In 1879, the Kansas State Legislature passed a law that allowed large cities in Kansas to create separate, segregated schools for Black and white students. Lowman Hill was a small community just outside Topeka. In 1890, Topeka took over Lowman Hill and the Topeka School Board took over the Lowman Hill School. For ten years, this small school remained integrated. Then, in 1900, six weeks before the school year began, the school burned down. When the Topeka School Board built a new replacement school, they only allowed white students to return. Black students were sent to Douglass School, which was housed in an old, small, wooden building. William Reynolds sued the Board. He did not want his son, Raoul, to attend a separate school, especially after he’d been at an integrated school, prior. He also did not want Raoul to have to walk a long distance to Douglass school when Lowman Hill school was much closer to their home. Further, he claimed Lowman had much better facilities than Douglass. He suggested that segregating Black students into an inferior school violated the Kansas State Constitution’s provision which required a uniform system of schools. He also argued that segregation violated his son’s rights under the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The court ruled in favor of the Board, citing the 1879 law that gave them power to create separate schools. The court also ruled that the educational opportunities available across the Topeka School District were equal, and that, per Plessy V. Ferguson, “separate but equal” schools were not in conflict with the U.S. Constitution. Reynolds lost the case.