After the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling, Topeka encountered little resistance to elementary school desegregation. Its middle schools had been integrated since 1941. The high school had been integrated from its 1871 inception and its sports teams since 1949. A new school board was voted in which moved quickly to integrate students, soon followed by teachers and principals. Unlike the South and many cities in the North, there were no demonstrations in Topeka. Nevertheless, throughout the country today, de facto segregation is reinforced by neighborhood housing patterns and school district boundaries. Read more about race relations in Topeka 100 years ago in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
