Combining a wealth of local history of the Kansas City area with careful research into the little known 1949 Kansas Supreme Court case that set the precedent for the Brown v. Topeka Board of Education landmark school desegregation decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. Fortitude investigates the ordinary people who displayed extraordinary persistence and tenacity to persuade the Kansas Supreme Court that separate schools in South Park, Johnson County, Kansas, were not equal. Corinthian Nutter, Alfonso and Mary Webb, Esther Brown, Elisha Scott, national NAACP staff, Black parents and teachers worked together without flagging in the face of opposition that saw some Black parents fired and threats from hostile whites. The ultimate decision that desegregated South Park came five years before Brown.
The story of the integration of South Park Elementary School is here documented in footnotes and appendix, and more than 30 photographs illustrate the story. This is a part of American history that has not before been told so fully and compellinglyt. An index is included. Also included is the history of Black settlement in northeastern Kansas that dates back before the civil war and the Exoduster Movement that brought tens of thousands of Black freedpeople out of the South's terror to Kansas after 1879.