Before Brown v. Board, another segregation case changed public schools. That fight isn’t over.

Before Brown v. Board, another segregation case changed public schools. That fight isn’t over.

To understand why five California families took their fight against segregated schools to court in the 1940s, picture the buildings reserved for their children’s learning. At that time in rural Orange County, just south of Los Angeles, school officials ordered Mexican-American children into environments that weren’t designed for education. Their studies took place in converted cattle sheds or horse stables covered in dirt and reeking of manure. …