Remembering Lucinda Todd:
The Initiating Plaintiff in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, May 17, 1954

Article by Rev. Michael F. Blevins, J.D., M. Div., Copyright (All Rights Reserved) March 2004

We often wonder if our lives have meaning and impact in a world such as ours. I knew a person who beautifully demonstrated that the answer is "Yes."

Lucinda ("Cindy") Wilson Todd (1903-1996) was my fifth grade teacher in the 1964-1965 school term at Central Park Elementary School in Topeka, Kansas. I remember her as a stunningly graceful, wise and winsome lady -- a warm, loving, disciplined teacher, who loved books and brilliantly instilled in her students a passion for reading and all things cultural. Mrs. Todd was a dedicated member of the ranks of that too-little-appreciated cadre of world changers: the public school teacher.

Mrs. Todd was a devoted wife, mother and community person -- a woman of deep and broad faith. She believed God was a force of hope, love and justice. She was a lifetime active member of St. John's A.M.E. church in Topeka. Her love for her daughter Nancy was the cause for her inadvertently stepping into legal and cultural history.

For several years, especially from 1948 through 1950, local NAACP President McKinley Burnett had led the local effort to confront the inequities of segregation. He had gone before Superintendent Kenneth McFarland and the Topeka School Board continuously for several years to seek integration of the elementary schools (the secondary schools were not formally segregated by this time) -- each time to no avail.

One wintry morning in 1950, Mrs. Todd looked out and saw that as her daughter Nancy tried to catch up with the bus that would take her a few miles to her all-black grade school (when the nearest white elementary school was less than three blocks away) -- she very nearly was run over. This was the "last straw" for Lucinda Todd. The frustration and anger came on top of the ire she felt that her daughter could not participate in the public school music programs -- because they were not allowed for black students.

Mrs. Todd was livid ("red hot," in her words) -- and consequently marched "kicking and fussing" to see McKinley Burnett and insisted that busing to enforce segregation was no longer acceptable. Waiting was no longer an option. A tipping point had been reached.

A decision was then made by the Topeka NAACP chapter to give the Topeka African American law firm of Scott and Scott the go-ahead to prepare litigation with the assistance of the national NAACP. Mrs. Todd, who was Secretary of the local NAACP, wrote an important letter on August 25, 1950, to Walter White of the New York office of the NAACP, asking for their commitment, which was given in due course. Walter White later was an overnight guest of Mrs. Todd and her husband Alvin.

Strategic planning meetings for the groundbreaking lawsuit occurred in Mrs. Todd's home on Jewell Street in Topeka, around her modest dining room table. Attorneys Robert Carter, Jack Greenburg and Thurgood Marshall were guests in her home. Elisha Scott, his sons Charles and John Scott, and Charles Bledsoe -- all graduates of Topeka's Washburn Law School -- were the local attorneys for the plaintiffs.

The legal team of Elisha, Charles and John Scott and Charles Bledose with the assistance of Robert Carter, drafted a Petition averring that racially separate education was inherently unequal and therefore unconstitutional as a violation of the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. They filed the case in the United States Courthouse at 5th and Kansas (a building which yet serves as Topeka's main Post Office) in Topeka on February 28, 1951. Lucinda Todd doubted that the suit would be successful, but believed it had to be filed nevertheless, because it was the right thing to do. There were 13 named plaintiffs (on behalf of their 20 children), because it was the strategy of the team to have broad support with a diversity of African American plaintiffs, and it appears that Oliver Brown was named first on the list by gender assignment, since there was another plainfiff, Mrs. Darlene Brown whose name would have preceded his alphabetically. All the plaintiffs were courageous to step into the limelight of this intense legal and cultural battle.

It was Mrs. Todd who was first to volunteer, took the lead in talking to other parents (mothers chiefly) to convince them to join in the suit as plaintiffs against the school board. It was Mrs. Todd who took the responsibility for the door-to-door campaign (on foot -- she did not drive) to obtain 1500 petition signatures (the NAACP required this as a show of sufficient support). I believe Mrs. Todd took the brunt of the heat for "rocking the boat" -- from both the white and black communities. The NAACP did not have the support of most of the Topeka Black community, because of fears of recrimination and loss of the status quo. It was Mrs. Todd who took the lead in keeping other participants motivated.

On May 17, 2004, we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Court's historic decision holding that public schools must be desegregated, because separate is indeed inherently, on its face, unequal, and therefore unconstitutional. I believe that if in our history women had not been so oppressed, the title of the suit would have been as it should have been: Lucinda Todd et. al. v. Board of Education of Topeka et. al.

Lucinda Todd died in 1996 in Topeka at the age of 93. Her daughter Nancy Todd Noches is now a retired music teacher residing in Austin, Texas.

Lucinda Todd is an unsung hero whose story should be widely told and emulated. She did not want attention. She did not seek to make history -- but with the help of others she did anyway. She was a woman of faith who did the right thing at the right time with courage, against the odds, and in the process changed our world--for the better--forever. The case she made sure was filed is widely regarded as the most important constitutional case in United States history. African Americans felt real hope for the first time that the days of Jim Crow were numbered. And white supremacy felt its first real fear.

I am grateful to have known this wonderful woman who did not let racism, sexism or cynicism deter her. Bravely confronting systemic injustice is a crucial calling for our time. In causes larger than ourselves, we find meaning.

Thank you Mrs. Todd. Thank you to all the plaintiffs and all those who stepped forward with you with courage. Thank you for everything. As we stand on your shoulders, I find myself still tugging, Mrs. Todd, at your wise, kind sleeves.

Rev. Michael F. Blevins, J.D., M. Div., is Pastor of Tigard Covenant Church, Tigard, Oregon.