when it comes fully online of thousands coming every here from all around the world to use the facili facility. super computing at various times at oak ridge and the fastest super civilians in the world. it is a disciplinary, personally, any time a scientist or engineer or social scientists can be found here some where on the staff. if you need to under take a research project that involves mostly disciplines, chemistry and biology and geology and

engineering and physics, whatever, you will find those people here that can contribute to that research and all source of unique pieces of equipment which are not available out there to do research here. various ways of average researchers can get access to certain pieces of equipment here. we got a facility that is truly disciplinary and resources for under taking any kind of computational or physical research activity that you can imagine and, you know, has an incredible history to it. you could not build something like this today, anywhere in the world. one hundred years today president woodrow wilson signed the creation to create the national park service oak ridge.

this is american history tv only on c-span 3. ♪ ♪ we are standing in the kindergarten room of the monroe elementary school at brown v. board of education. this is one of the four african-american elementary schools operating in topeka in 1951 when the brown verses board of education case was filed in district court.

the brown board education's case was a much small piece started in the late 1920s and early 1930s which was part of the national association for advancement of colored people or naa naacp struggled to public education. they attempted to file cases that would lead to over turning a case called plessy verses ferguson. that was a supreme court's decision in 1896 that allowed the state of louisiana to segregate rail cars by gates. what you saw was an explosion of laws in the south that permitted seg gra segregated facilities. the naacp was attempting to over turn that precedent. they could try to do it in one case but if they lost, that would be the end of their

attempt. beginning in the 1930s. they begin to file cases to chip away at that precedent. the strategy was initially to end segregation in law schools and graduate school and working down to elementary school. the name brown was the first name to appeared out of the list of plaintiffs. here, both the lawyers, there were oliver brown and 13 mothers. one of them being the girls school of where we are now. oliver brown was a friend of the local council for the case. so the lawyers basically recruited people that they knew in the community that they thought is good upstanding citizens that want to

participated in this case. brown was one of those 13 volunteers. it is often accidental whose names get attributed. oliver's name were listed first. the case is known as brown but he was simply one of those 13 parents that were recruited and nationwide, there were actually five cases that were apart of the brown's. just by a chance of history, we refer to it by the brown's family of one piece of a much larger story. the kindergarten room tells an important piece. the facility here were excellent. when a lot of people walk in the building, if they are old enough to remember going to kindergarten and a school like this, the facility here were

excellent. the kindergarten room is a search to remind people of being a safe place where you can learn people who are sympathetic to you and understanding. that was what was happening here. >> and then when they go out and see the exhibits and photographs of what cool were like and south carolina in virginia and the district of columbia and they see african-american communities endure and they can begin to question how difficult it was for african-americans all across the country to receive an education, a good education. here in topeka, if you look at the school just standing outside, you would be hard press to determine whether white students are african-american students attended. the school board provided all the same materials that the white schools offer. when they come to visit that after graduating from elementary

schools, the law in kansas permitted segregation in elementary schools with cities of more than 15,000 people so you had sheppard schools and topeka and about a dozen other communities out there in the early 1950s. no other kids were legally segregated. while they were no supporters of segregate and saw the injustice of having to attend separate elementary schools. the african-american community also was proud of their schools because these were excellent facilities. the teachers who were teaching in the classrooms all had bachelor's degree or master's. that's going to be lost once schools were integrated. there were support of the idea of integration but there are

also some resistance of some of the teacher and the local chapter, who fears the lost of the institution as and the lostf those jobs. >> they were african-american teachers who lost their job. there was very much attention between what was going to be gained which was full access to neighborhood schools and where these african-americans live. there is also a sense of loss of what was going happen happen to these teachers. the roots going back to the origins of slavery and the united states. when you enter the building you will be greeted by the ranger. a 25 minutes series of film which traces the struggle for civil rights of the origin of

slavery and the abolition of slavery and with the institution that's every bit unjust. residents could move into the first gallery that looks at the importance of education and african-americans community. that leads up to use education as a legal issue where by the naacp would end all segregation laws. that was july a wedged issue to really interrogate facilities and all of the other dominos of segregated would fall. one of the most powerful footage. that took place all over the nation including northern states like massachusetts where there

were riots and protests in buses. while there were not any major protests or disruption here in topeka, there were on a much national level and those were extreme levi lent and bloody and costly to the united states. so to imagine what it must be like to be a 16-year-old goirl boy or girl to be confronted by a mom. it is one of the most diseral here. one of the things that we are here to do is help engage in dialogues of these k-9s inds of issues. better access and equal access to civil rights. the mission is to preserve our