Linda Brown, woman at center of Brown v. Board case, dies

Linda Brown, who as a little girl was at the center of the Brown v. Board of Education US Supreme Court case that ended segregation in schools, has died, a funeral home spokesman said.

Brown died Sunday afternoon in Topeka, Kansas, Peaceful Rest Funeral Chapel spokesman Tyson Williams said. She was 75 years old.

Brown was 9 years old when her father, Oliver Brown, tried to enroll her at Sumner Elementary School, then an all-white school in Topeka, Kansas.

When the school blocked her enrollment her father sued the Topeka Board of Education. Four similar cases were combined with Brown’s complaint and presented to the Supreme Court as Oliver L. Brown et al v. Board of Education of Topeka, Shawnee County, Kansas, et al.

The court’s landmark ruling in May 1954 — that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal” — led to the desegregation of the US education system. Thurgood Marshall, the NAACP’s special counsel and lead counsel for the plaintiffs, argued the case before the Supreme Court.

Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer acknowledged Brown’s contribution to American history.

“Sixty-four years ago a young girl from Topeka brought a case that ended segregation in public schools in America. Linda Brown’s life reminds us that sometimes the most unlikely people can have an incredible impact and that by serving our community we can truly change the world.” [SOURCE: WTKR]

Segregation gains ground 60 years after Brown v. Board of Ed.

Progress toward integrated classrooms has largely been rolled back since the Supreme Court issued its landmark Brown v. Topeka Board of Education decision 60 years ago, according to a report released Thursday by the Civil Rights Project at UCLA. Blacks are now seeing more school segregation than they have in decades, and more than half of Latino students are now attending schools that are majority Latino.

In New York, California and Texas, more than half of Latino students are enrolled in schools that are 90 percent minority or more, the report found. In New York, Illinois, Maryland and Michigan, more than half of black students attend schools where 90 percent or more are minority.

Project co-director Gary Orfield, author of the “Brown at 60” report, said the changes are troubling because they show some minority students receive poorer educations than white students and Asian students, who tend to be in middle-class schools. The report urged, among other things, deeper research into housing segregation, which is a “fundamental cause of separate-and-unequal schooling.”

Although segregation is more prevalent in central cities of the largest metropolitan areas, it’s also in the suburbs. “Neighborhood schools, when we go back to them, as we have, produce middle-class schools for whites and Asians and segregated high-poverty schools for blacks and Latinos,” Orfield said.

Housing discrimination — stopping or discouraging minorities from moving to majority-white areas — also plays a role in school segregation and “that’s been a harder nut to crack,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, which argued the Brown case in front of the Supreme Court.

Read more: Segregation gains ground 60 years after Brown v. Board of Ed.

Read the report: Brown at 60 Great Progress, a Long Retreat and an Uncertain Future