Shirley Stamps, 59; Key Figure in Landmark Civil Rights Court Case
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Shirley Bulah Stamps, 59, whose fight to attend an all-white school in Delaware more than 50 years ago became part of the action that led to the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision, died Wednesday in Wilmington, Del., after suffering a heart attack.
As an 8-year-old in 1951, she was one of two children named as plaintiffs in a lawsuit that led to a state Supreme Court ruling that Delaware schools be desegregated.
The state Board of Education appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and Stamps’ suit was combined with several others from across the country. That led to the Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kan., ruling, which found that segregated public schools were unconstitutional.
The Delaware case was unique in that all the other state courts had upheld segregation.
In a recent story in the Wilmington News Journal, Stamps recalled that she was welcomed by the white students on her first day of class. “The transition was calm and peaceful,” she said.
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