In this event, Cheney will discuss her research into the Black anti-integration movement in Topeka, Kansas, during the 1940s and 50s. The project documents that no consensus existed among Black Topekans over segregated schools in the years before Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. In a city that ultimately made equality synonymous with integration, local NAACP activists worked to dismantle all-black schools while many Black parents and teachers defended them as critical resources promoting economic opportunity and racial pride. This project reveals the little known local stories behind the Supreme Court case that became a national symbol of civil rights.