CanadaNews’ Reporter Notes

Someone died yesterday.

While doing some work, I received a news alert. The news alert said: Last surviving Brown v. Board plaintiff dies at 88.

At first, it didn’t register. I shrugged my shoulders and plowed away with a story I was working on. The day went on.

I got on the metro (subway) and was headed to a press conference.

I missed my stop.

So I got off at L’Enfant Plaza and decided to walk since it wasn’t a bad day.

As I got to the street level I noticed a group of African-American kids, with school uniforms on, hanging out near the entrance.

While I watched them, it finally registered. THE LAST SURVIVNG BROWN V. BOARD PLAINTIFF DIES AT 88!

This is no small thing. Zelma Henderson died on Tuesday in Topeka, Kansas. She died just weeks after learning that she had cancer of the pancreas. Zelma was a small woman. She wasn’t very imposing physically. You might have walked right by her and not paid much attention. But many remember her as being a powder keg if she was passionate about something.

Many of you may not think much about Brown v Board. Shame on you.

Henderson was the last surviving plaintiff in Topeka’s Brown v. Board of Education case. Every person in America (and possibly the world) has heard about this historic 1954 Supreme Court ruling which outlawed segregation in public schools. And if you haven’t, I am certain you have seen the result of the Supreme Court case: equal education for every child and desegregation of all public school systems in the United States.

I am a product of this ruling.

And you are too – whether you be African-American or not.

Zelma’s desire to have every African-American child receive the same education as Caucasians led to other people to standing up to be counted.

The U.S. Supreme Court said the [then] present system was unconstitutional. On May 17, 1954, the nation as they knew it changed. The decision declared all schools were to undergo desegregation.

Now, after the decision the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) attempted to register black students in previously all-white schools in cities throughout the South. It was by epic proportions.

Zelma steadfastness eventually led the reluctant Little Rock School Board to comply. They were willing to do this gradually. Virgil Blossom, the Superintendent of Schools, submitted a plan of gradual integration to the school board on May 24, 1955. The plan would be implemented during the 1958 school year, which would begin in September 1957.

By 1957, the NAACP had registered nine black students to attend the previously all-white Little Rock Central High, selected on the criteria of excellent grades and attendance.

These students would later be known as The Little Rock Nine.

Parents and supporters of segregation established “citizens’ councils.” These councils threatened to hold protests at Central High if any black child was preparing to enter the school. They were ready to take whatever means they could to do so, although there was a Supreme Court ruling in support of desegregation.

Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus also supported the segregationists and ordered the Arkansas National Guard on September 4, 1957 to block the entrance of Central High. President Dwight Eisenhower tired to de-escalate the situation by meeting with Governor Faubus. The president may not have been in full support of the issue, but the law was the law. The President warned Faubus. Faubus didn’t back down.

It took a federal injunction to have the troops removed. Judge Ronald Davies granted the injunction and ordered the governor to withdraw the National Guard on September 20.

The governor backed down and withdrew the National Guard, and the Little Rock Police Department took their place. Hundreds of protesters, mostly parents of the white students attending Central High, remained entrenched in front of the school. They were not interested in any compromise. They were not interested in any resolution that included black kids being educated next to their white kids.

On Monday, September 23, the Little Rock Police Department brought the kids in through the back of the school. When the mob discovered the children had entered the school, they rioted. The policemen that were outside Central High were outnumbered. Out of fear, the students were removed from the school.

The Mayor of Little Rock, Woodrow Mann, was worried of the growing violence in the city. He asked President Eisenhower to send federal troops to enforce integration and protect the nine students. The next day the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army came into Little Rock and federalized the entire 10,000 member Arkansas National Guard. And on Wednesday, September 25, 1957, those nine students entered Little Rock Central High School. .

By the end of September 1957, the nine students might have crossed a huge hurdle, but they were still subjected to a year of physical and verbal abuse (spitting on them, calling them names) by many of the white students.

The socially-devoid citizens’ council continued to protest. They pressured the Little Rock School Board into reversing its decision. In August 1958, with support from Governor Faubus and the Arkansas State Legislature something happened. Rather than allow desegregation of the three high schools, the school board canceled the entire 1958-59 school year.

Thousands of high school students left the city to attend high schools in other school districts, or enrolled in all-white private schools. One year later, additional federal court rulings and the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce pressured the school board into reopening the school system. By the fall of 1959, Little Rock public schools had reopened as an integrated school system.

With the efforts of the Little Rock Nine, came me.

I grew up in a small town in Arkansas. I had the chance to get the same education that my peers were to receive. The only thing that could stop me, was me. I did well thanks to Brown. I graduated high school thanks to Brown. I went to college because of Brown. I graduated again, thanks to Brown. And I graduated again – all because of Brown.

All of this happened because a group of people in Kansas wanted equality. They wanted fairness. It’s important to note that Brown v Board of Education is significant not only because it declared state laws cannot have separate public schools for black and white students. It did something. If you’re not sitting – please do so. It overturned many earlier rulings going back to Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896; which had upheld a state law requiring “separate but equal” segregated facilities for blacks and whites. That’s some pretty heavy stuff.

Henderson was one of thirteen plaintiffs in 1950, she believed in fairness.

This was a bold move for a black person who grew up in western Kansas in the 1920s and ’30s. Henderson, a child of desegregated schools, was utterly outraged when she discovered that her children would have to attend a segregated school when she moved to Topeka.

Her children had to walk 10 blocks farther to their segregated school. They had to walk by a whites-only school that was closer to their home.

In an interview to Associated Press in 2004, she remarked, “I wanted my children to know all races like I did. It means a lot to a person’s outlook on life. No inferiority complex at all, that’s what I wanted for my children as far as race was concerned.”

Think about that.

Zelma Henderson was a part of something bigger.

As a result of her actions, de jure racial segregation was ruled a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

This victory paved the way for integration and the civil rights movement.

It paved the way for me to be educated and type these words for you.

As usual, I look forward to your comments and rants.

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