San Antonio College Kinesiology Instructor Andreia Brown recently attended a gala event at Constitution Hall in Washington, DC, to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case that ended the "separate but equal" policy and integrated the nation's public schools. She received the Charles Hamilton Houston Sr. Pioneer for Justice Award on behalf of her mother Ethel Lee Belton, who was a key plaintiff in the famous case.

"My mother was 16 when she filed the lawsuit, living in Claymont, Del.," said Brown. "She had a heart condition and tired easily, but nobody knew how severe it was at the time. She had to walk one mile past the all-white school in her neighborhood, take a bus for 10 miles, then walk five blocks to the all-black Harwood High School. In 1959, she had heart surgery, and six holes were discovered in her heart."

The case was filed in 1953 as Belton v. Gebhart, the name of the school board president for New Castle County, Del. Brown said her mother won the case at the state level after Chancellor (Judge) Collin Seitz personally visited the high school and ruled that integration should be immediate.

Brown said her mother's case was added to the Brown class action suit (117 plaintiffs in all), because it was the only case to win at the state level. She added that Seitz didn't say it was unconstitutional - that question was for the Supreme Court to decide, which of course they did in the famous 1954 case.

"Fifty years ago is a blink of an eye," said Brown. "Some states didn't comply until 10 years later." She noted that Prince Edward County's response to the Supreme Court ruling was to shut down all schools for four years.

Her own experience with education was quite different: "Everything was normal for me, no battle like my mother had to fight," said Brown, who first learned about her mother's lawsuit when she was about five or six years old. She said that every few years journalists would interview her mother about the case.

"As an adult, I am proud of her. She is a hero," said Brown, whose older daughter graduated from University of the Incarnate Word and will attend Howard University School of Law to concentrate in civil rights.

What is her view of the struggle for civil rights and race relations today? "I'm an optimistic person," said Brown. "I agree with much of what Bill Cosby said [at the gala event], that we have to do more about the drop-out rate and to create more opportunities for education."

What do her children think of their famous grandmother, who passed away in 1981? Brown said, "They didn't get to meet their grandmother, but I want to keep the torch alive. She was 110 pounds on a good day, not very strong, but she was a beautiful woman."

For more information, contact Andreia Brown at 733-2764.