Blacks against Brown

<i>Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas</i> (1954) is regarded as one of the most significant civil rights moments in American history. Historical observers have widely viewed this landmark Supreme Court decision as a significant sign of racial progress for African Americans. However there is another historical perspective that tells a much more complex tale of Black resistance to the NAACP’s decision to pursue desegregating America’s public schools.<br/><br/>This multifaceted history documents the intra-racial conflict among Black Topekans over the city’s segregated schools. Black resistance to school integration challenges conventional narratives about <i>Brown</i> by highlighting community concerns about economic and educational opportunities for Black educators and students and Black residents' pride in all-Black schools. This history of the local story behind <i>Brown v. Board</i> contributes to a literature that provides a fuller and more complex perspective on African Americans and their relationship to Black education and segregated schools during the Jim Crow era.