Brown vs. Board of Education was a groundbreaking case in the fight to end segregation. The case lasted a duration of two years, ending with the unanimous decision that ended separate but equal in education because it violated the 14th Amendment. At the center of this case was the Brown family. Oliver Brown, the assistant pastor at a local church and a dozen plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against the school board, the Topeka Board of Education, after they refused to allow Brown’s daughter, Linda to attend the all-white school close to her home.

Although Linda Brown never had the chance to attend the school – she entered junior high when the case finally concluded – the decision began the process of the integration of America’s schools.

“I just couldn’t understand. We lived in a mixed neighborhood, but when school time came I would have to take the school bus and go across town and the white children I played with would go to this other school,” Brown said of the case. “My parents tried to explain this to me but I was too young at the time to understand.”

Sadly, it wasn’t until years later that integration finally got underway in the famous desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas.

On March 25, Linda Brown died in Topeka, Kansas. Brown went on to attend Washburn and Kansas State and became an educational consultant and a public speaker. Brown was married several times and is survived by her daughter, Kimberly Smith. In 1974, she and several others reopened her father’s case, her children now in the Topeka district, that the integration process had not yet been completed. The ruling was not in her favor, but it was eventually reversed.

There is no question that Brown’s biggest legacy is tied to Brown vs. Board, especially considering the impact that decision had on the fight for equality.

“Linda Brown is one of that special band of heroic young people who, along with her family, courageously fought to end the ultimate symbol of white supremacy – racial segregation in public schools,” said the president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Sherrilyn Ifill. “She stands as an example of how ordinary school children took center stage in transforming this country.”