The Topeka chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People recruited 13 African American parents to challenge a Kansas law that allowed cities such as Topeka to segregate elementary school students. After losing in U.S. District Court in 1951, the plaintiffs appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, where their case was joined with four other lawsuits from three states and the District of Columbia contesting segregation in public schools. The Topeka families who acted together in the early 1950s became part of the decision in Brown versus Board of Education, which outlawed segregation in public education and set a precedent for ending other forms of segregation. Plaintiff Zelma Henderson recalled that she had attended an integrated school system in Oakley, Kansas, but in Topeka her children had to attend a separate school for black students across town, a situation she resented because children learned to play together and understand one another before being taught otherwise.
