MRS. INZA BROWN

Elisha Scott's secretary for 13 years in the late '20s, early '30s... is now secretary with Family Service Guidance in Topeka... 3569 Mayo

On ELISHA: He used to have offices in Tulsa and Texas then... Blacks had been driven off the good land on to the back properties, swamps, bad access, and these were the ones that turned out to have plenty of oil on them, and the whites came after the land, trying to take it away from the blacks and Indians or get rights to it for a song. Some places there'd been 30 wells pumping away at back and all the owners got would be $50 a month in royalties. Elisha would try to protect the blacks, work out better deals for them. "We'd get run out of some communities, because the people didn't want any trouble." In the beginning Elisha handled private cases but then NAACP sent him to protect blacks...he'd travel to little Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana towns.

Elisha the man: He had a special kind of insight... Washburn law students used to come over and listen to him argue in court..."He'd work late at night on his speech for the next day, and then he'd just put it aside and never look at it...he could make a jury cry like a Baptist minister,... (STORY HERE ABOUT OLD MAN KILLING HIS SON-IN-LAW/wrongly attributed to Charles in that interview). Most of his early business was around the South...he slept every place.

Character: "I tried to put his stuff in order, and he'd get furious... I'D GET FIRED AT LEAST ONCE A MONTH, and then he'd call me back the next morning and say, 'Where are you?' and I'd remind him I'd been fired, and he's say, 'Well, you better get down here in a hurry... As a father: kids would come in as toddlers and Inza would look after them...he lived to see his kids educated, become lawyers like himself...not a fussin' father...Viola Scott (Aunt Duck) who was an old maid raised the boys.

The case: They wanted me to be a plaintiff in the case (note: she has a daugh-
ter named Linda also, who is very slim and attractive young man now)...we'd
attend Bd of Ed mtgs, tried to get them to move on segregation but there was
little hope... town was deeply prejudiced, tough situation regarding employment.
Inza herself took civil service tests after leaving Scotts, got a rating and
job in Health Dept at State Office Bldg but they didn't know what to do with
a black woman and lent her out to the city health dept, where in two years, "I
was never offered a cup of coffee from the coffee wagon, had to go out around
the corner to get coffee"..."TOPEKA WAS ONE PREJUDICED PLACE THEN, I'LL TELL
YOU THAT." It's a lot better today; children have an opportunity to be what
they want.

Story about the Madam (wrongly attributed to Chas Scott interview): this old woman ran a house around the corner one block from Elisha's office...otherwise, see Chas Scott stuff for story.

PERSONALITY: A large woman, fat without being sloppy fat, who speaks right up and seems to have a decent sense of humor. Angry woman in her way, quite alert.