He might not have the name recognition of Thurgood Marshall, but Charles Scott Sr. was just as responsible for ending segregation in public schools.

Scott was one of the lead attorneys representing the 13 families in Topeka who a half-century ago sued the school district demanding racial integration in schools. One of those was the family of Oliver and Linda Brown, for whom the Brown v. Board of Education landmark decision was named.

Scott’s personal and professional papers are housed at the Spencer Research Library at Kansas University, offering researchers a look into the development of the case that is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year and will be the subject of a national conference that begins Sunday at KU.

“They show how long and tedious the process is,” said Deborah Dandridge, field archivist with the museum. “People think things just pop up, but this took a great deal of planning, coordination with the NAACP and finding plaintiffs for the case.”

The collection includes draft copies of briefs filed with appellate and supreme courts, letters between attorneys and photographs. They include letters and telegrams from Marshall, another attorney on the case who later was appointed the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.

It also includes letters written between Charles Scott and his father, Elisha Scott, another attorney on the Brown case. The letters were written while Charles Scott was serving in the military during World War II.

“The personal letters are very revealing,” Dandridge said. “They show a very personal relationship between him and his father. They show a process of Elisha convincing his son to be an attorney.”

Dandridge, who grew up in Topeka and knew the Scott family, met with Charles Scott in 1988 to convince him to donate the papers, which take up about a cubic foot of shelf space at the Spencer Library. Scott died the next year.

A telegram, dated April 6, 1955, from attorney Thurgood Marshall, future Supreme Court Justice, to Charles Scott, Topeka, one of the lead attorneys in the Brown v. Board of Education case, has Marshall asking for more news on the Topeka school board's action to abolish segregation in September 1955. In background is Deborah Dandridge, who oversees the collection of papers from Charles Scott and who has planned a national conference next week in Lawrence in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Brown case.

“This is one of the few collections available in a public repository that records local involvement in the case,” Dandridge said. “They usually keep them, but they don’t donate them to a public entity. We’re very lucky here.”

Bill Tuttle, a KU professor of American studies, said Scott’s papers — along with papers of Kansas civil rights attorneys Chester Lewis and Elmer Jackson, also housed at the Spencer Library — gave scholars a unique, firsthand look at the development of race relations in Kansas.

Tuttle noted that Lewis’ papers led to a book written by a professor at Friends University on the history of race relations in Wichita.

“Just having an idea for what the lawyers involved in civil rights activism were thinking makes it a really wonderful collection,” Tuttle said.

Charles Scott Jr., a KU graduate who practices law in Kansas City, Mo., said he was proud to have the papers of his father and grandfather available for public use.

“Those are documents that chronicled their life in many respects, and their struggle against segregation and discrimination,” he said. “I haven’t done a very good job of it, but I want the contribution of my father and grandfather of bringing about social justice among African-American people enshrined in history. I think those papers serve that purpose.”

6News video: KU conference to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Topeka Board of Education decision Hoeflich: Path to Brown v. Board (3-3-04) Desegregation case fails to draw crowd (2-24-04) National Park Service: Brown v. Board of Education Early Civil Rights Struggles