Columns:: Daughter of Brown decision plaintiff to deliver annual Tresp Lecture

since 12/15/98

Columns::March 10, 2003

Symposium looks at ways to dismantle ‘persistent poverty’
Vet med students host international meeting
Peach State Poll: Georgians like new electronic voting machines
Lecture to consider approaches to first year of college
Study ranks university high in advertising research productivity
Get your (alternative) motor running
Lab results: Diagnostic and investigational facility in Tifton saves lives, dollars
Campus Closeup
Update: Private Giving
Kudos
Unbuckling the Poverty Belt
Warm reception

Campus News

Daughter of Brown decision plaintiff to deliver annual Tresp Lecture

By Larry B. Dendy
ldendy@uga.edu

When she was a child in Topeka, Kan., in the early 1950s, Cheryl Brown lived four blocks from a school. But the school was all-white, and Cheryl and her older sister, Linda, were African American. Cheryl was too young to be in school, but Linda had to walk a mile to catch a bus to ride another two miles to an all-black school.
The girls’ father, the Rev. Oliver Brown, challenged Topeka’s segregated school system in what became one of the most famous court cases in U.S. history. The Supreme Court ruling in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case--that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal”--put an end to school segregation in America and enabled Cheryl to go to school with white children.
Cheryl Brown, now Cheryl Brown Henderson, will recount the celebrated case when she comes to the university March 12 to present the annual Lothar Tresp Lecture.
Her 3 p.m. talk in the Chapel, organized by the Honors Program, is open free to the public. A reception will be held in Moore College following the lecture.
The Brown case was actually one of five challenging school segregation that made it to the Supreme Court. The other cases, involving a total of more than 100 plaintiffs, were from Delaware, South Carolina, Virginia and Washington, D.C., but all five were combined under Brown’s name.
Henderson and her sister, Linda Brown Thompson--still residents of Topeka--have told the story of their family’s participation in the landmark case in scores of interviews with national print and broadcast media, and in dozens of appearances on college campuses and at meetings of national and community organizations. They have also appeared in several documentaries dealing with the case.
Henderson has been a school teacher, a school guidance counselor and an educational administrator. She is a past chair of Women Work, a national women’s network representing 15 million women. In 1996 she was the first African American to run for the U.S. House of Representatives from Kansas.
The sisters are co-owners of Brown and Brown Associates, an educational consulting firm. They also created the Brown Foundation for Educational Equity, Excellence and Research to preserve the historic legacy of the Brown case. Henderson is president of the foundation, which provides scholarships to minority students.
The Tresp Lecture is named for Lothar Tresp, who was associated with UGA’s Honors Program for 34 years and was director of the program from 1967 until his retirement in 1994.

UGA Today supports QuickTime, Flash, RealPlayer and Acrobat Reader (PDF files).
Download information about these plug-ins.
Affiliate icons for UGA Today

COLUMNS ] UGA Today ] Subscribe ] News Bureau ]
Office of Public Affairs Directory ] Photo Services ]
Broadcast, Video & Photography ] Master Calendar]
Columns ] Georgia Magazine ]Visitors Center ]
UGA Home ] Alumni ] Admissions ] UGA Directories ]
Sports ] Weather ] Search UGA sites ]

Columns is produced by the UGA News Service, a unit of UGA Public Affairs.
Beth Roberts: Columns editor, Juliett Dinkins: Columns managing editor,
Janet Beckley: Columns art director. Peter Frey: Columns photo editor

Questions or comments should be directed to columns@uga.edu