Sylvia Méndez, the daughter of a Puerto Rican mother and a Mexican father, grew up in California at a time when most Southern and Southwestern schools were segregated. When she was denied enrollment to a "Whites"-only school, her parents filed a lawsuit in local federal court. In 1947, Méndez v. Westminster became a landmark civil rights case that made California the first state to end school segregation - seven years before Brown v. Board of Education. On February 15, 2011, Sylvia Méndez was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom (watch video), the United States' highest civilian honor.
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