John Scott

Charles Scott Sr., class of 1940, and John Scott, class of 1938, two of the three attorneys who filed the landmark Brown V. Topeka Board of Education case. John and Charles had suspended their law studies when they were called to serve in World War II, but returned to Washburn Law School and upon graduation, joined their father, Elisha Scott, who had been the third African-American to graduate from Washburn Law, to form the law firm of Scott, Scott and Scott. Charles and John Scott, along with Chares Bledsoe, filed Brown V. Topeka, a fight for the educational equality of all children, on Feb. 28, 1951, in the U.S. District Court of Kansas. They had worked to recruit a group of 13 families willing to challenge the school board’s segregated elementary schools in Topeka and recruited expert witnesses to testify about the psychological harm of segregation. The case was unsuccessful in district court, but the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the district court on May 17, 1954, in the famous, far-reaching decision. John Scott died in 1984 at age 65 and Charles Scott in 1989 at age 67.