Esther Swirk Brown

Esther Swirk Brown (September 19, 1917 – May 24, 1970) was an American activist who successfully fought to desegregate the schools of South Park, a neighborhood of Merriam, Kansas. She was instrumental in the successful case of Webb v. School District No. 90, which desegregated the schools in South Park. For her role in Brown v. Board of Education, she became known as "the white Mrs. Brown".

Early life Esther Swirk was born on September 19, 1917, to Russian-Jewish immigrants in Kansas City, Missouri. When she was 10 years old, her mother died of cancer. Her father was a secular watchmaker who was active in left-wing causes such as the Human Rights Club and the International Workers Order. Inspired both by her father's activism and the ethics of Judaism, she joined a picket line of garment workers. She also attended Commonwealth College, a school known for its communist sympathies. She married Paul Brown in 1943. The conflict over segregated schools boiled over in 1947, when a new school was built exclusively for the benefit of White children, despite all residents paying for the bond, including the Black families living in South Park at the time. The Walker School only had two teachers to teach eight grades, with one of the teachers being uncertified.

Trial The trial began in late September 1948 in a courtroom in Johnson County, Kansas. While the case was pending, Brown's activism caused almost all of the Black families in South Park to boycott the Walker School, instead having the families run schools at their homes. The home schools had issues with financing, so Brown traveled throughout Kansas to raise money for them. In 1957, she was an organizer of the Panel of American Women (PAW) and was the panel's national organizer.

Brown died on May 24, 1970, at age 52, from breast cancer, in Buffalo, New York. In 1975, a park was named in her honor in South Park.