I 

108TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION H. R. 4162 

To posthumously award a congressional gold medal to the Reverend Oliver 

L. Brown. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

APRIL 2, 2004 

Mr. RYUN of Kansas (for himself, Mr. FATTAH, Mrs. JONES of Ohio, Ms. 

DELAURO, Mr. MCDERMOTT, Ms. LEE, Mr. CRANE, Mr. GRIJALVA, Ms. 

KILPATRICK, Mr. CUMMINGS, Mr. JEFFERSON, Mr. OWENS, Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi, Mr. CONYERS, Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida, Mr. 

MEEK of Florida, Mrs. CHRISTENSEN, Mr. TOWNS, Ms. CARSON of Indiana, Ms. WATERS, Mr. PAYNE, Mr. GREEN of Texas, Mr. TIAHRT, Mr. 

WAMP, Mr. HAYWORTH, Mr. TERRY, Mr. WILSON of South Carolina, Mr. 

FOLEY, Mr. KELLER, Mr. KINGSTON, and Mr. DAVIS of Illinois) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Financial Services 

A BILL 

To posthumously award a congressional gold medal to the 

Reverend Oliver L. Brown. 

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Reverend Oliver L. 

5 Brown Congressional Gold Medal Act’’. 
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1 SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 

2 The Congress finds that— 

3 (1) Oliver L. Brown is the namesake of the 

4 landmark United States Supreme Court decision of 

5 1954, Brown v. Board of Education (347 U.S. 483, 

6 1954); 

7 (2) Oliver L. Brown is honored as the lead 

8 plaintiff in the Topeka, Kansas case which posed a 

9 legal challenge to racial segregation in public edu10 cation; 

11 (3) by 1950, African-American parents began 

12 to renew their efforts to challenge State laws that 

13 only permitted their children to attend certain 

14 schools, and as a result, they organized through the 

15 National Association for the Advancement of Col16 ored People (the NAACP), an organization founded 

17 in 1909 to address the issue of the unequal and dis18 criminatory treatment experienced by African-Ameri19 cans throughout the country; 

20 (4) Oliver L. Brown became part of the 

21 NAACP strategy led first by Charles Houston and 

22 later by Thurgood Marshall, to file suit against var23 ious school boards on behalf of such parents and 

24 their children; 

25 (5) Oliver L. Brown was a member of a distin26 guished group of plaintiffs in cases from Kansas 
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1 (Brown v. Board of Education), Delaware (Gebhart 

2 v. Belton), South Carolina (Briggs v. Elliot), and 

3 Virginia (Davis v. County School Board of Prince 

4 Edward County) that were combined by the United 

5 States Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Edu6 cation, and in Washington, D.C. (Bolling v. Sharpe), 

7 considered separately by the Supreme Court with re8 spect to the District of Columbia; 

9 (6) with respect to cases filed in the State of 

10 Kansas— 

11 (A) there were 11 school integration cases 

12 dating from 1881 to 1949, prior to Brown v. 

13 Board of Education in 1954; 

14 (B) in many instances, the schools for Af15 rican-American children were substandard fa16 cilities with out-of-date textbooks and often no 

17 basic school supplies; 

18 (C) in the fall of 1950, members of the To19 peka, Kansas chapter of the NAACP agreed to 

20 again challenge the ‘‘separate but equal’’ doc21 trine governing public education; 

22 (D) on February 28, 1951, the NAACP 

23 filed their case as Oliver L. Brown et al. v. The 

24 Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (which 
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1 represented a group of 13 parents and 20 chil2 dren); 

3 (E) the district court ruled in favor of the 

4 school board and the case was appealed to the 

5 United States Supreme Court; 

6 (F) at the Supreme Court level, the case 

7 was combined with other NAACP cases from 

8 Delaware, South Carolina, Virginia, and Wash9 ington, D.C. (which was later heard separately); 

10 and 

11 (G) the combined cases became known as 

12 Oliver L. Brown et al. v. The Board of Edu13 cation of Topeka, et al.; 

14 (7) with respect to the Virginia case of Davis 

15 et al. v. Prince Edward County Board of Super16 visors— 

17 (A) one of the few public high schools 

18 available to African-Americans in the State of 

19 Virginia was Robert Moton High School in 

20 Prince Edward County; 

21 (B) built in 1943, it was never large 

22 enough to accommodate its student population; 

23 (C) the gross inadequacies of these class24 rooms sparked a student strike in 1951; 
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1 (D) the NAACP soon joined their strug2 gles and challenged the inferior quality of their 

3 school facilities in court; and 

4 (E) although the United States District 

5 Court ordered that the plaintiffs be provided 

6 with equal school facilities, they were denied ac7 cess to the schools for white students in their 

8 area; 

9 (8) with respect to the South Carolina case of 

10 Briggs v. R.W. Elliott— 

11 (A) in Clarendon County, South Carolina, 

12 the State NAACP first attempted, unsuccess13 fully and with a single plaintiff, to take legal 

14 action in 1947 against the inferior conditions 

15 that African-American students experienced 

16 under South Carolina’s racially segregated 

17 school system; 

18 (B) by 1951, community activists con19 vinced African-American parents to join the 

20 NAACP efforts to file a class action suit in 

21 United States District Court; 

22 (C) the court found that the schools des23 ignated for African-Americans were grossly in24 adequate in terms of buildings, transportation, 
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1 and teacher salaries when compared to the 

2 schools provided for white students; and 

3 (D) an order to equalize the facilities was 

4 virtually ignored by school officials, and the 

5 schools were never made equal; 

6 (9) with respect to the Delaware cases of 

7 Belton v. Gebhart and Bulah v. Gebhart— 

8 (A) first petitioned in 1951, these cases 

9 challenged the inferior conditions of 2 African10 American schools; 

11 (B) in the suburb of Claymont, Delaware, 

12 African-American children were prohibited from 

13 attending the area’s local high school, and in 

14 the rural community of Hockessin, Delaware, 

15 African-American students were forced to at16 tend a dilapidated 1-room schoolhouse, and 

17 were not provided transportation to the school, 

18 while white children in the area were provided 

19 transportation and a better school facility; 

20 (C) both plaintiffs were represented by 

21 local NAACP attorneys; and 

22 (D) though the State Supreme Court ruled 

23 in favor of the plaintiffs, the decision did not 

24 apply to all schools in Delaware; 
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1 (10) with respect to the District of Columbia 

2 case of Bolling, et al. v. C. Melvin Sharpe, et al.— 

3 (A) 11 African-American junior high 

4 school students were taken on a field trip to 

5 Washington, D.C.’s new John Philip Sousa 

6 School for white students only; 

7 (B) the African-American students were 

8 denied admittance to the school and ordered to 

9 return to their inadequate school; and 

10 (C) in 1951, a suit was filed on behalf of 

11 the students, and after review with the Brown 

12 case in 1954, the United States Supreme Court 

13 ruled that segregation in the Nation’s capital 

14 was unconstitutional; 

15 (11) on May 17, 1954, at 12:52 p.m., the 

16 United States Supreme Court ruled that the dis17 criminatory nature of racial segregation ‘‘violates the 

18 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which guaran19 tees all citizens equal protection of the laws’’; 

20 (12) the decision in Brown v. Board of Edu21 cation set the stage for dismantling racial segrega22 tion throughout the country; 

23 (13) the quiet courage of Oliver L. Brown and 

24 his fellow plaintiffs asserted the right of African- 
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1 American people to have equal access to social, polit2 ical, and communal structures; 

3 (14) our country is indebted to the work of the 

4 NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., 

5 Howard University Law School, the NAACP, and 

6 the individual plaintiffs in the cases considered by 

7 the Supreme Court; 

8 (15) Reverend Oliver L. Brown died in 1961, 

9 and because the landmark United States Supreme 

10 Court decision bears his name, he is remembered as 

11 an icon for justice, freedom, and equal rights; and 

12 (16) the national importance of the Brown v. 

13 Board of Education decision had a profound impact 

14 on American culture, affecting families, commu15 nities, and governments by outlawing racial segrega16 tion in public education, resulting in the abolition of 

17 legal discrimination on any basis. 

18 SEC. 3. CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL. 

19 (a) PRESENTATION AUTHORIZED.— 

20 (1) IN GENERAL.—The Speaker of the House of 

21 Representatives and the President pro tempore of 

22 the Senate shall make appropriate arrangements for 

23 the posthumous presentation, on behalf of the Con24 gress, of a gold medal of appropriate design in com25 memoration of the Reverend Oliver L. Brown, in 
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1 recognition of his and his fellow plaintiffs’ enduring 

2 contributions to civil rights and American society. 

3 (2) DISPLAY.—The medal presented under 

4 paragraph (1) shall be maintained and displayed at 

5 the Brown Foundation of Topeka, Kansas. 

6 (b) DESIGN AND STRIKING.—For purposes of the 

7 presentation referred to in subsection (a), the Secretary 

8 of the Treasury (hereafter in this Act referred to as the 

9 ‘‘Secretary’’) shall strike a gold medal with suitable em10 blems, devices, and inscriptions, to be determined by the 

11 Secretary. 

12 SEC. 4. DUPLICATE MEDALS. 

13 The Secretary may strike and sell duplicates in 

14 bronze of the gold medal struck pursuant to section 3, 

15 under such regulations as the Secretary may prescribe, at 

16 a price sufficient to cover the cost thereof, including labor, 

17 materials, dies, use of machinery, and overhead expenses, 

18 and the cost of the gold medal. 

19 SEC. 5. STATUS OF MEDALS. 

20 (a) NATIONAL MEDALS.—The medals struck pursu21 ant to this Act are national medals for purposes of chapter 

22 51 of title 31, United States Code. 

23 (b) NUMISMATIC ITEMS.—For purposes of section 

24 5134 of title 31, United States Code, all medals struck 

25 under this Act shall be considered to be numismatic items. 
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1 SEC. 6. AUTHORITY TO USE FUND AMOUNTS; PROCEEDS OF 

2 SALE. 

3 (a) AUTHORITY TO USE FUND AMOUNTS.—There is 

4 authorized to be charged against the United States Mint 

5 Public Enterprise Fund, such amounts as may be nec6 essary to pay for the costs of the medals struck pursuant 

7 to this Act. 

8 (b) PROCEEDS OF SALE.—Amounts received from the 

9 sale of duplicate bronze medals authorized under section 

10 4 shall be deposited into the United States Mint Public 

11 Enterprise Fund. 

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