Family members and NAACP President Derrick Johnson spoke of the violent threats endured for years following the decision, which outlawed separating children into schools by their race. 

President Joe Biden met with the delegation of two original plaintiffs, about 20 descendants and NAACP leadership 鈥渃ritical in fighting for these and other hard-won freedoms for Black Americans,鈥� according to a White House official. 

Several family members reiterated the struggle to make good on 叠谤辞飞苍鈥檚 promise of quality education for all is far from over. 

鈥淲e have a lot of work to do,鈥� said Cheryl Brown Henderson, youngest daughter of namesake plaintiff Oliver Brown, just after leaving the Oval Office. 鈥�… We鈥檙e still fighting the battle over whose children we invest in.鈥�

In the private meeting, family members said they urged the President to continue that fight and support HBCUs. President Biden thanked them for taking on the risks required to push back on Jim Crow and segregation, including risking 鈥測our life, your livelihood, your home,鈥� said Brown Henderson.

At least one litigating family鈥檚 home was burned to the ground in South Carolina. Many others lost jobs, compounding the challenges Black families faced in trying to build economic wealth less than a century after the fall of slavery. 

One descendant urged the President to consider a national holiday commemorating the landmark court decision so that its significance and history would not be lost.

鈥淲e have yet to fulfill the promise of Brown,鈥� said NAACP President Derrick Johnson, adding that teaching 鈥渁dequate鈥� history is being threatened in multiple states. Last month, the organization for its “anti-indoctrination” law and alleged discrimination against Advanced Placement African American Studies courses.

鈥淪o the fight continues,鈥� Johnson said. 鈥淚t is a political fight. It is a legal fight. It is a moral fight, to ensure that we have a future that’s reflective of the demographics of this country today and not the demographics of 1950.鈥� 

Earlier this week, scholars at Stanford University and University of Southern California unveiled troubling research that school segregation steadily increased in the last three decades. Experts say there鈥檚 an urgent need to reform how students are sorted into schools 鈥� four states require, and nearly all allow, districts to enforce attendance zones, which often mirror racist housing or sundown town boundaries from nearly a century ago. 

Family members called out the press鈥檚 failure to accurately document challenges to 叠谤辞飞苍鈥檚 implementation and racial educational inequities being played out in schools today. They also voiced criticism for the administration鈥檚 military and war spending in comparison to education priorities. This week and late last month signed a for aid to Ukraine, Taiwan and other countries. 

鈥淭he truth about education in America? Are the kids from the Indian reservations 鈥� in West Virginia, or my mother’s hometown in South Carolina [getting quality education]? I say no. Tell me I鈥檓 wrong,鈥� said Nathaniel Briggs, son of the namesake plaintiff in . 鈥淲e’ll spend millions of dollars to buy an airplane and a bomb, but not on education.鈥� 

Thursday鈥檚 event was the first of several NAACP and White House engagements commemorating the anniversary. Tomorrow, seven decades to the day since the court issued the Brown decision, the President will share remarks at the African American Smithsonian.