Events to mark 60 years since Topeka’s Brown v. Board broke the back of Jim Crow.

(Kansas.com) - It has been 60 years since the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education was handed down.

The decision – which struck down an earlier court decision that upheld the practice of “separate but equal” – offered hope and opened doors.

“The strategy of the lawyers and NAACP was to eliminate and break the back of Jim Crow,” said Deborah Dandridge, archivist for the University of Kansas’ African-American Collections in Lawrence. “Jim Crow” was the collective name given to segregation laws.

“Once the separate-but-equal issue was challenged in public schools, all the rest fell away,” Dandridge said. “It broke the back of Jim Crow.”

First Lady Michelle Obama will speak Friday in Topeka to commemorate the decision’s anniversary, which was handed down May 17, 1954. Obama will speak at 6 p.m. to graduating seniors in the Topeka school district at the Kansas Expocentre. The event is not open to the public but will be livestreamed at www.ustream.tv/channel/high-school-commencement.

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Was school segregation so wrong that that we had to diversify our public schools? 

But, diversity is strength! Just ask Chicago Public Schools..

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/2014/05/15/3458838/events-to-mark-60-years-since.html#storylink=cpy