"1902: The Forgotten Case That Started Brown v. Board" In 1902—fifty-two years before Brown v. Board of Education—William Reynolds, a Black tailor in Topeka, Kansas, filed one of America's first lawsuits challenging school segregation. When his eight-year-old son Raoul was denied entry to their neighborhood school and forced into an inferior segregated facility, Reynolds took the Topeka Board of Education to court, arguing that racial segregation violated the Kansas Constitution and the Fourteen