Cheryl brown henderson biography of rory gilmore

For years, Cheryl Brown Henderson cringed when classroom history lessons landed on Brown v.

Famu professors

Board of Education, the landmark U.S. Supreme court ruling against segregated public schools.

In adulthood, she began to lean into her family's forever connection to that watershed moment in American history — her father's role as principal plaintiff in the 1954 decision.

"Sometimes, your life script is written for you before you were born and I believe that about myself," Henderson told a crowd gathered Monday at Oklahoma Christian University.

"As a young person I was embarrassed by Brown — I didn't want people to know because when you're a teenager, you don't want to call attention to yourself.

So when we got to that place in the social studies book or history book ... I would just go still like I would be invisible, like no one could see me if I was still."

Henderson, youngest daughter of the late