NAACP Legal Defense Fund files class action in Kansas directly challenging school segregation as unconstitutional

Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund recruited 13 Topeka parents, led by railroad welder Oliver Brown, to sue the Topeka Board of Education for maintaining separate elementary schools for Black and white children. Oliver Brown's daughter Linda, age 7, walked 21 blocks to Monroe Elementary — the Black school — while Sumner Elementary stood 7 blocks from their home. The U.S. District Court for Kansas ruled against the plaintiffs in August 1951, finding that Black and white Topeka schools were substantially equal in facilities — a ruling the NAACP had anticipated as a necessary step toward Supreme Court review.