Linda Brown, the Kansas schoolgirl who was at the heart of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawing racial segregation in American public schools, has died at age 76.
Brown died on Sunday in her hometown of Topeka, Kansas, the state capital, Robin Bruce, administrator for the Peaceful Rest Funeral Chapel in Topeka, told Reuters on Monday. Bruce said she was not at liberty to furnish further information on the circumstances of the death.
Brown’s father, Oliver Brown, who died in 1961, was the named plaintiff in the case brought on his daughter’s behalf and combined with several similar lawsuits challenging the “separate but equal” doctrine underpinning segregation in U.S. schools.
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