I am Linda Brown I was born February 20,1942, in Topeka Kansas.

I am a civil right activist in which 63 years ago, I was involved in a court case that allowed African Americans such as myself to intergrate into schools with students outside of our race.

The case lasted from December 1952 to May 1954 and this is my story...

I was born to Leola and Oliver Brown and I was the oldest of 3 girls.

I grew up in an ethnically diverse neighborhood.

We had a school four blocks from our home but it was mainly white.

I was forced to walk out of my way just to get an education.

That included walking across railroad tracks and having to take a bus to get to school.

My hometown in Topeka was racially segregated.

In 1950, my family along with several other African American families were asked by the NAACP to enroll their children in all white schools.

It was expected for us to be turned away, in which we were. I was only in second grade at the time banned from enrolling in Sumner Elementary.

There was a lawsuit filed on the behalf of 13 families that represented different states.

Being that the list of plantiffs were in alphabetical order my name happened to be at the top.

Due to my name being at the top of the case it has come to be known as Brown V. Board of Education.

Our case was taken to the Supreme Court and our attorney was the future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.

The purpose of our case was to match the example set in the 1896 decision of Plessy V. Ferguson.

Plessy V. Ferguson called for the idea of "seperate but equal" facilities for racial divisions.

In 1954 the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of Brown over Board of Education.

This rejected the opinion of "seperate but equal".