History by Attorney Who Helped Integrate Public Schools Helping with the Landmark Case of Brown V
Kansas Republican Party
SOME ANECDOTES
AND
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
OF
BLACK KANSAS REPUBLICANS
Blue silk regimental flag of the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry, the first African American regiment in the Civil War. Recruitment began August 1862 and it was mustered into Federal service January 13, 1863. The Regiment saw its first action at Island Mound, Missouri, October 29, 1862. The flag bears the names of eight battle honors.
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Kansas Republican Party
EXODUSTER MOVEMENT The influx of poor (1879-1881) and unskilled blacks caused a backlash The end of Reconstruction in 1876 caused a of resistance to the mass outflow of black refugees from the Old new immigrants. South, fleeing violence and poverty. Many Governor John P. St headed for Kansas which was associated with John (R), a fiery freedom, Bleeding Kansas, and John Brown. Baptist Minister, Benjamin “Pap” Singleton, a former slave from fought back against Tennessee encouraged people to move to those opposing the Kansas where they would be able to purchase exodusters. He land and establish a better life. In 1873, he led ridiculed democrat a group to Cherokee County near Baxter Benjamin “Pap” Singleton allegations that he Springs. He organized another colony to come was trying to import from Kentucky and settle in Graham County. thousands of Republican voters. This settlement of Nicodemus grew and He likewise dismissed objections based on cost prospered for a time until the railroad bypassed and resources arguing that God would find a Nicodemus and built in a neighboring town. way for Kansas and that he would never turn back refugees who had suffered cruelty, outrage, and wrong, who were destitute, hungry and without adequate clothes in the winter.
He noted that “the question of the exodus was not one of business, as shallow thinkers and flippant writers would have us believe . . . A large portion of the American people will ignore the humanitarian side. Kansas cannot afford to
do so.” Nicodemus, Graham County, KS On May 8, 1879, Governor St. John formed the Around 30,000 blacks came to Kansas between Freedman’s Relief Association to receive 1879 and 1881. These people were called charitable contributions to care for the Exodusters from the Jewish exodus from Egypt. exodusters. They established colonies one in Most Exodusters arrived by steamboats sick and Wabaunsee to the west of Topeka, one in unprepared to begin a new life. Most came Chautauqua county, and another in Coffey with little if any money. The cities were county. Black communities also formed within overwhelmed with the large number of needy cities like Topeka (Tennessee Town) and Kansas persons. Shelter, food, and rail transport had to City (Quindero). be provided and were not cheap.
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Kansas Republican Party
Edward P. McCabe eastern Kansas in support of the Republican (1850-1920) ticket.
In 1882, E.P. McCabe of Graham County In 1887, Waller was appointed deputy city became Kansas State Auditor; the first African attorney of Topeka, Kansas. In the 1888 American elected to statewide office (outside presidential election, Waller was the only black reconstruction) in the United States. In 1884, man in the United States to be selected for the he was re-elected to a second two-year term. Electoral College. He cast a vote for Benjamin Harrison. In 1890 He was born in Troy, he unsuccessfully New York, received an ran for Kansas education in law and state auditor. migrated to Kansas in April 1878, just in time The inability of to get caught up in the black Republicans "Exoduster" dream of to move beyond establishing all-black local office left him towns. McCabe was disillusioned with closely identified with Nicodemus, Kansas, near his political which he settled as a farmer and attorney. A chances in Kansas. He remained loyal to the Republican activist, he was elected Clerk in Republican Party and in 1891 was named by Graham County. His connections and his charm Harrison to be U.S. consul to Madagascar. served him well. After serving as state auditor he worked for the state's leading Republicans in The French viewed Waller's activity as a threat the 1888 election. In 1890, he moved to to their colonial ambitions in Madagascar and Oklahoma. had him tried and convicted to 20 years in prison. Only by the intervention of President Cleveland freed him. He returned to the United John L. Waller States and during the Spanish American War he (1850-1907) was an officer with the 23rd Kansas Volunteers. In 1900 he retired from public life and settled in John L. Waller was a career Republican and New York City activist who played a significant role in Kansas politics. He was born on a Missouri plantation. After being freed by the Union Army in 1862, Alfred Fairfax his family moved to Iowa where he attended (1843-1916) school and was admitted to the Iowa Bar in 1877. Elected to the state House of Representatives in 1888, Alfred Fairfax was the first African In 1878 he moved to Leavenworth, Kansas American to serve in the Kansas legislature. A where he opened a law practice. In 1884 farmer and pastor, Fairfax represented the 58th Waller, recognized for his speaking ability, was District. During his single term in office (1889- recruited by Leavenworth Republicans to tour 1890), he served as chairman of the House
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Kansas Republican Party
Committee on Immigration and spoke out in Topeka while young. Lutie attended Topeka favor of an end to segregated schools as well as schools, including Topeka High School. She a prohibition of discrimination more generally. then graduated from Central Tennessee law school's graduating class of 1897 before Born a slave in Loudon County, Virginia, he was returning to Topeka. She later moved to New later sold and taken to Louisiana. In 1862, he York, but returned periodically to Topeka where escaped and joined the Union Army. During her brother Charles had a long, successful Reconstruction he career in law-enforcement. actively participated in "I like constitutional law because the anchor of Louisiana politics, my race is grounded on the constitution. It is including earning a the certificate of our liberty and our equality Republican before the law. Our citizenship is based on it, congressional and hence I love it." nomination.
In 1880, following Kansas Bans Birth of a Nation the end of Reconstruction, Fairfax joined thousands of Birth of a Nation was a 1915 silent movie epic other African Americans in moving to Kansas that portrayed the KKK as a heroic patriotic seeking social and economic opportunity. Upon movement that put aggressive blacks in their arriving in Kansas, as leader of a group of place. Democrat President Woodrow Wilson, a several hundred families, he settled in renowned racist, showed it at the White House. Chautauqua County near the town of Peru. He managed a farm of several hundred acres, Meanwhile in Kansas, the raising cotton and operating his own gin, the Board of Review of Motion Fairfax Ginning Company. He became pastor of Pictures banned the movie the New Hope Baptist Church in Parsons. for being both historically inaccurate and racist, designed to stir up hate. Lutie Lytle The ban was not dropped (1875-c1950) until 1924.
In 1897, Lutie Lytle of Topeka became the first NAACP & Robert Hill African-American woman in Kansas admitted to the The Topeka branch of the NAACP was founded practice of law and one in 1913. It opposed Birth of a Nation, gained of the first three in the entrance for black children to educational nation. movies shown at segregated theaters, and fought school segregation. In 1919, U.S. She was born in Tennessee and moved to
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Kansas Republican Party
Senator and former Governor Arthur Capper (R) dedicated to high morals, Christian virtue, and sat on its board. Americanism. It preached a doctrine of hatred for “non-Americans” especially American In January 1920, Robert Hill, a civil rights leader citizens of Jewish, Catholic, Black, Hispanic, or who had fled Arkansas, was arrested in Kansas German ancestry. By 1922, it had about 50,000 on an extradition request from Arkansas. Three members in Kansas. NAACP lawyers took up his case: James Guy. Elisha Scott, Sr., and Nov 22, 1922: Governor Allen (R), after A. M. Thomas. They declaring that there would be “no such had the full support nonsense” in Kansas, ordered Attorney General of Governor Allen Richard Allen (R) to file suit to oust the Klan and Senator Capper. from Kansas as a foreign corporation illegally doing business in Kansas. In a speech Governor Unlike Arkansas, the Allen stated “This is not a partisan issue. It NAACP could act transcends the obligations of partisanship and openly in Kansas and relates itself to the sacred cause of free planned mass public A. M. Thomas government – the cause of individual rights. No pressure. They more grotesque abuse of the word ‘American’ added Shawnee could be used than to call this Klan organization County Prosecutor Hugh Fisher to the team. American.” When the Arkansas officials arrived to extradite Hill, they were met by large crowds of 1923-24: The Klan’s influence grew at the protestors, relentless news articles from grassroots level, reaching over 100,000 Capper’s newspapers on “Arkansas Justice” and members in Kansas. It set itself up as moral requests from Fisher for information on the censor in communities and took over scattered routine torture or prisoners in Arkansas. municipal governments and school boards.
On March 22, 1921, the extradition hearing was held in Topeka. The Arkansas Attorney General appeared, provoking hostility from the crowd by referring to all African Americans as “niggahs,” and incapable of dealing with the African American attorneys Guy, Scott, and Thomas as equals, totally bungled his presentation. The next day Governor Allen denied the extradition request.
1924: With the court case threatening its existence, the Klan had two options (1) get a How Kansas Killed the KKK charter or (2) legislation to exempt it from the (1920-1926) need for a charter. The KKK began to organize in Kansas around 1920, positioning itself as an organization
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Kansas Republican Party
The KKK stood no chance of getting a return. With order restored, the bill was charter from the 3-member State Charter defeated in the House. Board –the Attorney General despised the 1926-27: In a final attempt, Klan supporters Klan and the Secretary of State, Frank tried to defeat John D.M. Hamilton (R) (future Ryan (R), was Catholic. Chair of the RNC) for Speaker. At a meeting in The Klan tried & failed to intervene in the Scott County the two Speaker candidates made 1924 Republican primary to unseat the their pitch to a group of new legislators. Attorney General and Secretary of State. Simeon Fishman (R), the new representative for Publisher William Allen White spent the Greeley County, stood up, paused, and 1924 election ridiculing the Klan, for addressed the pro-Klan candidate “Vell, you are instance, referring to their members as a Klansman and I am a Jew. . .” and walked out. “suckers” who pay a large membership Hamilton was elected Speaker in January 1927, fee “in order to hate Negroes, Catholics, and the Klan died in Kansas. and Jews when they could stay out of the organization and do it for nothing.” A popular song at the time was “Daddy Elisha Scott, Sr. Stole Our Last Clean Sheet and Joined the (1890-1963) Klu Klux Klan” Republican leaders publically referred to Elisha Scott, Sr, was born in Memphis Klan leaders as “unchristian,” “idiots,’ Tennessee in 1890. His family later moved to “evil”, “tyrants” and “wangdoodles.” west Topeka. As a youth he possessed a strong drive and a quick wit, which attracted the eye of 1925: In January, the state Supreme Court the prominent minister Charles M. Sheldon. determined that the KKK was a Georgia Sheldon helped Scott enroll corporation doing business in Kansas without a at the Kansas Technical charter and ordered it to cease all activity. Institute, which was an all The KKK then worked to defeat anti-Klan African American vocational Representative Clifford Hope (R) (future school. Elisha Scott went on Congressman from SW Kansas) in his race to earn his law degree from for Speaker, but failed. Washburn College in 1916. When Speaker Hope was in Wichita, Klan He was the third African supporters rammed a bill through the American to graduate from State Senate on February 25 exempting Washburn, and the only “benevolent” organizations, like the Klan, African American student in from the need for a charter and tried for his class. passage in the House on February 27 by During his long career as an calling an emergency and suspending the attorney, he argued many Rules. The Clerk, O.H. Hatfield of Gray civil rights and school segregation cases County, then “lost or misplaced” the bill throughout Kansas and the Midwest. Scott and left the Capitol with the House in provided legal help for the victims of the Tulsa, chaos, meeting Speaker Hope on his
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Elisha Scott, Sr. Kansas Republican Party
Oklahoma, lynchings in 1921. He represented prayer with yourself or go to your Minister and plaintiffs in the 1924 Kansas Supreme Court try to find out something of the principles of the case Thurman-Watts v. The Board of Education Christian religion. I am proud of the State of of the City of Coffeyville. In 1947-48, Scott Kansas and I really didn’t suppose there was represented families in Johnson County in the anyone in the State who would go back so far to Kansas Supreme Court case Webb v. School the dark ages as you.” District No. 90, which gained entrance for black students to a Merriam elementary school. He gained a reputation in Kansas as taking the Charles Scott, Sr. most impossible cases, and winning them. (1922-1989)
Scott's two sons, John and Charles, joined him Charles S. Scott, Sr., son of Elisha Scott, was an in his law firm. His sons would make history by attorney who helped integrate public schools helping with the landmark case of Brown v. nationwide by bringing suit in the landmark Board of Education. Brown versus Topeka Board of Education.
In 1951, Charles Scott, his brother John Scott Prejudice Persists and Charles Bledsoe sued the Topeka Board of An Anecdote from 1948 Education in Federal Court on behalf of Linda Brown, a black elementary school student. The From an April 1948 Letter to Congressman case was decided by the Supreme Court, which Clifford Hope (R): declared on May 17, 1954, that racial segregation in public schools was “I beg of you in behalf of America’s freedom, unconstitutional. that you vote against [the] civil rights program. I am not against the colored man, but GOD He also filed suit to integrate South Park High Himself pronounced a curse on Ham and his School in Merriam, Kansas, and he and his descendants, they were to be servants all the brother pressed many public-accommodation days of their life. I beg you, in the name of suits that gained black residents of Topeka and Jesus Christ My Lord, that you vote against this other cities in Kansas access to swimming pools, bill. God will not hold you guiltless if you go theaters and restaurants. The Scotts' law firm against his will.” represented the Congress of Racial Equality during the civil rights movement in the 1960's. Congressman Hope’s response:
“Until I received your letter I thought I had seen and heard about everything in the course of my Brown v. Board of Education twenty years in Congress. Your letter, however, (1954) takes the cake...... For one to urge as you The landmark United States Supreme Court do, however, that [the civil rights program] case, issued on May 17, 1954, unanimously (9– should be opposed in the name of Jesus Christ 0), which held that "separate educational is the most blasphemous thing I have read for a facilities are inherently unequal" and thus long time. I suggest that you hold a session of racially segregated schools were a violation of
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Kansas Republican Party the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause -- "no school one mile away, while Sumner State shall... deny to any person... the equal Elementary, a white school, was seven blocks protection of the laws." Brown overturned an from her home. 1896 decision which had held that separate but In the fall of 1951, the parents first tried to equal schools were Constitutional. enroll their children in the closest elementary An 1879 law allowed, but did not require, school. They were refused enrollment. The elementary schools in cites of the First Class to thirteen plaintiffs were: Oliver Brown, Darlene be segregated by race. Attempts to expand this Brown, Lena Carper, Sadie Emmanuel, to cities of the second and third class failed in Marguerite Emerson, Shirley Fleming, Zelma 1916 and 1919. On the other hand, the State Henderson, Shirley Hodison, Maude Lawton, Supreme Court upheld segregation in 1930. Alma Lewis, Iona Richardson, and Lucinda Todd. The last surviving plaintiff, Zelma Henderson, In 1951, a class action suit was filed against the died in Topeka, on May 20, 2008. Board of Education of the City of Topeka, Kansas in the United States District Court. The In 1951, the three-judge District Court panel plaintiffs were thirteen Topeka parents on ruled in favor of the Topeka Board of Education, behalf of their twenty children. The suit called citing the prior Supreme Court precedent that for the school district to reverse its policy of schools could be racially separate if equal. The racial segregation. Separate elementary Court concluded that segregation in public schools were operated by the Topeka Board of education had a detrimental effect upon the Education under the 1879 Kansas law. The children, but denied relief because the schools plaintiffs had been recruited by the leadership were substantially equal in terms of facilities, of the Topeka NAACP including Chairman curriculum, and teacher qualifications. McKinley Burnett, Charles Scott, and Lucinda In December 1952 and again in December 1953, Todd. the Supreme Court heard arguments on five The named combined cases: Brown itself, along with cases plaintiff, Oliver from South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, and L. Brown, was a Washington D.C. The Kansas case was unique parent, a welder because the schools at issue were substantially for the Santa Fe equal – thus allowing the Supreme Court to Railroad, and an address the issue of whether equal schools assistant pastor could be separate. In the other states, the black at his local schools were found to be substantially inferior church. He was to the white schools. The Supreme Court issued convinced to the unanimous opinion May 17, 1954. join the lawsuit Oliver L. Brown, who died in 1961, was Oliver Brown & Family by Charles Scott, posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold a childhood friend. Brown's daughter Linda, a third grader, Medal in 2004 by a bill sponsored by Senators had to walk six blocks to her bus stop to ride to Brownback and Roberts. Monroe Elementary, her segregated black
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Kansas Republican Party
Wichita Sit-Ins (1958-1959)
In the late 1950s, two-thirds of Kansas’ African Americans lived in Sedgwick, Shawnee, and Wyandotte Counties, so they became the focus of civil rights efforts. The first organized sit-in occurred in Dockum Drug Store in Wichita in July 1958. Dockum Drug Store, Wichita The Dockum Drug Store, like many of the other popular eateries in downtown Wichita, refused In 1959, the Kansas Legislature banned all racial to serve African Americans at the counter. If discrimination in hotels, motels, restaurants, they wished to purchase food in the restaurant, and other places of public accommodation. they had to order it at the end of the counter, and take it to go. Samuel C. Jackson, Jr. (1929-1982)
He was the highest ranked black Republican in Washington, D.C. in the early 1970s, serving as Assistant Secretary of Housing & Urban Development.
He was born in the Mudville community of Kansas City, Kansas. In 1965 he was appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to serve as one of the five original members of the U.S. Starting July 19, 1958, Ron Walters and Carol Equal Employment Parks-Haun, with other young students, began Opportunity entering the drugstore every day and filling the Commission. Four stools at the counter. They asked only that they years later, he was be served a soft drink. They were neat and appointed by quiet, and caused no fuss. For a month the President Richard M. students continued to fill the drug store. Finally Nixon to serve as on August 11 the owner relented, saying, “Serve General Assistant them — I'm losing too much money.” Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. During the 1970s, he left public service and joined a prominent Wall Street law firm. In 1981, he returned to public service as
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Kansas Republican Party an appointee of President Ronald Reagan to the which segregated the photos of black students Presidential Housing Commission. at the back of the book.
A major Washington, D.C. powerbroker, Mr. He served in Europe Jackson acquired his leadership skills in Kansas. in World War II, was After graduating from Topeka High School, he wounded, and attended Washburn University where he discharged in 1945. received his undergraduate degree in 1951 and He was a college law degree in 1954. While attending law school, football star who he served as a clerk in the law office that studied at represented the local plaintiffs in the Brown vs. Washburn Topeka Board of Education Supreme Court University. He Case. played defensive end for the In 1957, he returned to Topeka after completing Baltimore Colts and his military service and began his law practice. the Los Angeles Rams before returning to He was also appointed to serve as a Deputy Kansas and beginning his career in politics. He General Counsel of the Kansas Department of was picked to manage the 1956 Governor Welfare. Committed to the ideals of liberty and campaign of Fred Hall (R) among black voters – equality, Mr. Jackson was an active member of a key voting block for Kansas Republicans. the NAACP. He served as president of the Topeka chapter of the NAACP, vice-president Fred Hall won, and Fletcher was rewarded with and legislative chairman of the Kansas NAACP a job overseeing the building and maintenance State Conference, and several legal and of Kansas highways. The job, in the 1950's in executive positions in the regional and national the middle of a boom in highway building, gave NAACP. him a firsthand look at how lucrative government contracts were handed out, and he Charles Scott told an audience in 1971 that Sam concluded that better access to those contracts Jackson, “was a young man who had a was a cornerstone for improving the prospects dedication to do something for his people and of minorities. he picked the NAACP and the GOP as his chance for usefulness.” He personally helped finance the lawsuit against the Topeka Board of Education in the Brown v. Board of Education case. He later left Arthur A. Fletcher Kansas and in 1968 defeated two candidates to (1924--2005) win the Republican primary for lieutenant governor in Washington State, but lost the He was born in 1924 at Camp Huachuca, general election by a slim margin. President Arizona, where his father was stationed in the Nixon appointed him assistant secretary of all black cavalry unit. His family moved labor, where he pursued policies to use frequently, before settling in Junction City, government contracts as leverage to get Kansas, where he attended high school, and businesses and unions to hire minorities and organized a boycott of the school yearbook, women.
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Kansas Republican Party
He later became the executive director of the Herman Jones, Sherriff of Shawnee County, United Negro College Fund, where he started a amongst many others. management training program, began a grass- roots effort to include blacks beyond the middle class, and coined the phrase “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”
He also served as an advisor Presidents Gerald R. Ford and Ronald Reagan, and headed the United States Commission on Civil Rights from
1990 to 1993, under President George Bush.
Today
We can celebrate the achievements of many Black Kansas Republicans: Eliehue Brunson, following in the tradition of the Elisha & Charles Scott, as an attorney and Chair of the Kansas Black Republican Council,
Kenya Cox, Chair of the Fourth District Republican Party Committee,
Willie Dove, State Representative from Johnson and Leavenworth Counties, and
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