On a bright, early fall day more than forty years ago, in the city of Topeka, Kansas, a minister walked hand-in-hand with his daughter to an elementary school four blocks from their home. Linda Brown wanted to enroll in the second grade, but the school refused to admit her. Instead, public school officials required her to attend another school two miles away, which meant a daily six-block walk to a bus stop where she sometimes waited half an hour for the bus. In bad weather, Linda Brown would be soaking wet by the time the bus came; one day she became so cold at the bus stop that she walked back home. Why, she asked her parents, could she not attend the school only four blocks away?
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