Brown, Linda

African-American woman whose Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education, destroyed the legal basis for racial segregation in public schools. Born in Topeka, Kansas; daughter of Reverend Oliver Brown.

In 1951, as a fourth-grade student at a black elementary school in Topeka, Kansas, Linda Brown unwittingly became the subject of one of the most important Supreme Court decisions to affect racial equality in the United States. Weary of the long walk and bus ride from her home to school each day, Linda applied to attend a nearby public elementary school for white children. When she was turned away, her father, the Reverend Oliver Brown, and 12 other parents, sued the Topeka Board of Education. When a three-judge panel heard the case, it decided that since African-American and white schools in Topeka were equal, or so they maintained, blacks were not discriminated against and therefore could not attend white schools. The Browns and the other parents appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, forcing the judges to confront the explosive issue of segregation in public elementary schools.

The case, which became known as Brown v. Board of Education, was deliberated for three years. The desegregation decision, handed down in May 1954, simply stated that racially segregated schools were unconstitutional. The passionate reactions to this decision have since been written into the history of school desegregation in the United States, along with the names of Linda Brown, Ruby Bridges, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Daisy Bates, Elizabeth Eckford , and Minnijean Brown .

sources:

Baker, Liva. "With All Deliberate Speed," in American Heritage. Vol. XXIV. February 1973.