Linda Brown, who as a little girl in Topeka was at the center of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that ended school segregation in the United States, has died at age 76.
Brown’s sister, Cheryl Brown Henderson, founding president of The Brown Foundation, confirmed the death. She said family will not comment on her sister’s death. Peaceful Rest Funeral Chapel of Topeka will handle arrangements.
Linda Brown’s father, Oliver Brown, became the lead plaintiff in the Brown v. Board case after attempting to enroll her in 1951 in the all-white Sumner Elementary School near the family’s home in Topeka.
He was rebuffed and told his daughter had to attend the all-black Monroe School, two miles from their home. The Topeka school district maintained 18 elementary schools for white children and four for black children.
Oliver Brown responded by joining a dozen other plaintiffs in the NAACP’s legal challenge of segregated schooling in Kansas. Cases from the District of Columbia and four states — South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware and Kansas — were then consolidated into Brown v. Board of Education.
