U.S. History: Brown vs. Board of Education

Some plaintiffs in the Brown v. Board of Education case and their children were photographed in 1994 outside Monroe Elementary School. Zelma Henderson is in the purple on the far right.

The last surviving plaintiff in the Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas died today. This is the landmark court case, discussed in U.S. History, that declared that the so-called separate but equal facilities for whites and non-whites were against the U.S. Constitution. Zelma Henderson was 88 years old and died of pancreatic cancer after a diagnosis of the disease only six weeks earlier. This is the same disease from which Randy Pausch suffers.