Reverend Oliver Leon Brown served as the lead plaintiff in the Oliver L. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Supreme Court case. Rev. Brown worked as the assistant pastor at St. Mark AME church and a union welder in Topeka, Kansas. His childhood friend, attorney Charles Scott, shared the local NAACP’s plan to challenge segregation in local schools with Brown and his wife, Leola. After encouragement from his wife, Brown walked his oldest daughter, Linda, to their local all-white school and attempted to enroll her. After the NAACP’s victory arguing in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, Brown and his family moved to Springfield, Missouri in 1959, where he served as pastor of Benton Avenue A.M.E. Church. He sadly died of a heart attack two years later.