Digital Commons Network^™

The Hidden Cost Of Brown V. Board: African American Educators' Resistance To Desegregating Schools, Mallory Lutz

Online Journal of Rural Research & Policy

This article focuses on the black community in Topeka during the first half of the twentieth century. Using archival sources such as the black press, letters from educators and administrators to state officials and newspapers, and correspondence from black teachers in Topeka, I examine the reasons some African American teachers, administrators, and families were hesitant to desegregate the public school system. Additional sources include the Kansas Historical Society’s archival holdings, including governors’ files and court cases, as well as the papers of Mamie Williams, an African American teacher. Some black Topekans feared desegregation because they believed it would harm students …