Topeka was at the center of Brown v. Board. Decades later, another type of segregation persists

TOPEKA, Kan. The lesson on diversity began slowly in a first-grade classroom in Topeka, where schools were at the center of the case that overturned segregated education.

“I like broccoli. Do you like broccoli? Marie Carter, a black school library employee, asked her broccoli-hating librarian, Amy Gugelman, who is white.

Students in the sunny, book-filled room compared what makes them the same and what makes them different. It’s part of your introduction to Brown v. Board of Education, a decision commemorated at a national historic site in a former all-black school just down the street. Linda Brown, whose father, Oliver Brown, was the lead plaintiff in the case, was a student there after she was denied entry to an all-white school near her home.

With a few questions, Williams Science first graders & The Fine Arts Magnet school observed the two women arm in arm next to each other. “My skin is brown,” Carter noted, “and Mrs. Gugelman’s skin is not.”

And then Gugelman got to the heart of the lesson. “Can we still be friends?”

The students, themselves of diverse ethnicities, shouted “yes!” oblivious to the messiness of the issue, to the history of this place, to the struggles with race and equity that continue even now.

Seventy years after the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling, segregation persists, not as a matter of law, but as a reflection of underlying disparities, including in housing. In greater Topeka, as in school systems across America, students of color are concentrated in districts that disproportionately serve low-income families. This racial isolation has lasting consequences, as students who attend high-poverty schools have lower graduation rates and less earning potential.

In school classes, memorials and ceremonies, Topeka is marking its ties to the 1954 ruling that struck down “separate but equal.” But equally clear to many is the legacy of discrimination that stands in the way of its promise of equity.

MaKenzie Johnstone, who is white, enrolled two years ago at Williams, one of the magnet schools built to attract white students to historically black neighborhoods. In her old neighborhood, Auburn-Washburn, which is 72% white, the 11-year-old said she rarely encountered people of color.

Now her best friend, 10-year-old Malaya Webster, is black. The fifth graders spend recess together, talking nonstop. Sometimes the subject strays into what happened on the street.

“White people,” Malaya explained, “couldn’t be on the side of black people, which is too bad, because we should all be treated the same.”

MaKenzie was outraged, saying, “It didn’t make any sense.” She described the case of desegregation as a piece of distant history – something that happened “in the past.”

For Tiffany Anderson, Topeka’s first black superintendent, that’s not the case.

“Being here in this magnet school environment, you can see a lot of diversity. But if you drive 20 minutes down the road,” she said, “you might not see any diversity in the student population or the employee population.”

In Topeka, like much of the rest of the country, court-ordered desegregations have ended, but racial imbalances persist. Today, 36% of students in the Topeka district are white, down from 72% in 1987. The changes coincide with the nation’s growth as more diverse. However, none of Topeka’s neighboring districts have a white enrollment below 64%; one district has 94% white enrollment.

The concentration of black students in districts with higher numbers of poor students partly reflects the historical problem and the fact that poorer families could not afford to move to suburban districts with more expensive homes, said Frank Henderson, who served on the state and national school board. associations.

Four years ago, the predominantly white suburban Seaman neighborhood north of Topeka, where Henderson was the first black school board member, was forced to confront the darkest aspects of its past.

In 2020, student journalists confirmed that the district’s namesake, Fred Seaman, was a regional leader of the Ku Klux Klan a century ago. After student protests, meetings and surveys, the school board voted unanimously to resign Seaman and his KKK activities, but to keep the name.

The vote came after an election in which two pro-name preservation candidates defeated incumbents. Nationally, critical race theory was in the news.

“I thought it was probably the best thing that could be done to resolve this important issue,” said Henderson, whose 16 1/2-year tenure on the school board ended in January.

Madeline Gearhart, who was co-editor-in-chief of the high school newspaper, was disappointed. But now she thinks the student journalists who broke the story laid the groundwork for the issue to be addressed later in a district that is 80% white.

“I just find it so ironic that in a world where Topeka was part of Brown v. Board, we’re still keeping the name of the district and not trying to disassociate ourselves,” said Gearhart, who is white and now a junior at the University of Kansas.

“I would say,” she added, “that it speaks to the broader effects of how divided Topeka is.”

Seven years after the historic ruling, Beryl New began attending the all-black school, Monroe Elementary, where Linda Brown and another child plaintiff were students. It was still largely segregated, not by district politics but by redlining.

His family was friends with the president of the Topeka chapter of the NAACP, who recruited the 13 families who sued the Topeka district. Their case was eventually joined by school desegregation cases in Virginia, South Carolina, and Delaware. On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court struck down the “separate but equal” doctrine in the case named after Oliver Brown. A similar case from Washington, D.C., was decided at the same time in a separate decision.

The decision embarrassed city leaders because they believed they had built equitable schools for white and black students, said New, who sits on the Kansas Commission on African Affairs and is a former district principal and administrator.

“But of course there were deeper issues than just the appearance of a building,” she said.

Vicki Lawton Benson, 78, whose mother, Maude Lawton, was among the Topeka plaintiffs, said she only learned of her mother’s involvement when she was in high school. Her parents, she said, protected the family from the ugliness around her.

“I think it’s amazing to have strength of character, build a legacy and want to be an integral part of changing history for the positive side of all humanity,” she said.

For New, the mission now is to diversify the district’s workforce. In the wake of Brown, tens of thousands of black teachers lost their jobs in newly integrated classrooms, and the effects of this are evident today.

Nationally, only about 45% of public school students are now white, but about 80% of teachers are, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

“You hear all the wonderful things about Brown v. Board,” said Anderson, superintendent of Topeka schools. “But the reality is that many African-American teachers have lost their jobs.”

His district is handing out token teaching contracts to high school students and promising to hire them when they graduate from college. And to eliminate obstacles for black aides who want to become full professors, it sometimes pays their salaries while they teach.

This is what allowed professor Jolene Tyree, who is black, to complete her degree. The longtime advisor hopes it makes a difference for her students to have someone who looks like them. While she was growing up, she remembers having very few black teachers.

“You feel a little weird,” said Tyree, whose mother also attended Monroe and whose first graders are now learning about the case for desegregation.

Back in the library, Tyree’s students’ class was ending. Anderson, the superintendent, went to the front of the room and asked the children if they wanted to one day be teachers, doctors or even president of the United States.

Hands shot into the air. Anderson said many of the kids wouldn’t have done this in the past because they hadn’t seen anyone who looked like them in those roles.

“So, boys and girls,” Anderson said, “while I’m looking out at the sea of ​​differences that make you all special… I just want to remind you: do differences really matter?”

The children shouted “no” before leaving the room.

Seven-year-old Jamari Lyons was left behind.

“It’s okay to be white. And it’s okay to be black. You can still be friends. You can still be neighbors. You can still love each other,” said Jamari, opening his arms wide.

Then he asked, “Right?”

___

Associated Press education coverage receives financial support from several private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters, and funded coverage areas at AP.org.