LARGO, Md. (Gray DC) – Barbara Ross turned 100 years old, and a ballroom full of guests traveled to Largo, Md. Saturday to mark the occasion for the trailblazing educator who taught during and after the era of school segregation.

Ross was born in 1926 and lived for many years in Topeka, Kan. She is recognized as the city’s oldest living Black educator.

Joe Anderson was in Ross’s second-grade class. Now 83, Anderson recalled attending Washington School — one of four segregated elementary schools in Topeka prior to the 1954 landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision requiring Topeka desegregate its schools.

“I knew that the foundation that I had academically started with them,” Anderson said.

Anderson said Ross and other Black teachers helped ease the transition to integration following the 1954 ruling.

“As they transitioned from Brown in 1954 to an integrated circumstance, they made that acceptable as black teachers that they were as capable and qualified as white teacher,” Anderson said.

Anderson described the environment Ross and her husband, Merrill, created for hundreds of students as something beyond academics.

“They were the black teachers, but in the black community, it was community,” Anderson said.

Ross reflected on the celebration and the people who gathered for it.

“It’s so thoughtful and gracious and loving for me to be there with them. I couldn’t ask for anything more,” Ross said.

At the party, Ross said of her own wellbeing: “I can’t think of how I could feel any better than I’m feeling.”

Her legacy still lives on in Topeka. The school district named Ross Elementary School after her and Merrill to recognize their lifelong contributions.