In 1951, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) helped the parents file a class action lawsuit. There were five lawsuits in Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, and the district of Colombia about having black students going to legally segregated schools. In 1896, the Supreme Court had ruled in "Plessy v. Ferguson" that segregation was legal, as long as separate places for blacks and whites were "separate but equal." The NAACP's lawyers argued that the white and black schools in Topeka were not "separate but equal."