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Very few Americans know the story of the man whose name heads the docket as the lead plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court case known as Brown v. Board of Education. This historic ruling, which became law a half-century ago, required the racial desegregation of the nation's public schools. The Brown decision was a reversal of the longstanding separate but equal doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson established by the Supreme Court in 1896.
Oliver L. Brown and his family lived in a low-income but integrated neighborhood at 511 First Street in Topeka, Kansas. The Santa Fe Railroad ran down the middle of their street. Oliver Brown worked as a welder repairing train cars at a shop that was a half-mile from the family home. Brown also served as an assistant pastor at the nearby St. John...