In Summerton, South Carolina, school enrollment attempts were not as courteously conducted as those remembered in Topeka. One of the major participants in the South Carolina school litigation, Reverend J.A. Delaine, left his residence in the middle of the night in fear of his life. His house was later burned to the ground. Defendant Harry Briggs, the first named plaintiff in the case that would later be called Briggs v. Elliott, found he could no longer get his cotton ginned anywhere in the country. He eventually left South Carolina seeking work in Florida. Annie Gipson not only lost her job as a maid in a local motel, but her husband was forced off land his family had sharecropped for more than 50 years. In recounting those events of more than 40 years ago, Gipson said that if the segregated schools had had desks she never would have signed her name to the petition demanding better educational facilities. The price she and her family had to pay was high.

Those interviewed in Virginia spoke of events just before graduation in May 1949 when students attending Robert Morton High School in Farmville, Virginia, walked out of class and went on strike for two weeks. Student leaders protested the use of poorly constructed shacks for classroom space. Attorney Oliver Hill of Richmond, remembers receiving a telephone call from one of the student leaders in Farmville asking for help.

A Howard Law School classmate of Thurgood Marshall, Hill had handled numerous civil rights cases for the Virginia NAACP. He was also familiar with the over-crowded conditions in the segregated schools in Prince Edward County, the school district where Farmville was located. He doubted that the strike would have much effect on current district policies, but he did agree to meet with the students and assess the feasibility of filing a lawsuit in Farmville. His legal assistance combined with the determined efforts of community residents resulted in the school desegregation case Davis et al v. Prince Edward County School Board. This lawsuit was reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court along with the Brown case.

Interviews conducted in Topeka contained recollections of September 1951 when a local NAACP plan was put into action. A total of 13 African American parents tried to enroll their grade school children into neighborhood schools that fall. Lucinda Todd with her daughter Nancy and Lena Carper with her daughter Catherine attempted to enroll in Randolph Elementary School. Sadie Emmanuel tried to enroll her young son James in Lafayette Elementary. Oliver Brown took his eldest daughter Linda and tried to enroll her in Sumner Elementary School, a few blocks from their home. Throughout Topeka the story was similar. Though these young children lived within four to five blocks of a white school, they were bussed 20 to 30 blocks to one of the four segregated black schools.

The children remember their experience that fall, of waiting in hallways for their parents to return from hushed conversations with school officials. Linda remembers waiting outside the principal's office while her father was inside speaking to Frank Wilson, the principal of Sumner. She doesn't remember much else about that day except that afterward, walking home, her father held her tightly by the hand, hurrying her with his long strides.

Frank Wilson remembers Oliver Brown arriving at his office that September morning. He remembers him as a quite, dignified looking man. He wasn't surprised by the arrival of this reticent man with his eldest daughter standing shyly next to him. Wilson had been expecting such a visit since early summer when he was warned by Topeka School Superintendent, Kenneth McFarland, that the local NAACP would attempt to enroll African-American children in schools reserved for whites. Wilson, like principals of white schools across Topeka encountering African-American parents that fall, politely received Oliver Brown and listened to his request to enroll his daughter and politely refused to allow it. African-American children had their own schools to attend.

Under the existing state statutes, Topeka was within its rights to segregate elementary schools on the a basis of race. The scene played out just as Superintendent McFarland had planned. The threat of legal action did not deter McFarland in his mission to keep segregation status quo in Topeka. He had been named as a defendant before in lawsuits. McFarland, and Wilson , too, knew they probably would later be named as defendants in the Brown v. Board of Education case. This did not alter their course of action. For one reason or another, each in his own way felt responsible to maintain segregation.

More than 100 interviews have been completed to date with individuals ranging from former plaintiffs and attorneys to NAACP officials and those who served as expert witnesses. Key interviews include: Robert Carter, formerly an attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) who assisted local attorneys in arguing the Kansas case; Jack Greenberg, former LDF attorney who went on to head that organization; and finally, Paul Wilson who argued for Kansas and those not wanting to dismantle segregated schools.

Because of the complex stories that comprise Brown, an oral history advisory committee was established. The committee's purpose was to identify individuals to be interviewed and issues to be addressed in the interviews. The committee was composed of long-time (over thirty years) residents of the area and representatives of the three cooperating agencies.

The personal sacrifices made by these and many other African Americans of Summerton, South Carolina and Farmville, Virginia are as essential to the Brown story as the events that happened in Topeka. Through oral history interviews, these forgotten moments in civil rights history provide an engrossing way to make history come alive.

Image 2: Briggs v. Elliott plaintiffs and supporters. Seated (left to right): Celestine Parsons, Roland Pearson (child), Plummie Parsons, Jessie Pearson (child), Sarah Ragin, Mary Oliver, Esther Fludd, Annie Gipson, Maxine Gipson, Rebecca Richburg and James Bennett. Standing (left to right): Gilbert Henry, Joseph Lemmon, Bennie Parsons, Charlotte Pearson, Edward Rabin, Rev. E.E. Richburg, Eliza Briggs, Rev. J.A. Delaine, Harry Briggs Jr., Catherine Briggs, Rev. J.W. Seals, Harry Briggs Sr., B.B. DeLaine, Levi Pearson, Robert Georgia Sr., Hammitt Pearson, Lee Richardson and Jess Pearson.