# @kscourts on Facebook

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.facebook.com/1082262684739762/posts/647315498234485
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/68864773-kscourts-facebook
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/43293d51e6.jpg
- **Posted:** 2025-02-25T19:38:00.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Kansas Judicial Branch (@kscourts) — https://gondola.cc/kscourts

## Caption

In honor of Black History Month, we are recognizing notable Black attorneys whose work has been lost to history. 

Kansas' history with school segregation is complex, marked by both discriminatory laws and courageous legal challenges led by attorneys. While the state is sometimes associated with segregation, the narrative is more nuanced, highlighting a state Supreme Court that ultimately played a key role in dismantling "separate but equal." 

The arrival of Exodusters, Black refugees fleeing the South in the late 1870s, significantly impacted Kansas. Estimates suggest up to 60,000 individuals migrated, with many settling in Kansas. This influx created opportunities for Black attorneys, like WIlliam Abram Price, who left his lucrative practice and judgeship in Texas to practice law and settle the black community of Little Caney, and others who followed. Kansas was seen as fertile ground for desegregation efforts due to its history of abolitionism. 

From 1881 onward, Kansas saw a high volume of school desegregation cases, often with successful outcomes. As early as 1877, state law only allowed segregation in elementary schools in cities with populations over 15,000. This law remained in effect until the seminal case of Brown v. Board of Education. High schools, with the exception of Wyandotte High School in Kansas City, Kansas, were not segregated. 

Early legal challenges, were most frequently brought by Black attorneys. Attorney Price brought the second case ever filed in the state related to school segregation. He was successful in preventing segregation of the schools in Independence, Kansas.  Our Supreme Court indicated a clear distaste for the practice.

“If the board has the power, because of race, to establish separate schools for children of African descent, then the board has the power to establish separate schools for persons of Irish descent or German descent; and if it has the power, because of color, to establish separate schools for black children, then it has the power to establish separate schools for red-headed children and blondes. We do not think that the board has any such power.” Knox v. Board of Education, 45 Kan. 152 (1891). 

Other Black attorneys followed Price’s lead, like James Guy, Roy Van Dyne, Raymond Reynolds, William Bradshaw, and Charles Bledsoe continued the fight, focusing on the quality of segregated schools. 

The NAACP, including Thurgood Marshall, became involved in later cases like Webb v. School District (1945), which challenged gerrymandering tactics used to segregate schools. This paved the way for the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case in 1951, filed by Topeka attorney Elisha Scott and his sons, Charles, and John. Scott had developed a reputation around the country as a brilliant Black lawyer. He tactically chose a case where facilities were demonstrably equal to challenge the "separate but equal" doctrine itself. 

Brown v. Board of Education, combined with similar cases from other states, reached the U.S. Supreme Court.  The Kansas case, with its long history of legal challenges to segregation practices—particularly whether separate schools are equal in quality-- became a crucial part of the argument that ultimately led to the overturning of Plessy v. Ferguson. While Thurgood Marshall is often credited with this victory, the decades-long work of Black Kansas attorneys, who strategically fought against segregation, was essential to this landmark decision. 

#KSCourts #BlackHistoryMonth #KansasHistory

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kscourts, kansashistory, blackhistorymonth

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