Integration: An Ongoing Pursuit

Commemorating the one U.S. Supreme Court case bundling five different struggles for integration in schools, the Brown versus Board of Education National Historical Park in Topeka, Kansas is a reminder of the work that went into legally integrating schools. Current events and demographics, along with the history since this case, present the ongoing reality that segregation in schools still exists because of multiple inequalities among communities.

In addition to the visitor center and museum presentation, this park site offers tours that consider the history leading up to the major national integration case. In May 2024, “former students, faculty, and staff of Buchanan Elementary School, McKinley Elementary School, Monroe Elementary School, and Washington Elementary School” (“Topeka’s four former African American elementary schools”) gathered at the site to share stories and memories.

The NPS is currently digitizing oral histories they gathered, and plan to make these available on their website. The histories are from all five communities whose cases were the impetus for the Supreme Court consideration, with the other four being: Briggs versus Elliott (South Carolina), Bolling versus Sharpe (Washington, D.C.), Davis versus County School Board (Virginia), and Belton (Bulah) versus Gebhart (Delaware).

Even after the Supreme Court decided that racial segregation of schools was unconstitutional, resistance was heavy and work continued in order to ensure communities complied with the ruling.