Treasure that it is, the museum seems to be practically unknown. When I visited a couple of times it was almost deserted. There was a park ranger in a ranger's uniform at the door. He was very cordial and turned out to be quite a scholar on the subject of Brown v. the Board of Education himself. There's a bookstore in the museum and the book buyer was also very knowledgeable about the subject. The store has a small but rich selection of books on subjects related to Brown v the Board of Education.

Why it Matters
U.S. Supreme Court decision known as Brown v the Board of Education was a major historical development that changed American life profoundly. It was one of the most influential decisions ever made by the Supreme Court in terms of the effect it had on the actual lives of Americans. In 1954 racial segregation was still a firmly entrenched way of life throughout a wide swath of America.

The court's decision in Brown v the Board of Education declared that segregation in public schools was illegal because it violated the Equal Protection clause of the 14th amendment to the Constitution. The clause said, "No State shall ... deny to any person ... the equal protection of the laws." Brown v The Board of Education overturned earlier rulings going back to Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, which had said that "separate but equal" school facilities for blacks were good enough.

Though the decision outlawed segregation, it did not end the practice. Segregation continued on its own inertia and remained solidly entrenched in the south for many years. But by making segregation illegal the decision set the stage for the confrontations against it in the 1960s. It put federal law on the side of those who resisted segregation, a huge turning of the tables. But even after the law was changed it took many years, many confrontations, many beaten and many killed before school segregation could be actually eradicated in America.

Why Kansas?
Segregation in Kansas goes back to a state law of 1879, which authorized (but did not require) 12 cities with populations over 15,000 to build separate schools for black students. In the early '50s, Topeka had 12 schools, eight for white children and four for black children.

Oliver Brown was an Afro American welder employed by Santa Fe Railroad in Topeka and the pastor of his church. Brown's daughter Linda was a third grader at Monroe Elementary School, a black school that was a mile away from their home, while there was a white school only seven blocks away. The Brown family was part of a much larger group of people who sued schools to stop segregation as part of a national strategy of legal action by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Brown v. The Board of Education was only one of five cases against segregation that were being considered by the Supreme Court at the time. The court also had cases from Delaware, Virginia, the District of Columbia and South Carolina in its docket, bundled together because they represented the same legal issues. Each of the states' cases represented a number of separate individual cases. The Topeka case was a class action suit with 13 plaintiffs. The Delaware case had eight and the D.C. case had nine. The South Carolina case had over 100.

Attorneys put Brown at the top of the list in the Topeka in part because his family was intact and he would be better equipped to handle the legal pressures of the lawsuit than a single parent. The Kansas case was put at the top of the list, one of the justices has said, because since Kansas was not in the south it would diffuse the impression that the case was focused strictly on the south.

Woven into the Fabric of American Life
Even many conservatives who initially opposed integrating the school system eventually came around to accepting life in an integrated society. William Rehnquist, the arch conservative jurist who was appointed to the Supreme Court by Nixon in January 1972 and nominated to be chief justice in 1986 by Reagan, opposed Brown v the Board of Education and thought it should be reversed. While he was working as a law clerk for Justice Robert Jackson in the 1952 he wrote a memo arguing against court ordered desegregation. In it he wrote, "I realize that it is an unpopular and unhumanitarian position, for which I have been excoriated by 'liberal' colleagues but I think Plessy v. Ferguson was right and should be reaffirmed." He went on to say that "To the argument... that a majority may not deprive a minority of its constitutional right, the answer must be made that while this is sound in theory, in the long run it is the majority who will determine what the constitutional rights of the minority are."

During confirmation hearings later, he tried to distance himself from the memo, at first claiming it represented Justice Jackson's belief, though Jackson had voted with the majority on Brown v. the Board. Later, however, he acknowledged defending Plessy v. Ferguson in discussions with law clerks. By 1985 he had come to a place where he said that although there was a "perfectly reasonable" argument against Brown v The Board of Education, he now thought that the decision was correct.

Admission to the museum is free. A donation box is provided. For more on Brown v. Board of Education, see brownvboard.org. For more on Monroe School, Topeka, at the Kansas Historical Society site at kansasmemory.org/item/9338. For more on the museum, see nps.gov/brvb.