Friday, January 23, 2009

The formerly all-white Topeka school that was at the center of the landmark Brown v. Board desegregation case has been sold for $89,000.

At an auction Thursday night, Los Angeles-based "True Foundation World Outreach Ministries" outbid a Topeka community organization to purchase Sumner Elementary School. The opening bid was $50,000.

The ministry says the art deco style school will be turned into a community center that will offer counseling, job assistance and other services.

In 1950, Linda Brown was barred from enrollment at Sumner. Her father and several other black Topeka parents who tried to enroll their children in all-white schools that fall filed a lawsuit.

Their case was combined with similar cases from other states that led to the Supreme Court's 1954 ruling that overturned segregated education.