teacher salary committees, textbook committees, and in extra curricular
leadership with the Girl Scouts and Audubon Society. When she retired,
she had been a teacher for 44 years. Katherine King still resides in
Topeka.
John Land III
Mr. John Land III was born in Manning, South Carolina, in 1942. He has
been practicing law in Manning since March of 1968, and since 1976 he
has been serving in the state Senate continuously. His district is 65%
African American and 35% white.
During the time that Mr. Land was going to school, the schools were
fully segregated. He attended Manning High School while African American
students went to Manning Training School. He was away at college during
the period of the Briggs case and, later on, the Brown case. However,
he does remember the controversies that presided the Briggs case, due
in part to the fact that his father’s service station had a large
African American clientele. Both his father and his uncle continued
to extend credit to their African American clients during the period
leading to and including the Briggs case, even though their white counterparts
had not done so.
Rev. Maurice Lang, III
Rev. Maurice Lang, III, a native of Topeka, was born on June 29, 1928.
His mother, Ruth Sterling was born in 1914; she passed away in 1945
and is buried in Topeka. Maurice Lang, his father, was born in Topeka.
He died in 1945, and is also buried in Topeka. There were four other
children in the family besides Maurice, III.
Although his family lived in integrated neighborhoods, he attended segregated
schools for white children. As a child Maurice was a student at Sumner
and later Grant Elementary Schools. It was not until he enrolled at
Topeka High that he experienced integrated schooling. After high school
he attended Bible College in Los Angeles, California. He returned to
Kansas and married a local girl \by the name of Opal. His new family
grew to include four children.
He began his career with an unsuccessful attempt to organize an African
American branch of the Four Square Gospel Church. He eventually became
good friends with fellow Minister Rev. Oliver Brown and his family.
In the late 1950’s he served as Assistant Pastor of St. Mark’s
AME Church, working along side Rev. Brown. In 1959 the AME Church reassigned
both men. Rev. Lang became the first white pastor of an AME congregation
in Manhattan, Kansas. Rev. Brown was assigned to Benton Avenue AME Church
in Springfield, Missouri.
In 1961 Rev. Brown brought his family to Topeka to visit relatives.
Because church business required him to return to Missouri, he asked
Rev. Lang to accompany him on the trip. After several days while in
route to pick up his family in Topeka, Rev. Brown became gravely ill
resulting in his death. It was his friend Maurice who was with him in
his final hours at St. Francis Hospital. Maurice Lang has encountered
two historic figures in his life. In the 1950s he met and talked with
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and became very close friends with Rev. Oliver
Brown. Rev. Maurice Lang still resides in Topeka.
Henry Lawson
Mr. Henry Lawson was born on August 31, 1929, in Crawford County, South
Carolina. He has lived in that area for all of his life. His father
was a sharecropper of sorts. The school term was only seven months long
and centered around the agricultural crops. Mr. Lawson helped his father
in the field after school, and along with his mother and other siblings,
during harvest time. When he started school, he attended Scotch Branch
School. That was not the original name of the school, but the name given
to the new school that was built after the other one burned down when
Mr. Lawson was in the second grade. The new school was a wood building
without insulation and electricity until Mr. Lawson was in the 5th grade.
For 1st grade through 6th, there was one room per grade; for grades
7th through 10th (high school went up to the 10th grade) the classes
were combined two grades per room.
Mr. McCord was the county superintendent over the African American and
white schools at this time. The students had desks and textbooks that
were "hand-me-downs” from white schools. The school did not
provide some textbooks, and the students had to provide their own pencils
and paper, which meant that some had to borrow from others since this
was during the Depression. They had a dirt basketball court; there was
no gym.
Mr. Lawson was aware of the Briggs case. He was invited to attend a
meeting that was called for by the students at Scotch Branch. They had
gone to the principal over their concerns about the textbooks and other
things in the school. They were told if they did not leave his office,
their transcripts, and therefore their ability to graduate, would be
affected. It was a result of this that the parents bought a school bus
and asked the school district to help keep the bus up and running. It
was sometime after the district’s refusal to help fund the school
bus that the NAACP became involved and filed the suit.
Clara Ligon
Clara Ligon was born in Prospect, Virginia, and spent part of her childhood
in Sorrow, Pennsylvania. Her parents separated resulting in a move back
to Virginia for Clara and her mother. They settled in Prince Edward
County just outside of Farmville.
Her mother sent Clara to live with her aunt in Bedford, Virginia, so
she would not have to attend the rural one-room school in the county.
After finishing the eighth grade she returned and joined the student
body of Morton High School, the only segregated secondary school in
the area.
Her high school years were uneventful because she lived 22 miles from
town; it was difficult to participate in extra curricular activities.
During her freshman and sophomore years she walked to school. Finally
through the efforts of the African American community leaders a school
bus made available and Clara’s trip to school became easier. Clara
graduated in 1947 before the infamous student strike, which led to the
school integration case of Davis vs. Prince Edward County.
Dr. Ernest Manheim
Dr. Ernest Manheim was born in Hungary to a Hungarian father and an
Austrian mother on January 27, 1900. Hermine Wengraf, his mother died
in 1950 and is buried in Budapest. His father, Joseph Manheim was born
in Zenta (formerly part of Hungary). Mr. Manheim died in 1925 and is
also buried in Budapest. Dr. Manheim had a sister, Marguarie, who passed
away in 1968. His wife, Sheelagh, was born in British Columbia, Canada,
on November 14, 1943. The couple was married in Kansas City, Kansas,
and has two daughters.
Dr. Manheim studied sociology in Hungary, Austria, Germany, and in London,
England. He moved to the United States in 1937 to study at the University
of Chicago. His interest in sociology stems from his feeling that the
Austrian monarchy was natural and divine and had always existed, so
that when it was dissolved, he wanted to find out more about its background
which history did not explain. Dr. Manheim first experience with class
distance between African Americans and whites was in 1937 when he invited
members of a synagogue near Chicago to his house, and only the white
members showed up. The African American graduate students told him that
they knew that his invitation did not really include them.
Dr. Manheim moved to Kansas City in 1938 because he saw it as having
a typical American community that was not too big or too small. The
president of Kansas City University (KCU), now the University of Missouri-Kansas
City (UMKC), let him have a free hand in choosing what direction his
department would take academically with the curriculum. When he started
at the university, there were no African American students enrolled.
The first African American was admitted to the Law School after applying
a second time. Slowly more African American students were admitted without
resistance from white students or the faculty. The fact that there were
African American students enrolled at KCU was kept out of the papers
for three years, so that by the time the news was released, it was already
an accepted fact.
Dr. Hugh Speer, then dean of student education at KCU, asked Dr. Manheim
to testify on behalf of the Browns. The decision, he felt, was based
on what the Supreme Court and lower courts found to be true rather than
on his testimony. He also felt that the decision was inevitable because
of the changing social and economic situations in the United States.
Dr. Manheim continued to teach at KCU and UMKC until 1968. He still
considers Kansas City his home even though he has taught elsewhere since
then.
Clementine Martin
Mrs. Clementine Martin was born in Newton, Kansas, on September 7, 1910.
Her parents were Eva (Bradshaw) and C. James Phelps. Her mother, who
died on May 5, 1970, was born near Larned, Kansas; she is buried in
Topeka. Her father was born in Columbus, Kansas. He passed away on February
22, 1937, and is buried in Springfield, Missouri. Clementine Martin
was the oldest of three children. Her maternal grandmother’s family
was homesteaders in Jetmore, Kansas; one of her grandfathers was a justice
of the peace in Emporia, Kansas.
Mrs. Martin’s father worked for the Santa Fe and Frisco Railroads
as a cook. As a result, she attended grade school in Chilicothe, Illinois,
as well as in St. Louis and Springfield, Missouri. She attended high
school at Sumner High School in St. Louis, and briefly in Tulsa, Oklahoma,
before the family moved back to Springfield, Missouri, where she attended
Lincoln High School. It was not until she went into the St. Louis school
system that Mrs. Martin attended a segregated school. In Springfield
the family lived in an integrated neighborhood, but the children attended
segregated schools there as well. Public facilities and businesses were
also segregated.
Mrs. Martin went to Washburn University for a year before leaving college
to marring Eugene Martin; she met her husband at a party on the campus
of the University of Kansas. Mr. Martin was born on October 11, 1911,
in Topeka. His father, T. P. Martin was a doctor who shared an office
with another doctor on the corner of Fourth Street and Kansas Ave. Mr.
Martin was one of a hand-full of nonwhite (mostly African American)
policemen that worked for the city of Topeka. The couple was married
in Topeka on August 25, 1939. Mr. Martin passed away in November 1949.
The couple’s daughter, Eva Louise Blythe of Kansas City, Kansas,
was born in January 1950.
Mrs. Martin remembers how things opened up for African Americans after
World War II, but it really was not until the mid to early 1950s (after
her husband’s death) that things began to open up on a larger
scale. Mrs. Martin was unable to join any civil rights organizations
early on since her husband worked for the city. The Martins were not
directly involved in the Brown case because their daughter had not started
attending school at the time the case was filed. Mrs. Martin is a long
time member of the Kansas Association of Colored Women. She also belongs
to the American Legion Auxiliary.
Connie Menninger
Connie Menninger was born on November 10, 1931, in Newton, Massachusetts,
to Marian (Prince) and Henry Libbey. Mrs. Libbey passed away on May
14, 1974, in Delray Beach, Florida. Mr. Libbey died on June 16, 1984,
also in Delray Beach; both are buried there. Mrs. Menninger has one
brother, John Libbey. She married Dr. William W. Menninger on June 15,
1953, in Palo Alto, California. The couple met while students at Stanford
University; they were both working for the student newspaper, The Stanford
Daily. The couple has six children.
The couple moved to New York so that Mr. Menninger could attend Cornell
University Medical School. While in New York, Mrs. Menninger worked
as a TV program analyst for NBC until she became pregnant with the couple’s
first child. While at NBC, she covered what the network broadcasted
on the U. S. Supreme Court’s Brown decision. She did not return
to the workforce until 1976 when her youngest child was in the third
grade; she worked as an administrator for St. Francis Hospital’s
Robert Wood Johnson grant program. Mrs. Menninger left that position
after four years.
The Menningers’ children attended Randolph Elementary School which
was predominantly white, as well as Boswell Junior High and Topeka High
School, which were more diversified. In 1983 Mrs. Menninger entered
the University of Kansas Master’s of Museum Studies graduate program;
she received her degree in 1985. She started working for the Kansas
State Historical Society in the summer of 1983 as an intern, primarily
working with the manuscript collections, and currently handles reference
requests concerning the Santa Fe Railway collection.
Mrs. Menninger was elected to the Topeka Board of Education in 1969.
She was aware that there were no women or other minorities on the board
at that time; the last woman to serve on the board was 12 years prior
to that. She ran because she wanted to be more involved with what the
schools were doing; she felt that would benefit her six children. She
made a point of visiting every school in Topeka; no one had done that
for years. Mrs. Menninger also served on the Kansas Committee for the
U.S. commission on Civil Rights. The Menningers still resides in Topeka.
William Mitchell, Jr.
William Mitchell, Jr. was born in Perry, Oklahoma, on June 21, 1913.
The family moved to Topeka, Kansas, in 1915. His mother, Vivian (Anderson)
Mitchell, was born in Waco, Texas. Mrs. Mitchell died in 1968, and is
buried at Mount Hope Cemetery in Topeka. W. A. Mitchell, William’s
father, was born in St. Joseph, Missouri. He died on June 2, 1953; he
is also buried at Mount Hope Cemetery in Topeka. William Mitchell has
five brothers and sisters. His grandfather was a Methodist minister
in St. Joseph, Missouri, but he was originally from Oklahoma.
Mr. Mitchell attended Washington and Sumner Elementary Schools; he attended
Sumner before it became an all white grade school and he was transferred
to Buchanan Elementary School. He attended Crane Junior High and dropped
out of high school in the tenth grade; he began selling newspapers on
Kansas Avenue. Later he shined shoes in a place that was a shining parlor
and a dry cleaner. While working there he learned how to operate a clothing
press. At the same time, he waited tables at the Jayhawk and Kansas
Hotel on a part-time basis and at the Women’s Club when he could.
Mr. Mitchell enlisted in the army; in 1933 he went to Civilian Conservation
Corps Camp at Fort Riley on Camp Funston. He married Lucille Mitchell
on March 19, 1937, at Antioch Baptist Church in Topeka. Mrs. Mitchell
was born in Wewoka, Oklahoma. She died on October 6, 1983, and is buried
at Topeka Cemetery.
Mr. Mitchell belongs to the American Legion, the Elks, and is a Mason,
as well as, being a member of the Antioch Baptist Church. In past years
his favorite hobby was playing pool. He still lives in Topeka.
Leola (Williams) Brown
Montgomery
Leola Williams was born May 7, 1921 in Marvel, Arkansas. Her parents,
Carrie and Edward Williams, were sharecroppers. They had moved to Arkansas
from the Delta region of Mississippi. In 1923 the family, which included
Leola and her older brother Robert, relocated to Topeka, Kansas. Mr.
Williams moved the family on the advice of his brother who was living
in the city and working for the Santa Fe Railway. Mr. Williams was hired
by Santa Fe and the family began a new life.
Leola and her brother attended Monroe Elementary, a segregated school
for African American Children, and Lincoln Junior High for 9th grade.
She graduated from Topeka High School in 1939, where she was inducted
into the National Honor Society and was elected All School Queen by
the African American Students. Although junior and senior high schools
were integrated extra curricular activities were segregated. August
16, 1939, she married her high school sweetheart, Oliver Leon Brown.
Leola was eighteen and Oliver, born August 2, 1918, was twenty-one.
Three years later the couple started a family; on February 20, 1942,
their first daughter Linda, was born. In 1947 they had a second daughter,
Terry, and in 1950 a third daughter, Cheryl.
In the summer of 1950 Oliver Brown agreed to participate in a Topeka
NAACP plan to integrate public elementary schools. He joined with twelve
other parents who would become plaintiffs in a class action suit against
the Topeka Board of Education. Charles Scott, one of the local NAACP
attorneys, was a friend of the Brown family and convinced Oliver to
participate. In February when the case was filed, it was ironically
named for Oliver Brown, principally because he was the only male among
the parent plaintiffs. Leola had just given birth in December, to their
third child and could not participate. As a result the Topeka NAACP
school integration case was called Oliver L. Brown, et. al., v. the
Board of Education.
In 1953 Oliver Brown became the pastor of St. Mark’s AME Church.
In 1959 the family was moved to Springfield, Missouri, where Brown was
the pastor at the Benton Avenue AME Church. Leola remained a homemaker
until Oliver’s death from a heart attack in 1961, after which
Leola moved her family back to Topeka. She worked part-time for nine
years at J.C. Penny Co. and moved onto thirteen years at Merchants National
Bank. She remarried in 1973. Her second husband, Thirkield Montgomery,
died in 1993. She retired at age sixty-three and still resides in Topeka
along with her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.
Judge Constance Baker Motley
Judge Constance Motley was born and raised in New Haven, Connecticut,
near Yale University; everyone she knew worked at Yale. She decided
to become a lawyer because she knew of only two African American women
lawyers, yet there were other female professionals. The U.S. Supreme
Court’s ruling in the Gains case in 1938 also influenced her.
It made her realize that if you were a lawyer you could do something
about discrimination.
Judge Motley was a lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund team; she
worked on one of the four other school segregation cases that were being
tried around the same time that the Brown case was being tried in Topeka.
She started working as a law clerk for the Legal Defense Fund in October
1945 while a senior at Columbia Law School. She continued working there
after she passed the bar. While there she got to argue cases at the
court of appeals level as well as in front of the U. S. Supreme Court.
She felt that this is experience she would not have gotten working at
a law firm.
Judge Motley recalls seeing very few women lawyers during her time
at the Legal Defense Fund. She tried cases in 11 southern states and
Washington, D.C., but remembers only three women. One was the solicitor
for the Labor Department. Outside of government agencies, the Legal
Defense Fund, while headed by Thurgood Marshall and Jack Greenberg,
had the most cases go before the Supreme Court. Judge Motley argued
10 cases in front of the Court between 1961 and 1964.
After the Brown case, Judge Motley was involved with school cases
in Atlanta, Savannah, Brunswick, and Albany, Georgia. She had 12 cases
in Florida where the conditions of the schools were much worse than
the situation in Topeka. Judge Motley was also the one who tried the
case of James Meredith who wanted to attend college at the University
of Mississippi. She tried other college cases as well. Judge Motley
left the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in February of 1965 to become president
of Manhattan Law School (?). She left there in September of 1966 to
become a Judge.
Ida Norman
Ida Norman was born Ida Sheffield, in St. Louis, Missouri, on September
22, 1914. After finishing high school she pursued a career in nursing,
receiving a bachelor’s degree from Colorado State University.
In the late 1930’s she served as a registered nurse at Douglass
Hospital in Kansas City, Kansas, and from 1938-1940 as a nurse and health
supervisor at the Kansas Vocational School in Topeka. She married Leo
Norman on December 24, 1945. To this union was born a daughter, Norma
Jean Norman.
After their marriage, the couple began life as a military family.
Her husband was in the U.S. Navy. In the early 1950’s the family
returned to Topeka from Seattle, Washington. At that time Mrs. Norman
became the first African American school nurse for Topeka Public Schools.
She was assigned to the four segregated schools for African American
children. After the Brown decision, her schedule included several of
the formerly segregated schools for white children, along with the new
Head Start Program. She tried to no avail to persuade the district to
hire more African American School nurses.
Ida Norman also broke barriers by starting the first African American
Girl Scout Troop in Topeka. She saw many changes after school integration.
Mr. Norman is now deceased, and Ida now lives in the care of her daughter,
Norma, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Ethel L. Parks
Ethel Louise Ransom was born on April 18, 1920, in Topeka, Kansas. She
is the daughter of Jenny B. Collins and James Louis Ransom. Her father
was a medical doctor; his father was a minister. Doctor Ransom provided
medical care to most of the African American Community in Topeka. As
a result her family achieved prominence within the city. After her parents
divorced, Ethel Louise lived with her grandmother in Salina, Kansas
until her second year of high school. Her years in Salina were marred
by racism. In high school she was not allowed to participate in gym
class because of racial discrimination. Still in her teens she moved
to Pasadena, California, to live with her mother and finish high school.
Ethel Louise returned to Topeka, after graduating from high school,
to live with her father and to attend Washburn University. At age 21
she married James Woodson, whom she met in college, and traveled with
him during his military served in the U.S. Army. After World War II,
the couple settled in Topeka. Her husband completed law school at Washburn
University and they started a family. Their two children, Sharon Louise
and James Ransom, would have very different educational experiences.
Sharon attended segregated elementary schools until 1954. She completed
elementary school at the newly integrated Quinton Heights where her
brother would later attend Kindergarten through sixth grade.
While her husband began his private law practice, Ethel Louise completed
her degree and began teaching remedial reading in the Topeka Public
School system. After the Brown decision of 1954, her husband was elected
to the School Board. He died November 3, 1982. Later Ethel Louise remarried
and relocated to Kansas City, Missouri. Her second husband Arthur Parks
died February 17, 1997. She still resides in Kansas City. Her daughter,
Sharon, lives in Los Angeles, California, and her son also lives in
California.
James Parks
James Parks was born in Topeka, Kansas in 1914. He is the eldest child
of Rosa Anna (Draine) Parks and James A. Parks, Sr. His mother was born
in Clarksville, Tennessee, and his father hailed from Windsor, Missouri.
In later years the family grew to include twin boys, Sherman and Sheriden.
James and his brothers attended Sumner Elementary School in Topeka,
which was located across the street from their home. Ironically this
same school would later close its doors to African American children
and become a segregated school for whites only. His education included
graduation from Roosevelt Junior High and Topeka High Schools. He married
Julia Etta in 1941 and in 1942 James became specialist first class in
the U.S. Army.
After returning from World War II he became one of the coaches of
Topeka High School’s segregated African American basketball team
the “Ramblers.” Although both junior and senior high schools
were racially integrated, extra curricular activities were segregated.
By 1948 James Parks had completed his undergraduate degree from Washburn
University. From there he joined the staff of a wholesale drug business,
a job he would keep until retirement. Both James and his wife were active
in the Topeka community. He served as a church trustee at St. John A.
M. E. for some 40 years. He was also an active member of the Omega Si
Phi fraternity. In 1961 and 1962 he was one of 4 commissioners on the
Topeka Planning Commission. Later in life he volunteered for Meals on
Wheels and the Topeka Housing Authority.
James Parks passed away on October 12, 1997. The couple’s only
child, James III, died in 1999. Dr. Julia Etta Parks still resides in
Topeka.
Dr. Julia Etta Parks
Dr. Julia Etta Parks was born in Kansas City, Kansas, on April 5, 1923.
Her parents were Idella Johnson of Kansas City, Missouri, and Hays Long
of Hannibal, Missouri. She had one sister who died during childhood.
The family moved to Topeka when Julia Etta’s father became a maitre-de
at the Jayhawk Hotel. She attended Monroe Elementary, a segregated school
for African American children. She went on to Crane Junior High and
Topeka High during her secondary years; both schools had integrated
student bodies. After graduating from high school she married James
A. Parks in 1941 in Tecumseh, Kansas. She had a son, James Pace Parks,
III, of Illinois, who died in 1999.
The young couple joined the historic St. John African Methodist Episcopal
Church. They met in this church and were members there for more then
five decades. Another central part of the African American community
was the Kansas Vocational School at Topeka (KVS), a segregated trade
school. Dr. Parks and her husband attended KVS, which at the time was
considered one of the hubs of the African American life Topeka along
with Fourth Street, which was the black business district. This district
was a major social and business outlet for African Americans. It included
drug stores, barbershops, and a dance hall and tavern, which hosted
entertainers such as Count Basie and Jay McShan.
Julia Etta started college when her son entered junior high school.
She received her bachelor’s and master’s from Washburn University
and her doctorate from the University of Kansas. Her major was education,
specializing in reading instruction for elementary and secondary students.
She taught at Lowman Hill Elementary School and Washburn University.
The Parks’ son also attended segregated Monroe Elementary School,
and went on to Boswell Junior High and Topeka Senior High. He also graduated
from Washburn University. Her husband is now deceased. Dr. Julia Etta
Parks still resides in Topeka.
Ferdinand Pearson
Ferdinand Pearson was born in XXXXX County, South Carolina; he was the
youngest of four children. Pearson’s family had been slaves in
that area. Mrs. Pearson, his mother, died when he was just six years
old; his father remarried and had seven more children with his second
wife. Mr. Pearson’s father was a farmer who owned his land; he
grew corn, peas, cotton, and rice. As a young man, Mr. Pearson spent
several years in Baltimore, Maryland. He was drafted into the army during
World War II; he served in the European theater. He was in the army
for three and a half years.
Many times a year, Ferdinand was kept out of school to help on the
farm. The school year came out to be about four months long due to the
children missing so much school to help on their family’s farm.
Mr. Pearson’s first school was a one-room schoolhouse with two
teachers. After that school was closed, he attended Bob Johnson School.
That school featured a potbellied stove and two rooms; there were no
desks, only benches. Mr. Pearson had to walk between five and eight
miles to get to school.
Pearson’s siblings from his father’s second marriage were
involved the Civil Rights law suite centered around transportation to
and from school for African American children, which later became known
as the Briggs case. They had a sixteen-mile round-trip walk to school.
Mr. Pearson’s father bought an old truck to take many of the kids
to school. He later helped the community buy a bus to transport the
children to school, but it was difficult to keep it in working condition.
After the county repeatedly refused to help with the upkeep of the bus,
the parents turned to the NAACP.
After the law suite was first dismissed on a technicality, many of
the petitioners lost their jobs. Mr. Pearson’s father was denied
credit to buy the supplies he needed to keep the farm going, so Ferdinand
sent him part of the money he made while in the army. Ferdinand Pearson
still resides in the area.
Thayer Brown Phillips
Thayer Brown Phillips was born in Topeka, Kansas, on December 21, 1921,
to parents Madia (Brown) and Jesse R. Phillips. He has a sister, Talayah
Miller, and a brother, George, who passed away in 1967. Madia Phillips
was also born in Topeka, but Jesse Phillips was born in Fort Smith,
Arkansas. Jesse was recruited by Santa Fe to work as a strikebreaker
during the 1936 Railway strike. The family moved around the country
because of Jesse’s job with Santa Fe. Both parents are buried
at Mt. Hope Cemetery in Topeka.
Thayer Phillips attended elementary in Alameda, California, and then
the family moved back to Topeka, so he attended Crane Junior High for
a year. At that time, junior high for African Americans was only a year.
So after a year off, Mr. Phillips went to Topeka High School; he graduated
in 1941 at midyear. On February 27, 1941, he enlisted in the army. Thayer
was stationed at Fort Riley; he helped with the building of the fort
and was a member of the famed 9th U.S. Calvary B the Buffalo Soldiers.
He left the service in November 1945. About a year after he left the
service, he started attending classes at Washburn University on the
G. I. Bill while working at the V. A. Hospital. Eventually he would
earn a master’s degree in social work from the University of Kansas.
Thayer Phillips married Barbara Jean Sheffield in Kansas City, Kansas.
She was born in Hot Springs, Oklahoma. The couple’s son, Jesse
R. Phillips, was born on March 8, 1951. Mr. Phillips still resides in
Topeka.
Jean Price
Jean Price was born in Wichita, Kansas, on June 16, 1929, to parents
Mamie (Richardson) and Glover Scott. She had two sisters and one brother.
Her mother was born in Ottawa, Kansas; in 1946 she died as a result
of breast cancer when Jean was 16 years old, and is buried in Wichita.
Glover Scott was born in Louisiana. He passed away in 1942, after being
hit by a car while riding his bike, when Jean was just 12 years old;
he is also buried in Wichita.
In Wichita, Mrs. Price attended segregated schools in grades first
thru eighth, but went to integrated North High School. However, when
she moved in with her aunt and uncle in Kansas City, Kansas, after her
mother’s death, she went to segregated Sumner High School. After
a year, she moved to Los Angles, California, to live with another aunt
and uncle. The schools there were integrated. She graduated from North
High School in Wichita and went on to attend Wichita University (now
Wichita State University).
It was when she was in the seventh grade that Mrs. Price started working
outside the home; she washed dishes for a neighbor every evening. After
graduating from Wichita University with a teaching degree, she took
a teaching job in Wichita. She attended classes at the University of
Kansas and received a master’s degree in education from Emporia
State University. Jean taught for 38 years.
Jean married Gratz Price on April 30, 1955; he was also born in Wichita,
Kansas. Gratz’s father was a dentist who had moved his practice
from Wichita to Topeka. The couple was introduced to each other by one
of Jean’s former teachers. Mr. Price worked for the Santa Fe Railway.
The couple adopted a five-year-old girl, Pamela (Price) Long.
After they were married, Mrs. Price stayed in Wichita for a while since
she could not find a teaching job in Topeka. She finally found a job
in 1956 at Topeka State Hospital as the first to teach the emotionally
disturbed children who were patients there. After three or four years,
Mrs. Price moved onto a teaching position at Parkdale School; she was
the only African American teacher there. From Parkdale she went to Lowman
Hill; she taught there until her retirement. Mrs. Price still resides
in Topeka.
Fred Rausch, Jr.
Fred Rausch, Jr. grew up in East Topeka, Kansas. The neighborhood his
family lived in was within two blocks of Mud Town. His father, who was
born on a farm near Kingsburry, Kansas, became a paint contractor after
working as a painter for Santa Fe for several years. He met Fred’s
mother while working for Santa Fe in Beaumont, Texas. Fred Rausch attended
Parkdale Elementary School and Lincoln Junior High. After a year and
a half, he was transferred to East Topeka Junior High.
Fred Rausch was elected to the Topeka School Board in 1957. He decided
to run for the school board because as an assistant attorney general
for the state, he was charged with representing the superintendent of
public instruction. Mr. Rausch became interested in the Board and had
several children in the school system, so he decided it would be a good
idea to run for it. He served on the Board for 20 years.
He recalls the first year’s task for the School Board was to
integrate the teachers. The Board’s attorney informed them that
they needed to do this. He remembers that the African American teachers
who were moved to predominantly white schools faced opposition from
some parents, but that after a year or so, they had parents requesting
their children be put into the classes of those same teachers. There
was also some opposition from African American parents about their children
having white teaches; they felt that the white teachers would not be
able to understand the kids as well as their former teachers had. This
died out in a year or so as well.
Mr. Rausch recalls that the schools were integrated by creating neighborhood
schools in which no child attended a grade school that was more than
six blocks from home. Students attended the junior high school that
was within a one-mile radius of their home. The Board felt that this
was what the Brown decision meant, that children who lived across the
street from a school should be able to go to that school. However, this
theory did not take into account neighborhood shifts that would result
in a lesser degree of integration in some schools. His two oldest children
went to three different schools in three years because of the city’s
expansion to the southwest and the subsequent shifts in school boundaries.
Mr. Rausch left the Topeka Board of Education two years before the Brown
case was reopened in 1979.
Connie Rawlins
Connie Rawlins is a native of Prince Edward County, Virginia. She is
one of four children in a family of two boys and two girls. Although
her siblings attended private schools outside of the county, by the
time Connie was ready for school the "Great Depression” was
in full swing and she had to attend public school. Public schools only
extended to 7th grade. However, the Martha E. Forrester Council of Negro
Women worked tirelessly to add one grade each year. They raised money
for equipment and books. Their efforts eventually resulted in the establishment
of the R. R. Morton High School. Connie graduated from the new high
school as a member of the first graduating class. Morton High School
would later become the center of controversy during a strike by the
African-American student body wanting better facilities.
She attended college at Virginia State College in Petersburg, Virginia,
where she met Mrs. Vera Allen, a woman who would be a positive influence
in Connie’s life. Connie’s teaching career began in Cumberland
County, Virginia, where she taught social studies for three years. It
was while in Cumberland she met and married Dr. Albert G. Rawlins. The
couple eventually relocated because Dr. Rawlins began working for a
hospital in West Virginia. Their three children were born in West Virginia.
Because of the isolation of the area, Connie Rawlins returned to Farmville
in Prince Edward County. She taught high school there until 1959 when
the segregated school closed. She relocated in order for her son to
finish high school in Charlottesville they returned to Farmville in
1965. She recalls the shock of being a teacher in the midst of the student
strike, even though she understood that better facilities were needed.
She vividly recalls the tarpaper shacks that served as extra classrooms.
Joseph Richburg, Sr.
During the time that Joseph Richburg, Sr., was in school, his family
lived the rural area of South Carolina called Spring Hill. It was part
of School District # 8. The first school in the area was held in the
Spring Hill Church. There were only two teachers at that time; the parents
of the students were responsible for providing the wood needed to keep
the school heated. The school went up only to the fourth grade. From
the fifth grade on, the children had to go to school in Summerton; Mr.
Richburg went to Scotch Branch, which was seven miles from his home.
He was able to take his father’s horse and buggy except when it
was time to plow the fields and harvest the crops. At this time, the
Richburgs had some white neighbors whose children were able to take
a bus into Summerton. When it became time for him to start the eighth
grade, Joseph’s father said he needed him at home to help with
plowing the fields and harvesting the crops.
Mr. Richburg was married by the time the Briggs case came about. His
wife was originally from St. Paul; her father had sent her to Sumpter,
South Carolina, to attend Morris College. After completing her second
year, she quite school, got married, and began teaching; she taught
at Joseph’s former school in Spring Hill. In an effort to improve
school conditions, the community bought some barracks and assembled
them on the two acres of land that they had also bought. The NAACP convinced
the community that they needed to sue the district for equal transportation
and equal facilities. At that time, Mr. Richburg’s uncle, E. E.
Richburg, was the local branch’s secretary, and his other uncle,
Lawrence Richburg Rives, was the president. Joseph did not join the
suit when the petition was first circulated because he knew that his
wife would lose her teaching job if he did. He was later convinced to
do so, and Mrs. Richburg did not have a teaching job between 1955 and
1956.
Mrs. Richburg lost her job right after the family had built a new
house. Mr. Richburg was farming as well as working for the Veteran’s
Administration. He was retraining farmers who had served in the military.
Eventually his wife went up North with a group of teachers and found
work, but the teachers were not paid a comparable wage. In August of
1956, Mr. Richburg went to Baltimore, Maryland, where his wife was staying.
He worked as a barber for a while, and then he went into construction
work for a time. From November of 1956 to 1967, he worked in a meat
plant. In 1967 the Richburgs moved back to South Carolina, but their
children stayed with relatives in Baltimore.
Mr. Richburg, Sr. is currently a member of South Carolina’s School
Board for School District # 1. He owns a barbershop and does not plan
to retire anytime soon.
Richard and Frances Ridley
Richard Ridley was born in Topeka, Kansas, on February 10, 1929. His
mother, Maude (Brandon) Ridley was born in 1909 in Jefferson City, Missouri.
She passed away in 1984 and is buried at Mount Hope Cemetery in Topeka.
Dana Ridley, his father, was born on January 14, 1906, in Topeka. Frances
Ridley was born in Osage City, Kansas, on August 1, 1930. Her parents
were Regina (Grant) and King Price. Mrs. Price was born in 1909. King
Price passed away on May 6, 1991; he is buried in Topeka. Richard and
Frances Ridley were married on July 15, 1952, in Topeka. The couple
has three sons and one daughter.
Mr. Ridley went to Monroe Elementary School while Mrs. Ridley went
to school in Holdrege, Nebraska; Her family was the only African American
family in the town. Richard recalls that his education from Monroe was
outstanding; it did not seem inferior to him. He was valedictorian and
president of the senior class at Topeka High School. He attended the
University of North Carolina and the University of Colorado. He has
a bachelor’s degree in political science, a master’s degree,
and was 12 hours away from an LL.B. degree when he left school. Mr.
Ridley was in law school when the Brown decision came down from the
U.S. Supreme Court. He knew the local attorneys involved with the case.
The Ridleys reside in Topeka, and Mr. Ridley still works as a social
worker.
Willie Spencer Robinson
Willie Spencer Robinson was born in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1937 at
Memorial Hospital; he is an only child. His mother was a graduate of
Howard High School in Wilmington. His father worked in a steel mill.
Both parents’ families were from Virginia. Spencer went to elementary
school in the one room State Line School. From the seventh to the tenth
grade he attended Howard High School. He had to walk about a mile to
catch a city bus to get to the high school. His father insisted that
Spencer finish high school since he only went to school through the
third grade.
At the age of fourteen, Spencer got his first job at the Tea House
in Wilmington washing dishes. He worked there for nearly three years.
After the case, his father gave him the choice of staying at Howard
or transferring to Claymont High School for the tenth grade; his mother
wanted him to go to Claymont. Someone put Spencer through some training
so he would be use to hearing the type of verbal abuse he might encounter
at Claymont without reacting to it.
After high school, Mr. Robinson went into the Air Force as a mechanic;
he was stationed in Thailand during the Vietnam War. He met his wife
while stationed in South Carolina for three years. They got married
in 1959. Spencer Robinson passed away on October 19, 1997.
Merrill and Barbara Ross
Merrill Roy Ross was born on December 28, 1919, in Flatlick, Kentucky
to Tamra (Patton) and Richard F. Ross. His mother was born in Ely, Kentucky,
while his father was born in Rogersville, Tennessee. Both of Merrill’s
parents are buried in Topeka. He married Barbara Jackson on June 12,
1951, in Charleston, West Virginia, to parents Gertrude (Campbell) and
James Jackson. She was born there on August 10, 1926.
Their life’s work and their childhood experiences centered around
education. Mrs. Ross graduated in 1947 from West Virginia State College.
Mr. Ross took a detour, after two years at Kentucky State College (now
Kentucky State University), which resulted in a history making opportunity.
In 1941 Mr. Ross joined a U.S. military experimental program offering
pilot training, for the first time, to African American soldiers. On
December 6, 1941, Merrill Ross made his solo cross-country flight. That
flight placed him in the history books because he was now among the
ranks of the famed and highly decorated Tuskegee Airmen.
After military service he returned to college. A family member living
in Coffeyville, Kansas, persuaded him to transfer to Kansas State Teacher’s
College of Pittsburg (now Pittsburg State University) in Pittsburg,
Kansas. He went on to complete graduate work at the University of Chicago
with additional study at the University of Minnesota.
Merrill Ross met his wife during a teacher-recruiting trip while visiting
friends at Lorkburn Air Force Base. Barbara Jackson was living at the
base with her sister’s family. A mutual acquaintance knew she
was seeking a teaching position. After a brief courtship and marriage,
the couple settled in Topeka. School district policy in Topeka prohibited
married women from teaching. Mrs. Ross raised their children, Karen
and Brian, and served as a substitute teacher. By 1954 Mr. Ross had
become principal of Washington Elementary School. This was one of the
four segregated schools for African American children. Washington was
among the schools named in the Brown case.
In 1963 Mr. Ross became assistant principal of one of the formerly
segregated schools for white children. He served as principal of various
elementary schools until he retired in 1985. In 1993 Highland Park South
Elementary School was renamed in honor of Merrill and Barbara Ross.
After returning to teaching, Mrs. Ross taught school there until 1989.
It is now known as Ross Elementary School. Mr. and Mrs. Ross still reside
in Topeka.
Constance Sawyer
Constance Sawyer was born in Topeka, Kansas, on April 5, 1932 in Christ’s
Hospital (now Stormont Vail Medical Center). Her parents were Theata
(Cyrene) and Daniel Sawyer. Theata Sawyer was born in September 1910
in Topeka; she died in March 1952 and is buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery
in Topeka. Daniel Sawyer was born in Topeka on April 5, 1902; he passed
away in January 1950 and is also buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery in
Topeka. Constance is one of six children born to Theata and Daniel Sawyer.
Constance Sawyer’s grandparents, freed during the Civil War, were
homesteaders in the Topeka area, and her grandfather was active in the
leadership of the NAACP’s Topeka Chapter from its formation in
1913. Ms. Sawyer attended segregated Buchanan Grade School. The school
was a mile from her home; she recalls having to run to keep up with
the older kids on the way to school. As a result, Ms. Sawyer moved in
with her great-grandmother who lived across the street from Buchanan.
That year, the parents of the African American students where successful
with their petition to get the children bused to school.
Her father had a key role in the formulation of the NAACP’s
plan to challenge segregation in the schools. African American students
had a hard time passing their classes in junior high because by the
time they got there, they were two years behind the white students due
to the fact that the African American schools received textbooks from
the white school once they had bought new books.
This situation eventually led to the Graham case where Tinkham Veale
and William M. Bradshaw, representing Ulysses Graham’s parent,
argued that junior high school was part of high school, and by not providing
similar education for African American students, these children were
denied rights under the U.S. and Kansas Constitutions. The Court found
that the refusal to permit twelve-year-old Ulysses Graham to enroll
in a junior high school was "discriminatory.” As a result,
some of the African American teachers were fired as result of the junior
high schools being opened up to African American students in the seventh
grade.
In 1942 or 1943, Ms. Sawyer’s father tried to enroll her sister
Grace at Lowman Hill as part of the local NAACP branch effort to test
the legality of segregation itself. This attempt failed, as did the
1947 attempt with her sister Mary. Ms. Sawyer remembers Esther Brown
coming to Topeka to help raise money for the challenge; she stayed with
the Todds when she was in town. She also recalls the leadership of the
local branch having a hard time convincing Oliver Brown to become a
plaintiff in the case. This was not uncommon since the men involved
with the challenge were putting their livelihood at stake; Reverend
Brown also had a heart condition.
Vivian Scales
Mrs. Vivian Scales and her sister Mrs. Shirla Fleming (deceased) secured
their places in the history books as two of the thirteen plaintiffs
in the NAACP’s Brown case of 1954. Mrs. Scales was a participant
on behalf of her daughter Ruth Ann. Mrs. Fleming participated on behalf
of her sons Silas and Duane.
Vivian was born March 11, 1922, in the small central Kansas community
of Winfield. Her parents were Ella (Palmer) and James Willhoite. Mrs.
Scales was one of eight children. When she was entering third grade
when her parents, Sarah and James Willhoite, moved their seven daughters
and one son to Topeka. Both parents had come to Kansas from the South.
Her mother was born in Jackson, Mississippi, and her father in Memphis,
Tennessee. Ironically Winfield was a second-class city based on population
and according to Kansas law could not operate segregated schools. Consequently
Vivian and her siblings came to Topeka’s segregated schools from
an integrated rural education.
Once in Topeka, she attended McKinley Elementary, one of the segregated
schools for African American children. From there she went on to Curtis
Junior High and Topeka Senior High, both integrated schools. However,
the high school was only integrated for academics. Extra curricular
activities were segregated. After graduation she married George Scales
(born August 3, 1919, in Topeka, Kansas) on August 5, 1941, and started
a family.
As a young wife and mother she joined the Topeka NAACP along with
her sister Shirla. It was through the organization that they were asked
to participate in a class action suit to challenge segregated public
elementary schools in Topeka. She was willing because her daughter,
Ruth Ann, attended segregated Washington and later Monroe Elementary
Schools. Both of these schools were of some distance from their home
while Parkdale Elementary School for white children was just two blocks
away. In the fall of 1950, she and her sister took a stand. By following
the instructions given by NAACP legal counsel, their unsuccessful attempts
to enroll their children in public elementary schools designated for
white children only provided evidence to file a court challenge to the
Board of Education racial segregation policy. Her sister’s husband
has been quoted over the years for his testimony in this case. "The
only way to reach the light is to start our children together in their
infancy and they will come up together.”
Mr. & Mrs. George Scales still reside in Topeka. Their daughter
Ruth Ann (Scales) Everett, her children and grandchildren also reside
in Topeka.
Berdyne Scott
Berdyne Scott was born on July 5, 1918, in Topeka, Kansas. Her parents
were Beatrice (Thompson) and Victor Anderson. Beatrice Anderson was
born in Del Rio, Texas, because her father was a telegrapher working
in Mexico and Del Rio was the nearest American town; he could not get
a job with Santa Fe since he was African American. Mrs. Anderson died
in 1989 and is buried at Mt. Hope Cemetery. Victor Anderson was born
in Topeka; he also died in 1989 and is buried in Washington, D.C. Berdyne
is one of four children the Andersons had.
As a young child, Mrs. Scott lived in the area of Topeka referred
to as Sand Town. She went to McKinley Elementary School, which was an
hour’s walk from her home. Next, she attended Curtis Junior High;
this was before the Graham case in 1941 that ended segregation at the
junior high level. In 1935, Berdyne Scott graduated from Topeka High
School. While in high school, she worked in the law office of her future
father-in-law, Elisha Scott. After graduating, she went to Chanute Junior
College in Chanute, Kansas; while in Chanute, she worked in a doctor’s
office. Later, she moved to Washington, D.C.; she worked in the Government
Printing Office, attended Howard University, and met and married her
first husband. She graduated from Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas,
in 1951.
Berdyne Scott’s first husband was Alfonza W. Davis. He was born
in Florida in 1919 and primarily grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. They met
while he was a member of the 9th Calvary (Buffalo Soldiers) at Fort
Riley. She married Mr. Davis in 1941 in Washington, D.C. After Mr. Davis
died, she married John J. Scott in St. John’s Church AME in Topeka
in 1947. In 1955 the couple moved to Washington, D.C.; Mrs. Scott taught
in area schools including Charles Young. She took early retirement after
five years. After a time, the Scotts returned to Topeka where Mrs. Scott
gave workshops on the importance and meaning of the Brown case without
the help of outside funding. Mrs. Scott passed away on February 6, 2000.
Deborah Scott
Deborah Scott was born in Topeka, Kansas, on August 31, 1953. Here mother,
Louise (Crawford), was born in Ponca City, Oklahoma; she passed away
in December of 1989. Charles Scott, Sr., Deborah’s father, was
born in Topeka. He died six months before his wife on March 3, 1989.
Both of her parents are buried in Topeka. She has one brother Charles
Scott, Jr.
Deborah Scott went to segregated Buchanan Elementary School for kindergarten;
it was a few blocks from where she lived. The next year, she attended
Lowman Hill Elementary School as a result of the Brown decision. Lowman
Hill was just a block from her home. She felt that the sense of unity
present at Buchanan was lost at the integrated school; she felt the
teachers were more interested in the performances of the students. From
the first grade on, the only African American teacher that Deborah Scott
had was Dr. Julia Etta Parks. (Dr. Parks was her third grade teacher.)
Deborah attended Boswell Junior High and Topeka High School.
Ms. Scott does not feel that either she, or her brother, was treated
any differently in school as a result of whom their father was. They
just knew a lot of people who treated them like family. She says that
it was quite a cultural shock when her father’s death, and subsequent
funeral, drew such a vast amount of attention and media coverage. Over
the years Deborah worked in a variety of fields. She’s worked
at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, the Kansas Neurological Institute,
and Josten’s American Yearbook, not to mention serving in the
army as well. She also started work on a psychology degree at Washburn
University.
Deborah Scott sees the positive and the negative effects that desegregation
has had on society. It has improved the opportunities available to African
Americans, yet at the same time, they have lost some of their historical
and cultural heritage. She feels that complete integration has not occurred
yet. Ms. Scott still lives in Topeka.
Dorothy (Robinson) Scott
Dorothy Scott was born in Topeka, Kansas. Her mother and stepfather
raised her. Her mother, Elizabeth Jackson, was born in Mississippi.
The family lived in Kansas City until Dorothy was six years old. When
they returned to Topeka, she attended Washington Elementary, a segregated
school for African American children. She was so impressed with her
teachers that she decided, while in elementary school, that she wanted
to become a teacher. Dorothy’s grandfather had taught school in
Mississippi before he opened a small store.
Dorothy received her bachelor’s degree from Washburn University
and began teaching in the segregated elementary schools of Okmulgee,
Oklahoma. Her next teaching experience was in Kansas City, Missouri.
While teaching there she met her future husband, Edward Scott. They
married in Topeka in1943. The couple moved to Ohio where her husband
taught at Wilburforce University. He died in 1952 after their return
to Kansas City, where he served as principal of St. Joseph’s High
School. Dorothy moved to Topeka and resumed her teaching career. In
1954, after the Brown decision, she was assigned to Parkdale Elementary,
a previously segregated school for white children.
She holds a master’s degree from the University of Kansas, post
graduate hours from the University of California at Berkeley, and has
international teaching experience. Dorothy Scott was one of 36 teachers
selected to train African and European teachers in Africa. She still
resides in Topeka in her original family home.
C. E. “Sonny”
Scroggins
C. E. “Sonny” Scroggins was born on June 11, 1951, in Checotah,
Oklahoma. His grandparents in Oklahoma raised him. His godmother was
part white, and had an air about her as if she was better than everyone
else; this led Sonny to be the exact opposite of her. Until he entered
the eighth grade in 1965, he attended segregated public schools. Nevertheless,
Sonny grew up in a family setting that was ripe with activism and the
push for civil rights.
His family history traces back to Red River County, Texas, where they
were the slaves of the Guest family. Mr. Scroggins’ great-great-great-grandmother
was Isaac Guest’s mistress; she had children by him. There are
some 20th century celebrities who are related to that side of the family
including Vice President John Nance Garner and the poet Edward Guest.
His family moved to Oklahoma shortly after the birth of his grandfather.
Some members were sharecroppers, but others were professionals (i.e.,
a plumber, a blacksmith etc.).
Sonny Scroggins became active in the NAACP at a very young age-he
was between 10 and 11 years old. At one time, he was the chairman of
the Junior NAACP (now the Youth Council). He participated in sit-ins
and run-ins at the local businesses in Checotah, Oklahoma. His family
held meetings and other types of gatherings in their home as well. Sonny
followed his older sister to Topeka in 1965. One of the projects he
worked on in Topeka was getting Monroe Elementary School on the National
Register of Historic Places.
Judge Collins Seitz
Judge Collins Seitz was born in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1914. His family
has resided in the state for many years; both his parents and his maternal
grandparents were born there. His paternal grandfather was born in Alsace,
France, and came to the United States sometime between 1860 and 1870.
Judge Seitz’s father worked at the duPont Company as a construction
engineer.
Judge Seitz attended St. Ann’s Catholic School through the eighth
grade. He got his undergraduate degree from the University of Delaware
and law degree from the University of Virginia Law School. He received
a duPont scholarship to attend law school. He decided to become a lawyer
after hearing a debate between Clarence Darrow and Clarence Wilson on
the 18th Amendment. While at the University of Delaware, he had a job
with the state Board of Education; he was the driver for the director
of the adult education. He has taught at several different law schools
over the years and really enjoyed doing it. He was also chancellor of
a law school.
President Johnson appointed the Judge Seitz to the Third Circuit Court
of Appeals after being recommended by Delaware Governor Albert Carvell.
The school desegregation cases came to the chancery court because in
Delaware it has the sole jurisdiction to grant injunctions. He traveled
to Hockessin and Claymont to look at the schools before he made his
decision in the Briggs case; he did the same thing in the case against
the University of Delaware. The judge had never gone to any typed of
segregated school as a student, but as a lawyer he was always for the
underdog. Judge Seitz was also involved in the desegregating of Sally;
he wrote a letter to the school’s principal. Judge Seitz still
resides in Wilmington.
Irving Sheffel
Irving Sheffel moved to Topeka in February 1949, to work for Karl Menninger
at the Menninger Clinic. At the time he was working in Washington, D.C.,
at the Veteran’s Administration in the Medical Department. When
he took the job at the Menninger Clinic, his background was in administration;
his wife knew more about psychiatry than he did since she worked as
a psychiatric social worker. Dr. Karl Menninger offered the job of chief
of administration at Menninger to Mr. Sheffel, and he accepted the position.
Mr. Sheffel has a bachelor’s degree in political science from
the University of Chicago. Then he completed a year of graduate school,
but went to work for the federal government instead of finishing his
master’s degree. It was at the University of Chicago that he met
his wife who was working towards a bachelor’s degree in history.
Mr. Sheffel was drafted into the army on January 6, 1942. After three
years he became a major and was in charge of the Finance Office. He
served overseas during World War II. When he was discharged, he went
to Harvard and received a master’s in public administration.
Mr. Sheffel’s wife knew more about the segregation situation
in Topeka than he did. She quickly got involved with groups working
to improve the conditions of the poor and fighting against discrimination.
He recalls that Dr. Karl Menninger was always working to decrease the
amount of discrimination present in Topeka, but does not recall the
doctor being directly involved with the Brown case. Mr. Sheffel did
not have a lot of time to follow the case because the Menninger Clinic
was playing a key role in reforming the state hospitals in Kansas.
Dr. Hugh Speer
Dr. Hugh Speer was born on a farm near Olathe, Kansas, in 1906. His
parents were Camellia (Shonir) and Henry Speer. The couple had three
other children. Both of his parents taught at the college level. Mr.
and Mrs. Speer are buried in the Olathe Cemetery. Catherine Edwards,
Dr. Speer’s wife, was born in Dobbs, Maryland. The couple was
married in 1930 in Washington, D.C.; they have two daughters.
Dr. Speer spent a year at Tarkio College after graduating from Olathe
High School, mainly for a job writing the college news for papers in
Kansas City; Omaha; St. Joseph, Missouri; and Des Moines. He finished
his undergraduate studies at the American University, College of Liberal
Arts in Washington, D.C., where he met his future wife, Catherine Edwards,
who worked in the Library of Congress. He received his master’s
degree from George Washington University.
During World War II Dr. Speer served in Italy as a field director
with the Red Cross after being turned down by all the branches of the
armed forces for minor medical reasons. After the war, he became the
director of the Veteran’s Advisement Center at Kansas City University
(KCU). After two years, he left to pursue his doctorate degree at the
University of Chicago. Dr. Speer then returned to KCU as the chairman
of the Education Department.
Dr. Speer became involved with the Brown case through contact with
Esther Brown and the Kansas City Jewish Community Center. Mrs. Brown
needed some help to move the Brown case along, and Dr. Speer was a good
friend of Sid Lawrence, the director of the center, who contacted him
about helping the NAACP and Mrs. Brown with the case. He started out
by meeting with the Topeka school administrators, Kenneth McFarland
and Don Garr, who tried to talk him out of getting involved. He also
met with some of the community leaders and a few of the African American
residents. The NAACP asked three things of him: to survey the schools
to see if they were equal, to help recruit expert witnesses, and to
be a witness. Dr. Speer passed away on June 21, 1996.
Stanley Stalter
Stanley Stalter moved to Topeka, Kansas in September of 1949 to become
the principal at Quinton Heights Elementary School. The next year he
moved onto Central Park Elementary School and remained there for four
years. He then moved to Randolph Elementary School. In the fall of 1955,
he was hired as the principal of the new McEachron Elementary School.
Prior to moving to Topeka, Mr. Stalter worked in schools in Morris County,
Council Grove, and Manhattan, Kansas.
Mr. Stalter remembers that he and the other three principals of the
elementary schools in Manhattan had a good working relationship with
the principal of the African American elementary school. He recalls
the five of them traveling together outside of Manhattan, but not having
lunch with him; the principal was African American, so he had to eat
elsewhere. Mr. Stalter feels that these experiences helped shape the
future career decisions of the four white principals, including Dr.
Frank Wilson.
Even though he was an administrator, Mr. Stalter does not recall much
being said in meetings about the Brown case until it started to gain
substantial momentum. It was Dr. Wilson who had to deny the admittance
of Linda Brown to Sumner Elementary School. Mr. Stalter recalls speaking
with him about it.
Mr. Stalter’s first real connection with the Brown case center’s
around the hiring of an African American teacher at Randolph Elementary
School in 1955. The teacher alternated half days between Randolph and
Whitson Elementary Schools with a white teacher. Mr. Stalter had the
task of notifying parents that there would be an African American teacher
and asking if he could put their child in the class. Some of the parents
were adamantly against it, others gave him odd reasons for not allowing
it, but he recalls about 50% of the parents willing to let their child
be in the class. Mr. Stalter also states that the following year it
was harder to keep the students out of the class because the teacher
had such an impact on the students the previous year. However, the next
year, the African American teacher was moved to Whitson Elementary School
full-time. In 1955, Mr. Stalter recalls having only two African American
students at Randolph Elementary School.
Mr. Stalter retired as principal of McEachron Elementary School in
1977. He feels that the Brown decision’s impact on education has
been positive.
Carrie Stokes
Carrie Stokes is known historically as part of the team of students
who organized a student strike to protest segregated schools in Farmville,
Virginia. Along with strike leader Barbara Johnson, the African American
student body of R.R. Morton High School went on strike in the spring
of 1951. Their school was overcrowded and county supervisors all but
ignored the conditions. The county’s attempt to ease overcrowding
involved constructing a few "tar paper” shacks to handle
the overflow. These buildings were substandard facilities with heat
provided by coal burning stoves.
Although Carrie’s parents were raised in Farmville, she, along
with her sister and her four brothers, believed circumstances should
be better. The Stokes children helped with the family farm. Raising
and selling vegetables as well as hogs provided the family’s living.
While their father tended the farm, Mrs. Stokes took in laundry and
worked as a domestic in several homes.
In 1951, Carrie, her brother, and most of the student body of R.R.
Morton High School made history by staging the strike. As a result of
their effort, a school integration case was filed. The NAACP petitioned
the Federal District Court in Richmond with the case of Davis v. Prince
Edward County. Their case was eventually combined with similar cases
and heard by the U.S. Supreme Court under the heading of Brown v. Board
of Education. Carrie continued her education receiving a degree in business
from New York University. She returned to Virginia and currently resides
in Farmville.
Charles Sudduth
Charles Sudduth was born on April 12, 1909, in Coweta, Oklahoma (near
Tulsa). In 1911, his family was forced to leave town due to a race riot;
the loaded up a wagon, went to the train station, and moved to Topeka,
Kansas. Mr. Sudduth’s parents were originally from Dade County,
Alabama, but they had to leave the state due to the fact that they were
an interracial couple; his father was white, and his mother was African
American. His mother, Dora (Culpepper) Sudduth, was a schoolteacher
in Alabama, but became a housewife when the couple moved to Oklahoma.
Mr. Sudduth’s father was a cotton farmer and a Baptist minister
in Oklahoma, but worked as a handy man in Topeka. His parents started
a new church, the Church of God, out of their home; it was a church
with very strict religious beliefs. Charles Sudduth was one of the couple's
nine children.
Education was an important factor in the lives of the Sudduth children.
Charles attended Dr. Charles Sheldon’s kindergarten that was just
around the corner from where the family lived. Before then, Charles
had always been called Beaut, but a teacher at the kindergarten convinced
Mrs. Sudduth to name the boy after the school’s founder.
Charles Sudduth attended Douglas Elementary School; it was a two-room
schoolhouse where grades first thru third were held in one room and
grades fourth thru sixth were in the other room. His older siblings
went to integrated Topeka High School. Charles later attended Buchanan
Junior High School for grades seventh though eighth and Topeka High
School. He had not had much interaction with white people until he went
to Topeka High.
Mr. Sudduth graduated from high school in 1922, but he had to quit
the football team while in the 11th grade so that he could get a job
to help pay for school. His first job was in a Greek shining parlor,
working until seven o’clock every evening and then all day on
Saturdays. He made more in tips than he did from his salary. Next, Mr.
Sudduth worked in the Santa Fe shops as an apprentice; this is when
he met his future wife. However, his parents convinced him to quit and
go to college. He went to live with an uncle in Ohio while he was in
school, but he started working at Firestone Tire Company. Mr. Sudduth
never went to college because he was making so much at Firestone and
wanted to earn enough to return to Topeka and get married.
At the age of 18, Mr. Sudduth married Mildred Jones of Oskaloosa,
Kansas. Soon after, Charles went to work at Dibble’s Grocery Store
and then at Green’s Grocery Store. He was the first African American
stockman at Green’s Grocery Store, but he was injured on the job,
so he had to quite. Mr. Sudduth went back to working for Santa Fe in
1941 as a private office janitor. Next he became the first African American
supervisor at Santa Fe. While working there, he helped Ray Clark start
a union for the African American workers. Mr. Sudduth retired in 1971
from the position of supervisor of elevator operations and janitors.
Mildred Sudduth passed away in March 1958. Mr. Sudduth was married
to his second wife for more than 30 years. He has two sons and one daughter
from his first marriage, and two adopted daughters from his second one.
The Brown decision really helped his children who were in school at
that time. Mr. Sudduth’s brother-in-law, H. L. Burnett, was president
of the Topeka chapter of the NAACP when the case was filed. Mr. Sudduth
passed away on September 9, 1995; the rest of the Sudduthes still reside
in Topeka.
Alberta Temple
Born in Topeka, Kansas, on November 27, 1913, Alberta Temple is the
third child of John and Pearl Temple, and the sister of James, Jeanette,
and Frederick. Her parents, both of whom were born in Tennessee, supported
the family from the earnings of Mr. John Temple’s employment as
a mail carrier for the Topeka Post Office. Mr. Temple died in 1968,
and Mrs. Temple passed away in 1970; both are buried at Mt. Auburn Cemetery
in Topeka.
Like her siblings, Alberta received her public school education at
Monroe School and Topeka High School. While attending college during
the 1930’s, she served on the staff of the Phyllis Wheatley Bureau,
a Topeka social service agency for African Americans. In 1938, she received
a B.A. from Washburn University, and later joined the faculty at Kansas
Technical School, where her sister, Jeanette, once taught. After earning
a M.S. degree in Home Economics from the University of Iowa, she left
Topeka to pursue teaching career at the college level.
For more than a decade she served on the faculties of two African American
colleges, which include Bishop and Prairie View in Texas, and Kentucky
State College in Frankfort, Kentucky. She returned to Topeka around
1959 to care for her parents. From the 1960’s until her retirement
in the early 1980’s, she successfully pursued a career in nutrition
at St. Francis Hospital and the Shawnee County Health Department in
Topeka. Alberta still resides in Topeka.
Frederick Temple
Frederick Temple, the youngest of four children of Mr. John and Mrs.
Pearl Temple, was born in Topeka in 1922. The brother of interviewees
Alberta Temple and Jeanette (Temple) Dandridge, he attended Topeka Public
Schools, which included Monroe Elementary School during the late 1920’s
and early 1930’s and Topeka High School.
After serving in World War II, Frederick Temple completed his undergraduate
studies in economics at the University of Wisconsin in 1947. He also
earned a M.S. degree (1948) and a Ph.D. degree (1958) in agricultural
economics from the University of Wisconsin. He began his teaching career
by serving on the faculty of several historically Black colleges. In
1950, he joined the teaching faculty at Southern University in Baton
Rouge, Louisiana, and continued to serve on the faculty until his retirement
during the 1980’s.
Upon his marriage to Ray Helen Richard (born on November 11, 1929,
in Rougon, Louisiana) in 1951 in Baton Rouge, he became an active member
of the Catholic Church. He and his wife, who retired in 1981 from a
career as a teacher and counselor for the Baton Rouge public schools,
have two children, Doyle and Myra. Mr. Temple is a member of the Omega
Phi Psi Fraternity and continues to reside in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Joe Thompson
Joe Thompson was born on November 2, 1906, in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Fannie (Sims) Thompson, his mother, was born in Winnsboro, South Carolina,
and his father, William Thompson, was born in Garnett, Kansas. Joe is
one of six children. On both sides of the family, his grandparents had
been slaves; one of his grandfathers was the spiritual leader of the
slaves on the plantation he was on, and when he was freed, he declared
himself a Baptist and started a church. The Thompsons moved to Topeka,
Kansas, in 1907. Mr. Thompson’s parents are buried in Mount Auburn
Cemetery.
Joe Thompson went to school at integrated Highland Park; it was an
elementary school, junior high, and high school, all in one. The school
had always been integrated. He graduated from Washburn University in
1948, after spending time in the army, and received a master’s
degree from Chicago University in 1950. He is an ordained Episcopalian
minister. Over the years Mr. Thompson has worked at a varied of jobs
in a variety of occupations: the Post Office, Santa Fe Railway, and
as a florist. He was the first African American probation officer in
Shawnee County, Kansas.
Mr. Thompson married Tracy Harvey of Eudora, Kansas. The couple was
married in Claremore, Oklahoma. Mrs. Thompson passed away in 1956; she
is buried in Eudora. Joe Thompson is very active in the Topeka community.
In the Boy Scouts, he has been a scoutmaster and council commissioner;
he is currently the council advancement chairman. He also volunteers
at the Cancer Society and the Red Cross. His hobbies include cabinet
making, photography, and carpentry. Mr. Thompson still lives in Topeka.
Linda Brown Thompson
Linda Brown Thompson was born February 20, 1942, in Topeka, Kansas.
The family grew to include two other girls, Terry born in 1947 and Cheryl
born in 1950. Her mother Leola Brown was born in Arkansas and moved
to Topeka at the age of two. Her father Oliver Brown was a Topeka native.
The Brown family found themselves involved in a class action suit
to bring about integration in Topeka’s elementary schools. Mr.
Brown was among the parents recruited by NAACP attorney Charles Scott.
This group would comprise the roster of plaintiffs once their case was
filed. During the NAACP work to organize a legal challenge, Linda and
Terry, one of her sisters, attended segregated Monroe Elementary School.
Had it not been for segregation, the girls would have attended Sumner,
an elementary school closer to their home. In spite of the public stance
taken by Mr. Brown on behalf of his children, Linda’s world did
not change.
The family lived in an integrated neighborhood where children of all
races spent their free time playing together. However, because of school
segregation policies they could not attend the same school. In 1953
Oliver Brown became the pastor of St. Mark’s AME Church, and the
family moved to another integrated neighborhood in North Topeka. It
would be one year later that the NAACP case, ironically bearing Mr.
Brown’s name, would be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. By that
time Linda was in junior high school. Secondary schools were integrated.
In 1959 Rev. Brown was assigned to Benton Avenue AME Church in Springfield,
Missouri.
Linda graduated from Springfield’s Central High School in 1961.
Oliver Brown died in June of 1961, and Mrs. Brown moved the family back
to Topeka. For a short time Linda attended Washburn University and took
classes at Kansas State University. She married Charles Smith in 1963.
Later she divorced Smith and married Leonard Buckner, who died in the
late 1980’s. In 1996 she married William Thompson. Linda still
resides in Topeka, along with her mother, sisters, children and grandchildren.
Alvin and Lucinda Todd
Lucinda Todd was born in a small coal mining camp called Litchfield, Kansas in 1903. Her parents had been part of the post Civil War exodus from the South into Kansas. Mr. Slaughter, Lucinda’s grandfather moved the entire family from southern Alabama. Already married, her parents joined the move. Lucinda’s mother Estella was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and her father Charles R. Wilson, was born in Georgia.
Since the Wilson family lived and worked the coalmines in a small, second-class city, by population, Kansas Law permitted the community’s public schools to be intergraded. As a result, the twelve Wilson children were educated in a one-room elementary school attended by both African American and White children. Kansas law of that era only permitted segregated elementary schools in first class cities of fifteen thousand or more residents.
When Lucinda reached the fifth grade, the family moved to Girard, Kansas, because in Litchfield there was no junior high or high school. After her high school graduation in 1922, she attended the Kansas State Teacher’s College in nearby Pittsburg, Kansas for several years. Prior to graduation, she took a teaching position in Joplin, Missouri, but continued her college education. In the late 1920,’s Lucinda moved to Topeka. She taught at Buchanan Elementary School; one of her students was Attorney Charles Scott. She eventually earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Pittsburg State Teachers College in 1935 , the same year she married Alvin Todd. However, she had to resign her teaching position, as married women could not teach during those days.
Alvin Todd was born October 10, 1906, in Oskaloosa, Kansas. His parents were from Missouri but passed away at a very early age; his mother died when he was nine years old. In 1916, he went to live with his grandmother in Lawrence, Kansas where he attended New York Elementary School. They later moved to Oskaloosa where he continued his education , graduating from Oskaloosa High school in 1928. After graduation, Alvin moved to Topeka where he attended Washburn University for two years. He was always a good provider, supporting his family in the background while his wife participated as one of the key member of Topeka’s NAACP chapter during the years of the Brown V. Board case. He finally retired from his position as a personal assistant to Dr. Karl Menninger in 1975.
Mrs. Todd had been a member of the NAACP since 1935, but admitted she did not become concerned about segregation issues until the birth of her only child, Nancy. In 1948, Lucinda became secretary of the Topeka chapter of the NAACP. That same year, Lucinda also became secretary of an adhoc group called Citizens for Civil Rights, headquartered in her home. Their primary efforts surrounded a lengthy document called a “Writ of Mandamus” prepared by Mr. Daniel Sawyer that outlined a proposal to the Topeka Board of Education to end segregated elementary schools. As part of this effort, Mrs. Todd and Mrs. Fayetta Sawyer, walked through Topeka’s black neighborhoods collecting over 1,400 signatures in a petition to the Board of Education requesting an end to segregated elementary schools. The board rejected their demands outright.
In 1949, Mr. Walter White, Executive Secretary of the National NAACP office, was making a 10 city speaking tour through several midwestern cities. During his visit to Topeka, He was a guest of the Todd family. Mrs. Todd had the opportunity to discuss the segregated elementary school situation in Topeka and the efforts then underway.
As efforts by the local NAACP to desegregate Topeka’s elementary schools had in Mrs. Todd’s words, became unbearable, On August 29, 1950, Mrs. Todd wrote Walter White. In her letter, she reminded him that he had been a houseguest the previous year and asked if his legal defense team could be of some assistance as the local chapter had already decided to seek redress through the courts. Letters from Topeka Chapter officers, McKinley Burnet and Attorney Charles Bledsoe quickly followed. Their efforts brought both the national Executive and Legal Defense fund (LDF) teams to Topeka to work closely with the Topeka Chapter of the NAACP in developing legal strategies for a case soon to be called Reverend Oliver Brown et al, V the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Lucinda Todd’s home became the site of the strategy meetings that set the wheels in motion for the Brown case. As part of their strategy, the legal team asked citizens to volunteer as plaintiffs for the upcoming court case. Lucinda Todd was the first of twelve other Topekans to volunteer on behalf of her daughter Nancy. Mrs. Todd was the only plaintiff who was a member of the NAACP, and the only educator. The second to volunteer was her friend Mrs. Lena Carper on behalf of her daughter Cathy.
After the U.S. Supreme Court Decision of 1954 ending legal segregation in public schools, Mrs. Todd returned to teaching. Her first teaching job was at Pierce Addition Elementary School; the last segregated elementary school in Topeka. She retired in 1965. Mrs. Todd passed away in 1996.
Ruby Brown Walker
Ruby Brown Walker is the only living sibling of the late Oliver L. Brown,
for whom Brown v. Board of Education is named. She was born in Topeka
on July 14, 1911, one of ten children in the Brown family. The family
was deeply rooted in Topeka, beginning with their mother, Lutie Bass
Brown, born in 1883, and their father, Francis "Frank” Brown,
born in 1871. They are both buried in Mt. Hope Cemetery.
Ruby’s parents worked hard to provide for their growing family.
Her mother was a domestic worker who cooked, ironed, and cleaned in
several homes. Her father worked a short time in the coal mines of Burlingame,
Kansas, from there to the Topeka Transport Company, and finally as a
custodian for the Santa Fe. Her parents divorced, and her father left
Kansas and moved to Butte, Montana. He died at the age of 58 in California.
The Brown children attended segregated Buchanan Elementary School,
one year of Boswell Junior High, and went to Topeka High School. Ruby
graduated in 1930. By 1938 she had completed her vocational pursuit
and became a Board certified beautician. In 1940, she opened her own
shop in Topeka. After she married Carl Harris in 1943, the couple moved
to Kansas City, Missouri, in 1945. Ruby again opened her own shop in
Kansas City and spent her spare time helping her husband with his tavern.
She divorced Mr. Harris in 1958, and by the early 1960’s she
had returned to Topeka to care for her ailing mother. Back in the city,
she worked as a nurse’s aide for St. Francis Hospital. It was
also at this time, 1961, her youngest brother Oliver died at the age
of 42. Ruby was not living in Topeka at the time the NAACP case, bearing
her brother’s name, was being organized. In 1970 she married Claude
Walker; the couple divorced in 1979. Ruby Brown Walker still resides
in Topeka.
Lacy Ward
Lacy Ward was born February 9, 1961, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
As a youngster he was sent to his parents’ hometown of Farmville,
Virginia, to attend school. He lived in that rural community with his
Aunt Flossie Hudson. Ms. Hudson taught school and was known in the area
for her quick response during attempts by local African American students
to integrate the schools in Farmville.
In the spring of 1951, local African American teens staged a strike
at their high school to protest the poor facilities. By summer, the
teens had secured the services of an NAACP attorney and their case was
being heard in Federal District Court. Once the U.S. Supreme Court ruled
in the Brown case, county officials closed all the public schools in
Farmville, disregarding the integration ruling. Lacy’s aunt, Flossie
Hudson, opened a community school for African American students in her
home to keep them in school during the four-year school closure.
As an adult Lacy Ward joined the staff of Congressman Paine; Farmville
was part of his Congressional district. Prior to Paine’s retirement
in 1996, Lacy assisted a local group, the Martha E. Forester Women’s
Club, with efforts to preserve and interpret Farmville’s school
integration history. The court case, which emanated from their community,
was eventually part of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown
v. Board of Education. Lacy continued his efforts under the newly elected
Congressman Goode. Lacy Ward’s mother was elected, in 1996, to
the infamous Board of County Supervisors, the group responsible for
the 4-year school closure. Lacy along with his wife and two children
reside in Roanoke, Virginia.
Vadeth Whiteside
Vadeth Whiteside was born in Perry, Kansas, on March 6, 1913. Her parents
were also Kansans. She is the daughter of Isabella (Bella) Rosella Bland
of Jefferson County (died ca. 1962) and Moses Jones (died ca. 1923)
of Oskaloosa. Her fraternal grandfather had been enslaved in Kentucky.
He escaped with his family and found his way to a farm located between
Perry and Oskaloosa. Vadeth was the third youngest of nine children.
The Jones children attended integrated country elementary schools in
Jefferson County and Perry High School. In her late teens she lived
with her older sister and attended Topeka High School.
At the age of 17 she married and moved to Denver where she found work
in a hat repair shop. After returning to Topeka, she worked in retail
prior to 17 years of employment at the Menninger Foundation. Vadeth
Whiteside has been married three times. Her first marriage was to Paul
Bryant of Perry, Kansas. The second marriage was to Harold Hearst of
Ozawkie, Kansas, and her third and final husband was James Whiteside
of Independence, Missouri. She had two children, Barbara and Dean Bryant.
Her children attended Washington Elementary, one of Topeka’s
four segregated schools for African American children. In the summer
of 1950 Vadeth was asked to participate in the NAACP legal challenge
to school segregation. Although she did not accept the NAACP offer,
once her daughter graduated from Washington School, Vadeth enrolled
her son in private school to escape segregated public schools. She believed
he would receive a better education.
Her sister was married to McKinley Burnett, President of the Topeka
NAACP. Vadeth was a member of the organization, but unlike her sister
she was not actively involved. Vadeth Whiteside now resides in Phoenix,
Arizona.
Carl Williams, Jr.
Carl Williams, Jr., was born in Topeka on March 21, 1920. His parents
too were Kansas natives. Geneva Jackson Williams, his mother, was born
in Columbus and Carl Williams, Sr., his father, was born in Eskridge.
The family included Carl and one brother Claude. In 1948 he married
Wanda, a young woman from Wabaunsee, Kansas. The couple has three children.
Carl was raised in an integrated neighborhood in South Topeka. He
graduated the 8th grade from Monroe Elementary, a segregated school
for African American children. He attended 9th grade at Crane Junior
High School and graduated from Topeka High School in 1938. Both schools
had integrated student bodies. During high school, Carl played basketball
on the segregated school team, the Ramblers. He was the first African
American student to be in the Topeka High School Acapella Singers Club.
His education beyond high school includes an associate degree in corrections
from Washburn University. He began his career in the National Youth
Corps.
In 1943 he became a mechanic in the Santa Fe Railway Shops in Topeka.
It was during this time that he met and worked with Oliver Brown. For
a short time he also worked at the Santa Fe Shops in Needles, CA. He
returned to Topeka and was drafted during WWII into the Army. His military
service ended in 1946. He returned to work at the Santa Fe Shops; from
there he was a charge aide at the Topeka State Hospital for 23 years.
After attending Washburn he became a tax examiner for the State of Kansas.
His final employment prior to retirement was as a lieutenant with the
Kansas Department of Corrections. He has been and remains very active
in African American organizations, and civic clubs. Carl Williams and
his second wife still reside in Topeka, along with one daughter and
her family. His other daughters live in Massachusetts and North Carolina.
J. Samuel Williams Jr.
James Samuel Williams, Jr. was born in New York City in 1933, but when
he was six months old his parents separated and then divorced, so his
mother moved back to Farmville, Virginia. His parents were originally
from there; he lived with his maternal grandparents. The three major
influences in his life were his sixth grade teacher, Arthur Jordon;
Professor Hall who taught African American history at his grade school;
and the third person, George Watson, was his high school football coach.
Mr. Williams attended Robert R. Morton Elementary School (now Marion
Grant Elementary School) for grades first thru seventh. There was no
junior high; high school was eighth thru twelfth grade. Outside of school
activities, he was active in the Boy Scouts and the First Baptist Church.
While in high school, J. Samuel Williams took part in the student strike;
he has always been somewhat of a leader, and in 1951 he was the senior
class president. He had also become dissatisfied with the conditions
at the high school compared to those at the white high school. During
the strike, the students walked downtown and met with the superintendent
of schools, they discussed the situation amongst themselves, and had
a mass meeting at the First Baptist Church. Representatives from the
NAACP were at the church meeting. His mother, who was teaching at Cumberland,
was very supportive of the student strike; she understood what it was
they were trying to accomplish.
After high school, Mr. Williams served in the army. In 1960 he was
a student at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. He graduated
in 1962 and enrolled in the School of Religion in Union, North Carolina,
in 1963. He graduated from there in 1967 after leaving to work and teach
school for a few years. He took part in the seven demonstrations that
the students held there, during which SNIC was formed. He was the chairman
of the Stirring Committee as well as taking part in the demonstrations.
In 1963 he took part in the demonstration in Farmville that lead to
the desegregation of the theater and the hiring of African American
workers at Safeway. He also took part in the demonstration to integrate
the Farmville Baptist Church; he was arrested for that.
Mr. Williams was ordained as a minister on January 1, 1961, at the
First Baptist Church of Farmville. After getting his degree from the
School of Religion, he went to Buffalo, New York, where he was the supervisor
for community development at Settlement House. At the same time, he
was also the director of the social service department for the Council
of Churches for Buffalo and Erie County, New York. He was also the fiscal
director for the Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), the states
side counterpart of the Peace Corps. The Williamses moved back to Farmville
in 1977 and still reside there.
Frank Wilson
Frank Wilson was born in the small southeast Kansas town of Moran. After
high school he attended 2 years of junior college in Iowa. He returned
to Kansas and taught in a rural elementary school while taking classes
toward a degree at Pittsburg State University. His master’s degree
was obtained from Colorado State University and his Ph.D. from the University
of Kansas.
Frank Wilson began his teaching career in a one-room school in Eureka,
Kansas, and also taught in two other Kansas communities, Augusta and
Manhattan. He arrived in Topeka in 1947, and served as principal of
Sumner Elementary, a segregated school for white children. His tenure
there was from 1947 to 1951. In the fall of 1950, the Topeka NAACP was
in the midst of a plan to challenge segregation in public schools. Sumner
was among the schools targeted by the organization. Frank Wilson was
in his office when Oliver Brown attempted to enroll his daughter at
Sumner as part of the NAACP strategy.
In 1951 Wilson was assigned for one year as principal of State Street
Elementary, another segregated school for white children. From there
he served for 25 years as principal of Whitson Elementary, which was
also a segregated school. While at Whitson he witnessed the change,
after the Brown decision, to integrated public schools. The last five
years of his career were spent as principal of McCarter Elementary School.
Frank Wilson and his wife still reside in Topeka.
Harriet Wilson
Harriet (Stephens) Wilson was born May 6, 1917 in Topeka, Kansas. Her
father Harry T. Stephens was a Topeka native and her mother Senah Ramsey
Stephens was from El Dorado Springs, Missouri. The Stephens family included
three girls and one boy.
Harriet attended Topeka Public Schools including Lowman Hill Elementary,
Boswell Junior High and Topeka High School. She graduated from the newly
constructed high school as part of the class of 1936. Her post secondary
education took place at the University of Kansas. She graduated from
college in 1940 with a degree in English. Her degree was followed by
one year of graduate work.
Harriet met Paul Wilson while attending the University of Kansas. After
graduation they married in 1941 at the home of her parents in Topeka.
Over the years the couple started a family, which eventually included
four children: three daughters and a son. Throughout her life Harriet
Wilson worked as a substitute teacher. She also supported and advised
her husband Paul as he began his career as an attorney.
In 1950 they found themselves in the midst of a history-making journey.
By that time Paul Wilson had joined the staff of the Kansas attorney
general. He was immediately assigned to represent the state in a class
action case against Topeka Public Schools. The case also named the state
of Kansas as a defendant. Little did they know that Paul would find
himself arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court, in Brown v. the Board
of Education. Harriet Wilson considers herself an amateur historian.
She still resides in Lawrence, Kansas.
Paul E. Wilson
Paul E. Wilson was born on November 11, 1913, in Quenemo, Kansas, to
Clara (Jacobs) and Dale Wilson. His mother was born in Kansas City,
Missouri, on March 14, 1891, and died in 1963. His father was born in
Lucas, Kansas, and died in 1973. Both are buried in Quenemo. Another
son, Morris, resides in Overbrook, Kansas.
Mr. Wilson is noted for his role as the attorney of record for the State
of Kansas in the Brown Case. In 1951 it was his responsibility to defend
the state statute that permitted segregated public schools. Mr. Wilson
was born on a farm near the small rural community of Quenemo, Kansas.
Quenemo, 40 miles southwest of Lawrence, is where he made his home.
Until his recent death, he was semi-retired from a professorship at
the University of Kansas Law School.
Mr. Wilson graduated from high school in 1930; he was a member of a
small rural senior class of only 50 students. Even as a high school
student his leadership skills were evident through positions as both
class president and valedictorian. He arrived at his first day of school
in a horse drawn buggy driven by his mother. From then on he walked
the four-mile round-trip to and from school. The one-room school he
attended all grades in shaped his commitment to education and led to
his eventually seeking a college degree. Paul Wilson was a third generation
Kansan. In the 1870’s his paternal grandparents migrated to Kansas
from Indiana. Years later, his maternal grandmother migrated to the
state after living in both Illinois and Missouri. His parents, like
his grandparents before them, made their living from the land. The multitude
of farm chores helped to shape Paul’s commitment to hard work.
Although his father had not completed grade school, Paul set high standards
for himself. He decided while in high school that after graduation he
would study to become a lawyer. However, the Great Depression and poor
economic conditions in Kansas delayed his plans to attend college for
three years. By 1933 he had worked and saved enough money to afford
college tuition. That same year, he enrolled at the University of Kansas
(KU). He received an undergraduate degree in political science in 1937,
a graduate degree in 1938 from KU, and his law degree from Washburn
in 1940.
Like so many young men of his day, Mr. Wilson was called on to serve
his country during World War II. He was in the military for nearly four
years. After military service he returned to home in Lyndon, Kansas,
joining his new wife Harriet Stephen. She was born on May 6, 1917, in
Topeka; the couple was married on June 18, 1941, in Topeka. Four children
were born to the union: three daughters and a son. An ongoing interest
in government led Mr. Wilson to seek elective office. He served two
terms as county attorney, resigning during his second term. That same
year he moved to Topeka to become an attorney for the Department of
Social Welfare.
In December 1951, he joined the staff of the State Attorney General’s
Office. The first case he was assigned to was Oliver L. Brown et. al.
v. The Board of Education of Topeka. His role in his appeal was to represent
the state’s interest during the Supreme Court proceedings. In
1957 he joined the faculty of the University of Kansas Law School. He
semi-retired from KU in 1981, keeping part time office hours until his
death and published his memoirs in a book called A Time to Lose. Mr.
Wilson passed away on April 22, 2001, in Lawrence, Kansas.
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