Widow of lead plaintiff in landmark case turns 100
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The widow of the lead plaintiff in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case that led to school desegregation has turned 100.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that Leola Brown Montgomery celebrated her birthday on Friday.
Montgomery’s husband, Oliver Brown, became the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit after attempting to enroll their daughter, Linda, in an all-white elementary school near the family's Topeka home in 1951. Oliver Brown was told she had to instead attend the all-Black Monroe School two miles away.
As a result, the NAACP filed a legal challenge to segregated schooling in Kansas. Cases from the District of Columbia and three other states were consolidated into Brown v Board of Education.
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 1954 that “separate but equal” schools violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
Oliver Brown died in 1961. Linda Brown died at age 75 in 2018.