Earlier this summer, a small Merriam church that was once home to the Madam C.J. Walker School made history by landing on the National Register of Historic Places.
For Tony Adams, who grew up in the South Park area of Merriam where the school was located, the recognition was a long time coming, cementing the building’s history as part of the movement to outlaw school segregation.
The Kansas Supreme Court’s ruling in Webb v. School District No. 90, a 1948 lawsuit brought by the families of Walker School students, paved the way for Brown v. Board of Education — the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that ruled school segregation was illegal nationwide in 1954…