 Hi, everyone and welcome back to the forum webinar series. I'm Leslie Kanan, a senior field officer for the National Trust for Historic Preservation and I'll be moderating this webinar today. In case you don't know, Preservation Leadership Forum is a professional membership program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The webinar series is made possible by members of Preservation Leadership Forum and we sincerely thank those of you who are here with us today. As part of the work of the National Trust for Historic Preservation's African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, we have been working to highlight the people, places and stories associated with Brown v. Board of Education. Today is the first in a series of conversations we will have to broaden our understanding of this landmark case. Throughout this year, we will have conversations with Sites in South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware and BC. Today's webinar features Cheryl Brown Henderson, the founding president of the Brown Foundation for Educational Equity, Excellence and Research and one of the authors of the recently released Recovering Untold Stories and Enduring Legacy of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. We will talk about the experiences of the Brown family and Topeka and their role in the Brown v. Board of Education, as well as the work of Ms. Brown Henderson to expand our understanding of the numerous sites and communities and people associated with the case. Towards the end of the session, my colleagues Pam Bowman and Kendra Parsons will provide updates on the current work of the National Trust to highlight all the communities associated with this case. Before we begin, a few technical logistics. We will take questions from the audience during the webinar. Please send questions via the Q&A function directly to panelists. You are welcome to submit at any point during the webinar but we will be waiting until the Q&A session to answer questions. You are also encouraged to communicate to all participants throughout the presentation through the chat function. Following the program, we will send out a recording today's webinar directly to the email you used to register. And finally, all forum webinars are archived in our forum webinar library. So the start two years ago, Representative James Kleinberg invited the National Trust to help find a way to recognize all of the communities associated with the Brown people for vegetation. I have been working with Pam Bowman, who's the Director of Public Lands Policy and Kendra Parsons, a field officer to travel to South Carolina, DC, Virginia, Delaware and Kansas in order to talk to site stewards and community members and ultimately to come up with an appropriate way to work to highlight the people, places and stories. We will talk more about that towards the end of the program but first I wanna show you a short video about the Brown Beboard of Education. I'd like to welcome Cheryl Brown Henderson, who is one of three daughters of the late Reverend Oliver Brown and along with, my apologies, the Reverend Brown who in the fall of 1950 along with 12 other parents in Topeka, Kansas, led by attorneys for the NAACP, filed suit on behalf of their children against the local Board of Education. Their case joined with cases from Delaware, South Carolina, Virginia and Washington, DC on appeal to the US Supreme Court and on May 17th, 1954 became known as a landmark decision Brown Beboard of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Cheryl is the founding president of the Brown Foundation for Educational Equity Excellence and Research and the owner of Brown and Associates Educational Consulting firm. She has extensive background in education, business and civic leadership, having served on and shared various local, state and national boards. In addition, she has two decades of experience and political advocacy, public policy, implementation and federal legislative development and is the recipient of various awards and recognition for work to preserve sites associated with the landmark US Supreme Court ruling of 1954. Miss Brown Henderson, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you, I appreciate it. And so if I could ask you first, could you please talk about the Brown family and their role in the Brown Beboard of Education? Before I do that, I want to welcome everyone that's joined us today and thank the National Trust for historic preservation for this webinar. I was honored to have served on the board several years ago but I also want to set some context for what we're going to also be talking about later, the legislation that is hopefully going to officially connect the sites. Back in 2012, myself along with reps who bring to the Elliott and Davis, the Prince Edward County met in DC to strategize on how we could make that happen. And the outgrowth of that was a meeting with Congressman Clyburn and I see that Congressman Clyburn together with Chris Coon, Senator from Delaware have done just that. So we are absolutely thrilled. Initially, the idea was to perhaps place it under the new American history and culture but the Smithsonian does not have that type of infrastructure. So we're pleased to see that it's happening and it's happening under the Park Service was has that kind of template already in place. We're just excited about bringing everyone together. So, so going back to your question about Brown v. I believe you asked about our involvement in Brown and how it emerged in Topeka, is that correct? Yes. I always think about Brown v. Board in terms of myths, challenges and unanticipated consequences. People sometimes don't realize they talk about Supreme Court decisions in the abstract. Whether it's Tinker v. Des Moines or Keramatsu versus US or even Miranda v. Arizona. You don't think about it in terms of real people but we are real people. And when we hear the names of the Supreme Court decision that bears our name, we immediately think about our father, for example. And it's an interesting paradox because you don't have any claim to that and people do use the court decision for various purposes. Brown v. Board Community Garden, for example, but I just want you to know that because we are people, it does evoke a visceral response when that happens and it is a peculiar place to be. People ask all the time, what does it feel like? Well, sometimes wonderful, sometimes not so good, sometimes embarrassing based on how people have chosen to use the title of the case for their own purposes. But our family in Brown in terms of the myths, the story had been put forth as early as 1953. The Brown v. Board was all about Oliver Brown who sued the school board because his daughter Linda could not attend the neighborhood school, which was segregated for white children only. And that happens not to be true. And that's the mythic part about Brown v. Board. Brown v. Board of Education, first of all, was more than a century making. First school to set gaze in the country was 1849 in Boston, Robert versus the city of Boston. And in that 105 year period, there were numerous school desegregation cases. California, Arizona, Delaware, Kansas, mostly litigated in state Supreme Court and some of them successful before Brown v. Board. The uniqueness in Brown was that by the time the inter-boycott he was established in 1909, their whole purpose was to demand adherence to the 14th Amendment to the Constitution and make sure people of color had access to all constitutional rights and privileges. And in doing so, now they set out to make it happen in different ways. Finally, when Thurgood Marshall, let me go back a minute, because even in Kansas before there wasn't NAACP, African-American parents were challenging this notion in court of segregated public schools. So the Topeka case came on the heels of what's known as the web case, which was over in the Kansas City area. And the president of the Topeka NAACP, McKinley Burnett, watching what was going on over in that part of the state, attending state meetings of the NAACP, it was very aware of the need to make this change. The Kansas legislature allowed segregated schools, but only at the elementary level. The only exception was if requested by parents, as in the case of Kansas City, Kansas, and Sumner High School, which was a black high school. But every place else, it was not legal to have segregated schools except elementary schools. If you were a city of 15,000 or larger, Topeka met that template. So in Topeka, the NAACP was pursuing the integration or desegregation of the elementary schools. The junior highs and high schools were already integrated. So how we got involved in Brownlee Board and the myth of this whole thing, McKinley Burnett, the NAACP president, made a decision on part of the chapter. After two years, 1948 to 1950, attending every single school board meeting, taking petitions signed by hundreds and sometimes thousands of parents wanting to integrate those elementary schools and being ignored. So finally, in May of 1950, he cautioned the school board that they had been given two years of opportunity to make this change, and they hadn't seen fit to do so. In the summer of 1950 then, the end of the ACP with a legal counsel, John Scott Charles Scott and Charles Bledsoe, and the secretary of the chapter, Lucinda Todd, decided they would organize litigation and they would challenge what the school board had refused to do. But they were challenged in federal district court, not state supreme court, but they needed plaintiffs. They needed parents of elementary age children. So all across the city that summer, going to churches, talking to friends and neighbors who may be African-American, trying to assemble a group of parents. Brownlee Board was a class action, which is why it is so disturbing when people try to find that role solely to my father. And of course it happens not to be true. So by the fall of 1950, they have 13 families that have said, yes, they will be plaintiffs for the end of the ACP's case against the school board. My father was the 10th person to sign on. It was not his idea. He was not the first person. The first plaintiff in the local case was Lucinda Todd, who had been a teacher pre-Brown and because she married, could no longer teach in those days. And was also the secretary for the chapter. So she was at the meetings. So she immediately volunteered to be a plaintiff. She was the first plaintiff in Brownlee Board Topeka. So in the fall of 1950, the parents were instructed by the NAACP to locate a white school near your home. We lived in integrated neighborhoods. And often there would be a school in that neighborhood, but it was for white children only. And therefore off limits to the children in that neighborhood. People need to understand that African American parents in Topeka or children were not anxious about leaving their segregated school. They weren't pursuing access to the white neighborhood schools because the African American schools were excellent. The teachers in those schools held more advanced degrees than their white counterparts because there was no other outlet for that masters or post-masters work. They were excellent schools. So the Topeka case was not about educational quality. Children rode buses to school. So the case was not about riding school buses and getting to school. None of that was true. At the time, Topeka had 22 elementary schools, 18 for white children and only four for African American children. So regardless of where you lived, you as an African American person, you had to wait to find out where your child would be assigned, what school they would be assigned to. So Charles Scott, one of the attorneys for Brown was a personal friend of my father. He came to our home and asked my dad if he was willing to join the case that the NAACP was putting together. This is not something my dad did. Not something he thought about. He was asked to join. And his only question was because when he looked at the list of who had signed so far, they were all moms, married women, all makers who had signed on, not concerned about employment issues as their husbands may have been. My father was a welder for the Santa Fe Railroad at the time and was studying for the ministry. So he was a union member. Didn't have to worry about employment repercussions. So after some contemplation, dad said yes and he was a 10th person to sign on. So by the fall, they had their team of 13 parents. They were told what to do, take your child, children of witness, find the white school closest to your home and attempt to enroll your child. So every instance, the parents did just that. They would sit their children in the vestibule of the school or the hallway. Parents would go and have a conversation with the principal, which would always be the same, we believe. So the parents were asked then to come back to the NAACP and report about what happened as they went to these schools. So there were eight white schools named in Brown v. Board, not one, you know, there wasn't a Monroe as the African-American school attended by three of the plaintiffs in Brown, my sister Linda, a Vivian Scales daughter, Ruth Ann, Sadie Emmanuel's son, James. Those were the three children attending Monroe. So again, you know, people get this thing about, it was only Monroe and Brown and that's just not true. So the eight white schools that were part of Brown v. Board were Clay and Gage and Randolph and Lohman Hill and Parkwell and Quincy and Lafayette. And then the four black schools, McKinley, Buchanan, Washington and Monroe. All of those were part of Brown v. Board. So it really is an irritance when people try to make it first of all about our family and secondly, only about those two schools when in fact, you know, it was much broader than that and it does a disservice to those fellow litigants when that happened. So in February, February 28th, and I'm gonna wrap this part up is when the case was filed, February 28th, 1951. That's when it became known as Oliver L. Brown at all versus the Board of Education at Topeka, Kansas and it was appealed to the United States Supreme Court that was another at all edit to the end of it. And for those of you that are not aware, E-T-A-L is an abbreviation for the Latin words et alia, meaning and others. Unfortunately, because it's legal shorthand which relegates hundreds of people to historic footnotes whose names and faces we may never know, which is why the book that Leslie mentioned, we published because we want people to know, you know, who these folks were in their five cases, what their sacrifices were. So anyway, what's been important to us is just that, that we are proud that dad's name, you know, Oliver L. Brown is etched in history, but it comes with a responsibility. And that responsibility is to be truthful and to be forceful in telling people what happened. The NAACP, we owe them a debt of gratitude. You know, this was their effort over a long period of time, higher education cases, teacher salary cases, and then finally into the K-12 system. So I never want people to get confused into thinking, although we're proud of it. You know, I will never accept when people say, you know, we appreciate what your family did. My response is always, we are grateful that the NAACP was able to help make this change. So any of you out there that are listening, that are tired with interpreting Brown v. Board, do it honestly. Do not err on the side of the myth because it's simple and convenient because it is not true. And in this area of disinformation, we can't afford that. Thank you, that's powerful, that's a powerful message. And I wanna sort of continue on this thread a little bit about telling the full story of Brown v. Board by talking about the book that you helped write. So you helped write recovering untold stories and enduring legacy of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. In it, you talked to plaintiffs and families that actually represent all of the communities directly associated with the case. Can you talk about what it was like working with these communities? And if there was anything that surprised you or anything that was noteworthy that you found as you've been doing this work over the years? Well, the Brown Foundation was established in 1988 and its sole purpose was to pay tribute to the attorneys and community organizers and plaintiffs in all five cases of Brown. Our first charge, however, was to locate them. So we started this work back in 2004 in finding where they were, what their names were, how to contact them so we could bring people together. And in 2004 was the first time we were together as litigants from Delaware, DC, Virginia, South Carolina and Kansas. And we did so, we had an event at the Smithsonian in one of the days that we were all together. We were guests at the White House, a First Lady Laura Bush at the time. And I bring all this up because I overheard one of the plaintiffs saying as we were leaving that gathering at the White House that we had waited 50 years for this was the statement because basically people weren't knocking on their door to find out who they were. People weren't trying to learn about, and most people weren't even aware. Now Brown v. Board Topeka, Kansas is settled and mentioned in Brown v. Board, let alone the companion cases. So we knew we were on the right track. So over the years when we get together we started calling ourselves a Brown v. Board of Education family. So it's like a family reunion now. So we've come to know. So I will say this before I talk about the book that in 2014 we were able to take 62 people from the five cases to a meet and greet at the White House with President Obama. And it's obvious why that was important because their story was his story as to how he got where he was. And it was an amazing experience. But going back to the book, we wanted to find a way, an encapsulated way like a book where people could tell their stories finally in their own words and have their photos there. We had a grant from the Hall Foundation, the Hallmark Card family out of Kansas City and the Walton Family Foundation. So over a two year period, we met at the museum in DC, the museum of African American history and culture. And we had scholars playwright, an English professor and historian work with the group on essay writing. First convincing them their stories were compelling and important and people needed to know who they were. And then starting to the process of how do you write an essay? How do you make it engaging? What is your narrative? Everything is interesting about you. So over a two year period, we ended up with the essays that were published in the book. And after that, we had a second grant from the Walton Family Foundation to the whole book launch events around the country. And we did so in New York and South Carolina and DC, et cetera, Virginia. And the video you saw was also part of that project from our partner, the 74 million. So we are keeping true to our mission in making sure people know as many people from those five cases and what they, some of them sacrificed greatly, lost jobs, lost their homes, churches were burned, people lost their life in some instances. We didn't have that experience in Kansas. So it makes it doubly important that we make sure their stories are told. And the book, you can, there's a link on our website and it's educational only. So it's not a money making it. There's no profit margin there or motive. You can read it online or you can order a hard copy, print on demand, cost recovery only for the cost of printing because we want this story to be known. Thank you so much. I think it's so important. It's so interesting this idea of when people don't think that their stories are important because sometimes people think, oh, only if I'm famous or only if I'm wealthy or only if I'm a politician, but this idea that everyone's stories are important, especially all of those associated with this case and all the various communities. I do wanna talk a bit or want you to talk a bit about the Brown Foundation, about why you created the Brown Foundation, which you talked a little bit about that in terms of the mission. I want you to talk a little bit about the work of the Brown Foundation over the years. So we talked about the book, but what about the other work that the Brown Foundation has been doing? Well, shortly after our establishment in 1988, we had a fortuitous occurrence. I guess I'll look at it that way. Two years into our existence in 1990, one of my board members driving home passed one of the schools that had been in Brown v. Board. It was going to be auctioned off, the Monroe Elementary School, and he called and said, we've gotta save this building. And in doing so, it led us through the maze of Capitol Hill and working with Congress and talking to them about help us save this building because Brown v. Board is United States history. This is an opportunity to have a place where the story of Brown can be told. I must tell you, in working to create a national historic site, a unit of the National Park Service was enlightening and it was an education. It was certainly something we're proud of and you can't start something and walk away. It took 14 years of work to get that site open because there's so many different studies and hearings and activities that go into creating a unit of the National Park Service. And then at the very end, in that there's coming up with what are we gonna use the building for? How will the exhibits look? So when you visit that site, all of those exhibits there are our brainchild, people in the Brown Foundation and those who were contractors working alongside us. We had an opportunity to travel to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. One of our meetings were in the old Hilltop Hotel, which was a hotel on a mountain above the Shenandoah and the Potomac where they come together beautiful. An African-American man built, love it, I believe his name was, that hotel and we met at Storr College of the old historic HBCU where the Park Service now has a design and preservation center. We just said connectivity, I guess, is what I'm trying to explain. So the Brown Foundation, when we started, one of our first programs was in oral history. So we raised money again from Hallmark cards and we were able to capture the oral stories of 88 people that were either part of Brown or impacted by Brown or from the white community who were principals and community members and how they viewed that. And it's archived at the Kansas State Historical Society. It's not video because that was back in the 90s. So it's strictly audio and transcription. Next, we developed a traveling exhibit. There are panels behind me that are part of that 12 panel exhibit that still travels the country to this day. And we're very proud of that. We developed curriculum for both primary grades through high school and some universities have used that curriculum. We also, a lot of training, teacher workshops and training Park Service personnel. Whenever new staff would come to the historic site, we would help in the orientation to make sure they understood the story that they were supposed to be interpreting. We also developed children's libraries because in our community, in the low income area of our community, there was always bus transportation. Topeka was building a brand new state of the art library on the west side of town. On the east side of town where most of the low income communities are, the bus service stopped at six o'clock. So how are you supposed to get to this state of the art library when you have perhaps no car and no other transportation? So our motivation for starting those libraries was because reading is the foundation of education. And if we couldn't make a gift for children access and develop the love of books and the love of reading. So we started for libraries. One in a housing project, one in a community center, one at a head start school and one at a Salvation Army Center. And so we're very proud of that. So we were just involved in what we saw were furthering the tenants of Brown in a practical way. And that was through the libraries and books, through the orientation for park staff, through the curriculum that teachers could use in their classrooms, through the traveling exhibit that people could have on site. And then of course now the book. So we have been at this for 30 plus years. And for me, it's been lifelong. I was born in 1950. So my mom, very likely would have been the plaintiff from our family instead of dad, had she not been expecting me. So Brown v. Board, been all I've known. I was born into this and living a life of consequence happens either by choice or by chance. And in my case, it was both by chance. And then I decided it needed to be by choice because Brown v. Board was happening to us. Every five to 10 years, it'd be an anniversary. And the press and documentarians and people would converge on our city. And it was happening to us. We weren't controlling the narrative. We weren't taking responsibility. So the foundation was started for those reasons. I sat my family down in 1987 after the Life Magazine story of Brown because they were commemorating the Constitution and that particular issue of Life Magazine. I said, okay guys, we really need to learn more, take responsibility. My father died in 1961. I was only 10, my sister Linda 18, my sister Terry 14. My mom was a quintessential 1950s homemaker. So without your breadwinner, the concern becomes keeping the family together. So we were living in Springfield, Missouri. My dad was a pastor there at Benton Avenue. It's his second church. He'd had a church in Topeka. So we had to leave and move in with my paternal grandparents. So Brown v. Board was not high on our list, keeping the family together, making sure we were taken care of. We never talked about Brown around the dinner table. My father died before he could share with us. His thoughts, he hadn't published anything on Brown v. Board. He had become more of an activist in Missouri because in Topeka, obviously he was asked to be part of Brown. He was not a community activist, but he did become an active community member and desegregated the movie theaters and some of those steps in Springfield, Missouri. And they are now commemorating his life. They've purchased the old church that he pastored at in our old home and they're hoping to create an Oliver Brown center there in Springfield. So many things are happening now that our country, we believe, had matured enough to really embrace all of its history and to be more inclusive and they're concerned about that after what we've all experienced. But that pretty much is the work. We're of course very proud of having done the heavy lifting to create a national park to interpret Brown v. Board. So I wanna talk with this, with this last question, I wanna talk a little bit about today. And that is that there is proposed legislation that would replace Virginia's statue of Robert E. Lee in the state capital, I'm sorry, in the nation's capital with the civil rights leader, Barbara Johns. And as you know, better than anyone else, Barbara Johns was a teenager when she led the student strike at Robert Russo Moten High School. When you think about the youth activism associated with Brown v. Board and the youth driven activism that we have been seeing over the last several years, what do you think is the legacy of Brown v. Board? Well, Brown v. Board, I mean, as I watched the Black Lives Matter movement all across the country, it was a beautiful thing. It resonated with me because Brown v. Board was a movement. It was a collective action. The NAACP started this movement, as I said, through Charles Hamilton Houston hiring Thurgood Marshall, his former student and moving across the South with teachers always and moving into higher education and moving into, this was a collective action and a movement of sorts. Now, African-American progress in this country and demanding that this country live up to its promise, it's always been movement oriented. So when I saw people taking to the street, now the one thing I do caution when I speak at universities is movements are necessary, but at some point you have to move from the streets to indoors, to the legislative process, to the policy process in city councils, to school board meetings. So you bring attention to the cause on the streets, but you can't just go home and say, wow, you have to make sure you do the hard work of becoming politically viable. I think Corey, change not Corey, a booker, it's a blessing booker that young woman from Missouri, the first African-American. Corey Bush, is it Corey Bush? Yeah, she's a prime example. She moved from activism in the streets to the halls of Congress and Capitol Hill. So I view this as an extension of Brown v. Board, a lot of people, because they don't understand it in that way, once you understand it in that way, that this was a movement of hundreds and hundreds of people, community organizers, Reverend Griffin in Virginia, McKinney Burnett in Topeka, Lewis Redding in Delaware, Gardner Bishop in DC, everybody had a community organizer behind Brown v. Board that organized the classes of plaintiffs to make sure they understood what was at stake, because it was a risk they were taking in 1950 to stand up for your rights and demand. Martin Luther King held three marches in Washington to demand that the country implement and comply with the court's decision in Brown, 57, 58 and 59. If you're not aware, that's something you can read about online. But he understood that it's fine to have these decisions, but unless the bully pulpit of the presidency and the Congress put the weight of that behind them, it's not likely they'll take on the urgency that they needed to. You saw what happened in Brown. When the Southern Manifesto was written and it became clear to Southern school districts that Congress had their back if they wanted to defy the court, that's exactly what happened. And I firmly believe that to this day, we are living with the residual effects of the Southern Manifesto and what's happening. When you saw in the video, the part of the Brown decision I prefer was on the screen and that's where Oral Warren talked about the importance of education and how education needs to be an opportunity that's equally provided. I'm not fond of the statement he read publicly that in the field of public education, the doctrine of separate but equal has no choice. And I'm not fond of that because it cannot matter if you are sitting in a classroom or everybody in that classroom looks like me, I still should have an expectation of receiving a world-class education. In the aftermath of Brown, people were trying to implement those words of separate but equal has no place, busting our children to suburban school district, building management schools to try to encourage white parents to come back to the urban core. You know, that defies reason to me. And it ignores the purpose of education which is to make sure you are giving the children in front of you, you know, the best chance at life they can have. And so the decision is more than the statement Justice Warren chose to read. And third of the Marshall himself says that Brown was never about sitting next to white children. It was about making sure the resources were available to all so that education could in fact be provided on an equitable basis to all. So I think we've come a long way through the marches. I think it's called attention. I think the Biden administration and having Kamala Harris's VP will keep this ever present. I think talking about reparations is a step in the right direction because there's so many companies and corporations in this country that have been a generational wealth has been created, you know, millions and billions because of that free slave labor. So we're getting there, Leslie, slowly but surely that we keep our heads down and keep working. And the book, the sum of us is a must read because it explains it in economic terms. Can you, you're saying the sum of us, can you tell us who that's by? Yeah, by McGee. I've got it on my Heather McGee. And it talks- I think it's a book that we should all check out. Because it talks about the economic disadvantage for all, white and black and Latino and Hispanic and so on because racism, you know, and let me give you a quick example. When public schools were closed in Farmville, Virginia for five years, that meant unless you were a part of the white community that could afford to go to the academies that sprung up or you could send your child out of the county, you know, you had no school either. And for African-Americans, unless you have family or people you knew you could send your children to live with. But my point is that this group was so spiteful that they would rather cut off avenues even for their children as long as they knew they were hurting our children. Montgomery, Alabama, you know, beautiful public park in the center of the city, swimming pool, you know, zoo connected with it. When African-Americans demanded the right to access and gained it, they closed the pool, filled it in with dirt, closed the zoo. So she talks about how, you know, the white community has been so come and to the big lie of supremacy that they'll hurt themselves as long as they know they're hurting you. That's a powerful statement, a very true statement. I want to take a few minutes to, there's some questions, I believe, from the audience. So let's take a few minutes to see what those questions are. So there's a question, it says, is it not true that some Southern school district did not segregate the entire district K through 12? Did not segregate or integrate? Are they asking if they were segregated? It says, is it not true that some Southern school districts did not segregate? I guess they're asking if there were Southern school districts that had integration K through 12? I honestly, I have to be honest, I can't speak to Kansas in that I mentioned earlier that our general highs and high schools were integrated. However, the integration at the high school, and my mom attended, you know, integrated high school to Pica High School, they were only integrated for academic, extracurricular activities were segregated. Two basketball teams, two football teams, two cheerleading squads, two proms. So only academics, I cannot speak knowledgeably about the Southern schools pre Brown v. Board. Okay, the next question is, well, it looks like there's a correction, hold on. So it says, is the school building where the Brown children attended school still standing? If so, is it a designated historic site? Does the city of Topeka recognize the significance of this case in its public history? But then there's a correction to that question, it looks like it says, are the school buildings built for segregation in Topeka still standing in their history recognized by the city of Topeka? That's a very good question. Yeah, there are 16 sites in Topeka that were associated with Brown v. Board. And yes, the all but two of this, the wide schools that were part of Brown are still standing and majority of them are I think only ones not used for school. There's still schools. The African-American schools, however, were eventually closed largely because the communities changed. And I taught at Monroe Elementary. Monroe was the African-American school among the four black schools. It was a school that my mom attended when it was brand new building in 1926 as a first grader. And it was first grade through eighth grade, the elementary schools. Then they went one year junior high and then onto high school. And so I taught there, my sisters were there, my mom, I taught there and so on. What I taught there was 95% African-American. But it's now a Brown v. Board National Historic Site. Building is used for the historic site. The other buildings are in different use. Clay, which is one of the wide schools name is now a private school, Care Paraville. The building is still standing. Sumner has been abandoned, well not abandoned, but it's owned by a concern from out of the city. The other white school, Gage, is now used as a civic theater. But the remaining white schools in Brown are still schools. So they are not necessarily recognized although we have on multiple occasions written articles for the newspaper to make sure people knew which buildings were involved in Brown, which white schools and which black schools were involved in Brown. So in answer to your questions, it's kind of a mixed bag as to who's aware. And it's certainly not a city-wide recognition of those buildings. So there are two questions that are related. And that was, and that is, why was your father's name placed on the case if he was the tense to sign on? And then relate a question asking why Brown was the first name, was it alphabetical? Yeah, that is a great question. And no, it wasn't alphabetical. When you look at the list of plaintiffs, for example, the traveling exhibit I have up, one of the panels shows the plaintiffs in all the cases, but Kansas in particular, the 13 plaintiffs were comprised of 12 women and one man. Alphabetically, our plaintiff, Darlene Brown, would have been first alphabetically because Oliver, O comes after D, but my father was the only man. So we believe that the decision who assigned him the role as lead plaintiff was either a legal strategy or something done by the clerk of the court. We don't know. But we do believe it was a gender-based decision. Interesting, interesting. So then there's actually a question about the exhibit that's behind you, because what are the specifics of the traveling exhibit mentioned, including the process of requesting it? Oh, good question. You can, two things. You can view some of his content, excuse me, on our website, brownvibor.org. And also there is an explanation of how to borrow the exhibit. There is an agreement that you print off and complete with the days you wanna use it, the cost of the loan, the shipping and all of that is on our website. And we're so pleased that it's been so popular. We developed this in 1993 and once it was announced to our community, our state that it was ready, it was a three-year wait list for the exhibit. We had done the right thing. And then once our website was up and running and people around the country also started borrowing it for their schools and churches and university campuses. That's amazing. We have one last question. It says, I know there are other schools, for example, McDonough 19 school in New Orleans where black students helped to desegregate New Orleans schools in 1960. What opportunities would you see to share stories like this along with Brown v. Board stories to amplify the story about efforts to desegregate American schools? That's a good question because the cases that predate Brown, I think about Mendes versus Westminster in California and the case in Arizona. You know, I really don't know what they're doing but I do know that New Orleans through the Plessy and Ferguson Foundation have really started to call attention to some of the activity within the city of New Orleans. Ruby Bridges was not the only elementary child during that period. I think there were maybe six little girls but the Bridges case drew the most attention because she was having to be ushered to school and all the white parents took their children out of the second grade or whatever grade it was. And so Ruby spent an entire year in an empty room with the she and her teacher. It was so dramatic which is why we focus mainly on Ruby Bridges but there is some move around making sure not only Plessy in New Orleans but what happened with their schools is it will be recognized. So there are a few more questions coming in but unfortunately we have to move on to the next section but what I'm gonna do is send these questions to you and then hopefully you can answer them and then we can be able to respond. So those in the chat, you can keep sending your questions and we'll try to get those answered and then respond to you. I wanna thank you so much Sheryl Brown Henderson for agreeing to speak with us today and all the ways that you've been helping us throughout this process as we try to highlight these stories and it's been so amazing to hear you speak today. I really appreciate it. Thank you. And now I'm gonna turn it over to Pam Bellman and Kendra Parton. Hi, thanks Leslie and thank you as well Sheryl. It was a great conversation. Just wanted to talk a little bit about the legislation that both Leslie and Sheryl referenced earlier in the webinar. A big component of the Brown v. Board Treasure Campaign that the National Trust launched in September 2020 is advocating for legislation that would help connect the sites associated with the court cases and really preserve and protect those sites for future generations. And as this effort evolved in collaboration with the local partners we've been working with, our champions in Congress and others, the approach that emerged was for the sites to become part of the National Park System. And you'll see here on this slide excuse me, that the National Park Service currently manages over 420 sites that include historic buildings and cultural assets. And first Sheryl, talk about all of their efforts for creating the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site in Topeka, Kansas. And the new legislation that's been introduced provides an opportunity for the public to learn about the stories of all four court cases and those communities as well. The Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site Expansion Act does a couple of things. It would expand that Topeka, Kansas site to include sites in South Carolina and would also establish National Park Service affiliated areas in Virginia, Delaware and Washington DC communities. Next slide. In the interest of time, I won't go through this in a lot of detail, but there's a little bit of information here about National Park Service affiliated areas. There's about 15 types of designations for the National Park Service. And as part of our research and efforts around this project, it made sense for a variety of reasons for several of these sites connected to the court case to become National Park Service affiliated areas. There's a few advantages listed here as well, including that's many of these sites continue to operate either as schools or administrative buildings, community centers or museums. And this kind of arrangement allows the ownership structure to remain and also allows them to be available for, there's availability for technical and financial assistance to help with the preservation of those sites. Next slide. And here's a little bit of information we have here about the legislation that was just reintroduced about 10 days ago. The bill numbers are listed here. This is bipartisan and bicameral legislation. It's been introduced in both the House of Representatives by Representative Clyburn and also in the Senate by Senator Coons of Delaware. We're also pleased to report that there's been a 100% participation by the House and Senate offices that represent the site locations that I mentioned earlier. We've seen a lot of bipartisan support, a lot of information being shared in congressional newsletters about the excitement and momentum that's building around this legislation. So we all encourage you to be a part of that effort. I'll turn this over to Kendra now, and she can talk a little bit about some of the resources we have to help you advocate. Thank you, Pam. So for everyone joining us today, we would love to have your support in advocating for the passage of this legislation, which Pam said is currently up for consideration in Congress. There are a few ways that you can do that. First, if you would like to express your individual support, we invite you to visit savingplaces.org slash Brown VBOE and you will find there a form which will let you ask your elected officials to support the Brown V Board of Education, National Historic Site Expansion Act. We also have the option if there's anybody on the call today whose organization would like to express support for this legislation, we invite you to join our organizational sign and letter to Congress, and you can get on that list by emailing us at brownvboeatsavingplaces.org. And then finally, please follow the National Trust website and social media for future opportunities to learn and get involved, as well as for information about future webinars and for articles about this amazing history. So thank you and we hope very much to have your support. And I will now turn this back over to Leslie. So please keep the discussion going on our forum connect. This is our online community for people in the business of saving places. We have active conversations happening all week around topics from section one and six to women's history at historic sites. If you haven't joined connect yet, you should. It's a great place to keep up with this conversation and start more. Also, don't forget to take advantage of these additional upcoming programs. Join the Fitch Collifium tomorrow, beginning at noon Eastern and upcoming preservation leadership forum webinars on the title basin in context on March 3rd and preservation advocacy requests on March 4th. Thank you to everyone who attended today's webinar. A special thank you to Cheryl Brown Henderson for sharing her story with us. If any of you have any questions following this webinar, please don't hesitate to contact us. Our email is form at savingplaces.org noted on the screen here. Thank you again.