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Lower Plains: Kansas, Nebraska

policy, it was legal to require blacks to use separate facilities from whites, as long as these facilities provided the same services. Oliver Brown, an African- American father from Topeka, Kansas, challenged this policy of racial segre- gation when he tried to enroll his daughter in an all-white school. When she was denied the chance to enroll, Brown took the case to court. Ultimately, the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education went to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1954, the Court ruled that the policy of “separate but equal” was unconstitutional, ending the practice of school segregation nationwide. Government Kansas has a bicameral, or two-cham- ber, state legislature consisting of the Kansas Senate and the State House of Representatives. Its 40 state senators are elected to four-year terms and its 125 state representatives serve two- year terms. Kansas’s executive branch consists of six elected officials who each serve

drought and dust storms. Historians refer to this period as the Dust Bowl. All of the Plains states were affected, from Texas to the Dakotas. But south- western Kansas was hit especially hard. Dust clouds up to two miles high swept across the Plains. Some topsoil was blown as far away as New York City. Many farmers went bankrupt. In the 1950s, a century after the “Bleeding Kansas” era, the Jayhawker State once again became a battle zone for civil rights. This time, however, the battle was in the courts. Although slavery had long been abolished in the nation, many states still practiced racial segregation. These states, including Kansas, maintained a policy of “separate but equal.” Under this

Did You Know?

The nation’s first patented helicopter was built in 1909 in Goodland, Kansas. William J. Purvis and Charles A. Wilson, two railroad mechanics, got the idea for their design from watch- ing a child playing with a pinwheel.