Rev. Oliver Brown: Pastor and "Ordinary Citizen"
Rev. Oliver Brown:
Pastor and "Ordinary Citizen"
Both this issue [of the Center's E-News] and the year 2024 mark the anniversaries of two important events in US history: the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), and the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act (1964). These monumental events, with their deep theological and civic-responsibility roots, radically changed American life for the better. This article highlights the peacemaking of an ordinary bi-vocational pastor and railroad welder, who became an unexpected household name. It all started with his view of God.
Oliver was born on 2 August 1918 in Topeka, Kansas to Charles Francis and Lutie Bass Brown. His mother was a devout Christian, who taught this young son to love God, value education, and be a good citizen. Burly and strong, Oliver excelled in sports, becoming a Golden Gloves Boxing Champion. Living in the integrated city of Topeka, Kansas, Oliver grew up in an era when conversations regarding black and white access to education and voluntary integration in schools were commonplace. The city's Board of Education had struggled with its responsibility to all children, ever since the US Supreme Court decided in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case that states were to provide "separate but equal" educational facilities.
For fifty years, Topeka was an ant bed of educational turmoil. The court cases of Reynolds (1902), Wright and Foster (1930), and Graham (1941) left all children in Topeka with overcrowded classrooms, frustrated faculties, a disgruntled population on every side, and some schools that were segregated while others were integrated. By 1940, only elementary schools were allowed by law to be segregated in Kansas. In addition, they could only be segregated in the three cities with a population of more than 15,000 people — Kansas City, Wichita and Topeka.
Oliver did not have many prospects for a good-paying job upon graduation from high school, but he had dedicated himself to serving God in ministry, and was studying to become a pastor. He was a member of the Topeka St. Mark's African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church, a denomination begun by the former enslaved pastor, Richard Allen, in 1794. Oliver worked as a welder at the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe rail-yards during the week and preached on Sundays.
He married Leola Marie Williams in 1939 and they became homeowners in a friendly, integrated neighborhood. In the next decade, they had three little girls: Linda, Terry, and Cheryl. When Linda was seven years old, she walked seven blocks each day to the bus stop to catch a bus to take her two miles more to the all-black Monroe Elementary School across town. She passed by the all-white Sumner Elementary School, where many of her neighborhood friends attended. She negotiated a busy highway intersection. She crossed multiple hazardous railroad tracks. The winters were cold, and her mother and father remembered the misery of walking in the freezing rain and snow of the Kansas winter plains.
One morning in September of 1951, Pastor Oliver took Linda by the hand and walked to Sumner Elementary School and tried to enroll her in the third grade. She sat in the outer office while her father went inside to speak with the principal. Linda heard a strong discussion and raised voices. Then her pastor-father came out, greatly troubled, gently took her hand, and walked her home in silence. She knew something hard had happened. Oliver asked his wife, "Why? Why should we have to tell our children they cannot go to the school in their own neighborhood just because their skin is black?"
Later that week, a small group of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) friends came to their house. The NAACP had been founded by more than sixty black and white leaders (Jews, Christians, and non-Christians ) in New York, on 12 February 1909, in the aftermath of a race riot in Springfield, Illinois in August of 1908. In this riot, in the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, dozens of black-owned homes and businesses were burned to the ground, black leaders were lynched, and many others were killed. The horrific days of racial rage shocked the nation.
The new NAACP pledged from the beginning to "promote equality of rights and eradicate race prejudice among citizens of the United States; to advance the interest of colored citizens; to secure for them impartial suffrage (voting rights); and to increase their opportunities for securing justice in the courts, education for their children, employment according to their ability, and complete equality before the law.” Particularly, the NAACP wanted to end the three decades of lynching that had taken the lives of hundreds of black US citizens. This group was a multiracial, multi-generational army of ordinary people who united to awaken the consciousness of a people and a nation.
On the day of the visit to the Brown house, the spokesman was Charles Scott, Oliver's childhood friend and now a lawyer for the NAACP. He asked the Brown family to become the plaintiffs, along with twelve other families in Topeka, and the families of four other cases being filed in different states, in a new class-action lawsuit before the courts. Linda, relating the event later in her life, said that "separate but equal" was not the issue for her family. To them, there was nothing inferior about the education she received at the all-black Monroe Elementary School. The issue for the Browns was that Linda could not attend her neighborhood school, which was for whites, and was only four blocks from home. It was a matter of biblical principle.
Pastor Oliver preached that all human beings were made in God's image. He asked why the children had to travel so far to go to school, facing bad winter weather? Why could Linda not go to the same school as all her playmates who were white, Native American, and Hispanic? He believed strongly that God would move people to do the right thing. He was not discouraged.
When the case went to court, the NAACP lost the first round in Kansas and appealed to the US Supreme Court. One of the lawyers on the NAACP's legal team was Thurgood Marshall, who later became the first black US Supreme Court justice. The final and landmark decision did not come until 17 May 1954. The vote was nine to zero in favor of the plaintiffs. Chief Justice Earl Warren stated that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal," and that the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place in public education. The Court ruled that segregated public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, overturning the Plessy v. Ferguson case of 1896. It was a marvelous day.
Leola Brown was watching television while she ironed clothes after lunch that day. The program was interrupted by breaking news. She was stunned and overwhelmed to hear the decision! She told her daughters when they came home from school. The girls would no longer have to go to a segregated school. That evening, there was much rejoicing in the Brown house. Linda said later, "I remember tears of joy from my father who kept repeating, 'Thanks be unto God! Thanks be unto God!'"
In 1959, Oliver Brown and his family moved to Springfield, Missouri, where he served as pastor of Benton Avenue A.M.E Church. Four years later, he abruptly died of a heart attack at forty-two years old, on 20 June 1961, when traveling with fellow pastor Maurice Lange to Topeka. His body was brought home to Topeka and laid to rest at the Mount Hope Cemetery. This October, we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision and the peacemaking life of Oliver Brown. God used an ordinary Christian citizen to participate in His extraordinary work, and that obedience has changed our nation.
-Karen O'Dell Bullock
Oliver was born on 2 August 1918 in Topeka, Kansas to Charles Francis and Lutie Bass Brown. His mother was a devout Christian, who taught this young son to love God, value education, and be a good citizen. Burly and strong, Oliver excelled in sports, becoming a Golden Gloves Boxing Champion. Living in the integrated city of Topeka, Kansas, Oliver grew up in an era when conversations regarding black and white access to education and voluntary integration in schools were commonplace. The city's Board of Education had struggled with its responsibility to all children, ever since the US Supreme Court decided in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case that states were to provide "separate but equal" educational facilities.
For fifty years, Topeka was an ant bed of educational turmoil. The court cases of Reynolds (1902), Wright and Foster (1930), and Graham (1941) left all children in Topeka with overcrowded classrooms, frustrated faculties, a disgruntled population on every side, and some schools that were segregated while others were integrated. By 1940, only elementary schools were allowed by law to be segregated in Kansas. In addition, they could only be segregated in the three cities with a population of more than 15,000 people — Kansas City, Wichita and Topeka.
Oliver did not have many prospects for a good-paying job upon graduation from high school, but he had dedicated himself to serving God in ministry, and was studying to become a pastor. He was a member of the Topeka St. Mark's African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church, a denomination begun by the former enslaved pastor, Richard Allen, in 1794. Oliver worked as a welder at the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe rail-yards during the week and preached on Sundays.
He married Leola Marie Williams in 1939 and they became homeowners in a friendly, integrated neighborhood. In the next decade, they had three little girls: Linda, Terry, and Cheryl. When Linda was seven years old, she walked seven blocks each day to the bus stop to catch a bus to take her two miles more to the all-black Monroe Elementary School across town. She passed by the all-white Sumner Elementary School, where many of her neighborhood friends attended. She negotiated a busy highway intersection. She crossed multiple hazardous railroad tracks. The winters were cold, and her mother and father remembered the misery of walking in the freezing rain and snow of the Kansas winter plains.
One morning in September of 1951, Pastor Oliver took Linda by the hand and walked to Sumner Elementary School and tried to enroll her in the third grade. She sat in the outer office while her father went inside to speak with the principal. Linda heard a strong discussion and raised voices. Then her pastor-father came out, greatly troubled, gently took her hand, and walked her home in silence. She knew something hard had happened. Oliver asked his wife, "Why? Why should we have to tell our children they cannot go to the school in their own neighborhood just because their skin is black?"
Later that week, a small group of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) friends came to their house. The NAACP had been founded by more than sixty black and white leaders (Jews, Christians, and non-Christians ) in New York, on 12 February 1909, in the aftermath of a race riot in Springfield, Illinois in August of 1908. In this riot, in the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, dozens of black-owned homes and businesses were burned to the ground, black leaders were lynched, and many others were killed. The horrific days of racial rage shocked the nation.
The new NAACP pledged from the beginning to "promote equality of rights and eradicate race prejudice among citizens of the United States; to advance the interest of colored citizens; to secure for them impartial suffrage (voting rights); and to increase their opportunities for securing justice in the courts, education for their children, employment according to their ability, and complete equality before the law.” Particularly, the NAACP wanted to end the three decades of lynching that had taken the lives of hundreds of black US citizens. This group was a multiracial, multi-generational army of ordinary people who united to awaken the consciousness of a people and a nation.
On the day of the visit to the Brown house, the spokesman was Charles Scott, Oliver's childhood friend and now a lawyer for the NAACP. He asked the Brown family to become the plaintiffs, along with twelve other families in Topeka, and the families of four other cases being filed in different states, in a new class-action lawsuit before the courts. Linda, relating the event later in her life, said that "separate but equal" was not the issue for her family. To them, there was nothing inferior about the education she received at the all-black Monroe Elementary School. The issue for the Browns was that Linda could not attend her neighborhood school, which was for whites, and was only four blocks from home. It was a matter of biblical principle.
Pastor Oliver preached that all human beings were made in God's image. He asked why the children had to travel so far to go to school, facing bad winter weather? Why could Linda not go to the same school as all her playmates who were white, Native American, and Hispanic? He believed strongly that God would move people to do the right thing. He was not discouraged.
When the case went to court, the NAACP lost the first round in Kansas and appealed to the US Supreme Court. One of the lawyers on the NAACP's legal team was Thurgood Marshall, who later became the first black US Supreme Court justice. The final and landmark decision did not come until 17 May 1954. The vote was nine to zero in favor of the plaintiffs. Chief Justice Earl Warren stated that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal," and that the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place in public education. The Court ruled that segregated public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, overturning the Plessy v. Ferguson case of 1896. It was a marvelous day.
Leola Brown was watching television while she ironed clothes after lunch that day. The program was interrupted by breaking news. She was stunned and overwhelmed to hear the decision! She told her daughters when they came home from school. The girls would no longer have to go to a segregated school. That evening, there was much rejoicing in the Brown house. Linda said later, "I remember tears of joy from my father who kept repeating, 'Thanks be unto God! Thanks be unto God!'"
In 1959, Oliver Brown and his family moved to Springfield, Missouri, where he served as pastor of Benton Avenue A.M.E Church. Four years later, he abruptly died of a heart attack at forty-two years old, on 20 June 1961, when traveling with fellow pastor Maurice Lange to Topeka. His body was brought home to Topeka and laid to rest at the Mount Hope Cemetery. This October, we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision and the peacemaking life of Oliver Brown. God used an ordinary Christian citizen to participate in His extraordinary work, and that obedience has changed our nation.
-Karen O'Dell Bullock
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