Several years ago we attended a performance at Southern State Community Collins featuring the author and actor, Susan G. Banyas presenting her play, The Hillsboro Story.

The story recounts the efforts of a group of African American mothers, The Marching Mothers, going to war with the town’s all-white school board with the goal of forcing the board to comply with the decision made in the earlier, 1954 Brown v. Topeka desegregation case.

For two years the mothers marched on the all-white schools and as they marched the nation became increasingly aware and the NAACP, under the leadership of Thurgood Marshall, decided the case was strong enough to become the basis of a challenge to schools moving too slowly in compliance with the Brown decision.

Susan Banyan’s book can be purchased from Amazon and a great article about the Marching Mothers is available online at the Times-Gazette’s website.