Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka is one of the most famous Supreme Court cases in American history, known best for striking down the doctrine of ‘separate but equal.” This case involved five communities in Kansas, Delaware, Virginia, South Carolina, and Washington, D.C., resulted in the desegregation of schools, and continued the fight for educational equity.

Although the public’s knowledge about the decision often focuses on one case and a handful of people, many more individuals across the five separate communities were proactive in making this historic landmark decision happen. These cases involved dozens of Black women who outnumbered Black men as plaintiffs, serving as the backbone of the movement that changed the education system in the United States forever.

Harvard University professor and African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund Advisory Council member Dr. Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham details that the work, bravery, and persistence of these women during the Civil Rights Movement helped these local cases gain national recognition. The genesis of school desegregation began with the community work of these mothers, students, and activists in all five communities.

Although Brown v. Board is often mentioned with one school or person in mind, these communities made sacrifices and tirelessly strategized in schools, churches, and other institutions to legalize school integration across the country. The National Trust for Historic Preservation recently named Brown vs. Board of Education a National Treasure as part of our work to tell the full story of this landmark case.

“These schools are so important,” Higginbotham said. “They are the sites of history and people need to know that. When the full story is told, it becomes even richer. I think when you understand this is a community effort, it shows you the importance of working together to make change. It's inspiring to people.”

Dr. Mamie Phipps Clark

As a trailblazing Black woman in the social sciences, Dr. Mamie Phipps Clark specialized in the pathology of racism as a psychologist. She and her husband, Dr. Kenneth Clark, conducted tests using white and black baby dolls to demonstrate internalized racism in Black children. Kenneth served as an expert witness for plaintiffs in the Belton (Bulah) v. Gebhart, Davis v. Prince Edward County, Briggs v. Elliott trials. The U.S. Supreme Court cited the research in the Brown v. Board decision.

The Clarks were the first people to open a full-time child guidance center, called the Northside Center for Child Development, in Harlem. They were also the first Black Americans to receive doctorates in psychology from Columbia University.

Darlene Brown, Linda Brown, Lucinda Todd, and Nancy Todd (Kansas)

The local NAACP chapter in Topeka, Kansas initiated Brown v. Board in 1950 to challenge the countrywide “separate but equal” doctrine and the city’s segregated schooling policy for elementary schools. Thirteen families tried to enroll their children in local schools but were all denied, and instead the children had to travel for hours to attend the four schools designated for Black students. The parents filed a suit that became the namesake for the federal combined Brown v. Board case.

Linda Brown, the daughter of plaintiffs Oliver and Darlene Brown, was in the third grade when nearby Sumner Elementary School of Topeka denied her and her peers’ admission into the school because of their race. Instead, Linda had to attend all-Black Monroe School, which was much further from her home. She was placed at the center of the case after her parents Oliver and Darlene Brown, along with twelve other families, filed the historic lawsuit.

A mother, activist, and schoolteacher, Lucinda Todd served as the secretary of the local NAACP chapter in Topeka. Todd was the first plaintiff to volunteer for the Topeka Board of Education lawsuit after her daughter, Nancy Todd, was denied enrollment in the neighborhood schools in the summer of 1950. Todd opened her home to become the headquarters of the local fight for school desegregation.

Ethel Belton, Ethel Louise Belton, Sarah Bulah, and Shirley Bulah (Delaware)

Delaware had two individual cases included in the Supreme Court case. The cases were against the State Board of Education and named after board member Francis B. Gebhart.

Parents in both cases were frustrated with the distance their children had to travel to get to school. The state did not provide bus transportation for Black children, despite having a bus for white students pass by their homes every day. The parents tried to enroll their 11 kids into the white neighborhood schools, but the schools denied them.

The Chancellor of the court, Collins Seitz, ruled that the plaintiffs did not receive equal protection under the law and ordered their enrollment in the white schools. The board of education appealed the decision, but this is the only case under Brown v. Board that decided in favor of the plaintiffs at the state level.

Serving as one of the ten plaintiffs in Belton v. Gebhart, Ethel Belton’s daughter, Ethel Louise Belton, was one of the students who traveled two hours every day from Claymont to Wilmington to attend the all-Black high school, Howard High School. They both testified at the state trial.

Sarah Bulah petitioned many times for the Department of Public Instruction to allow her daughter, Shirley, and other Black children bus transportation to get to Hockessin Colored School #107. Although the department rejected her petition and she lacked community support, Sarah took matters into her own hands. She received assistance from the NAACP in Wilmington to sue for school integration.

Barbara Johns, Carrie Stokes, Dorothy Davis (Virginia)

NAACP attorneys Spottswood Robinson and Oliver Hill filed the 1951 Davis v. Prince Edward County case after 16-year-old Barbara Rose Johns led a student walkout at Robert Russa Moton High School on April 23, 1951, due to deplorable school conditions. Johns and her classmate, Carrie Stokes, sought legal support from the NAACP in Richmond, and the attorneys filed the lawsuit on behalf of 117 students to strike down the state law requiring segregated schools in Virginia.

This Virginia case became a part of the Brown v. Board Supreme Court case in 1954. Following the Supreme Court decision, the Prince Edward County Board of Supervisors enacted a “campaign of massive resistance” against school integration. They refused to appropriate any funds for the County School Board, which caused their schools to close for five years between 1959-1964, denying an education to a generation of kids.

Full of bravery, courage, and determination, eleventh-grade student Barbara Rose Johns led a two-week student strike at all-Black Robert Russa Moton School in Farmville. A total of 450 students participated in the strike to protest poor school conditions. Students dealt with overcrowding, and the school also lacked a gymnasium, cafeteria, infirmary, and teachers’ restrooms. Johns did not carry the lead plaintiff’s name in the case and was not involved in it because her parents feared for her safety. Instead, the case took the last name of ninth-grade student Dorothy Davis.

Eliza Briggs (South Carolina)

Briggs v. Elliott is named after Harry Briggs, who was one of twenty parents who filed a suit against the school board for Clarendon County, South Carolina, to end school segregation. R.W. Elliott served as the president of the school board for Clarendon County, South Carolina.

The parents initially petitioned for the county to provide busing transportation for Black students. The county, unfortunately, ignored their request. They instead filed a suit to seek the integration of schools in the fall of 1950. The U.S. District Court, consisting of three judges, denied the plaintiffs’ request, but they did approve the school board to begin equalizing the schools.

Eliza Briggs and her husband Henry, parents of young children, were the first two people out of 100 people to sign the petition to advocate for equal educational opportunities in 1949. Due to their advocacy, the couple lost their jobs and eventually had to relocate because they refused to remove their names from the petition.

Sarah Bolling (Washington, D.C.)

Bolling v. Sharpe isn’t directly associated with Brown v. Board and the other cases, but is equally important. This case held the federal government to the same non-discrimination standards as the states when the Supreme Court provided a separate opinion based on the Fifth Amendment because the Fourteenth Amendment did not apply in Washington, D.C.

The case began in 1947 when Gardner Bishop and the Consolidated Parents Group, Inc. started a campaign to end school desegregation. Bishop tried to admit 11 Black students into John Philip Sousa Junior High School in 1950, but the school rejected them.