This spring sojourn out into Kansas began along the gently rolling gravel roads that lead north out of Lawrence.
An hour into the journey, I stop for lunch at Kroeger’s County Meats in LeCompton, once the territorial capital of Kansas. Four patrons sit at tables. One has on a top hat and a 19thcentury suit. Mr. Kroeger immediately notices my hat, a bike helmet.
“Are you biking, or just blowing down the road?” he inquires.
A trucker had just come in reporting trouble staying on the road, and still had to make it to White Cloud. I only had to travel to Topeka, 20 miles upriver. However, 35mph winds worried me. With a bit of help from the longstanding patrons, I planned a re-route. I would take the bluff-protected River Road.
However, I would not alight before eating my pulled pork sandwich and potato salad prepared for me by Mrs. Kroeger. I also first visited the Territorial Capital Museum.
Its building was built by the same Italian stone mason who constructed the home I stayed in last night. Stonemasons came from Europe in the late 1850s to build in LeCompton a state house for a pro-slave Kansas. However, critically—both for Kansas and for the nation—Kansas rejected slavery, and construction of the structure stopped at the first floor. In 1865, a free Kansas granted the building and 13 acres to the Church of the United Brethren in Christ who opened Lane University in 1882 (named after the Free Stater Jim Lane). When the University closed in 1902, it became an elementary school and then a high school before finally closing in the 1950s. In the 1970s, the community with the support of the Kansas Historical Society and the Preservation Office, restored the by then derelict building. Today it is the Territorial Capital Museum, and filled with artefacts donated by local people.
One such local is the man in the top hat at Kroeger’s. A member of the LeCompton Enactors, he introduced himself to me as the Territorial Governor of Kansas, Andrew Reeder (a part he plays in the museum’s play about the debate over slavery in Kansas). He proudly informed me that he had shot a 2,000 pound buffalo with the kind of gun Teddy Roosevelt used to shoot his first buffalo. I later found the buffalo’s head hanging in the museum.
The following explanation hung below it: “This trophy was taken in Albert, Canada in 2003. Steps were taken to kill this magnificent beast with historical integrity. A western style hat topped a buckskin coat and the rifle used was a reproduction model 1874 Sharps in 45-70 caliber. This was the same type rifle Theodore Roosevelt used to take his first buffalo.”
The origins of the Native instruments and clothing that hang below the buffalo head are less clear. Visitors are only told the name of the individuals who “loaned” the objects. Yet how did they come into the possession of these individuals? Why were they hung below the buffalo head with no further description other than “campfire girls uniform” and “pair beaded moccasins”? While the debates about slavery are front and central at the museum, the forced removal of Native peoples from these lands to make way for “free” people is not discussed.
The Territorial Capital Museum is clearly a point of community pride. It is indeed impressive to find a museum so well cared for in a town of 600. Yet who makes up the community? This question powerfully shaped Kansas from its start, and continues to do so today.
Feeling unsettled, both by the sound of the wind rattling the building, and history rattling me, I decided it best to depart to begin my journey west. It was not long before I arrived at the Kansas River. As predicted there was a sheltering bluff.
My fear of fighting the wind faded, and I settled into a beautiful ride. Train tracks, and the occasional train, flanked me most of the way.
And one old telephone pole line.
I made good time to Topeka, today the state capital of Kansas.
I had an hour left before the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site closed, so quickly pedaled south of the capital to the Monroe school.
Monroe was one of four black schools founded in Topeka, Kansas on land bought by newly freed enslaved persons in the late 19thcentury. Today, instead of educating children, it educates children and adults alike about the history of the effort to desegregate schools in the United States. Upon arrival I meet Dexter, the park ranger on duty. Dexter tells me the history of another important moment in the history of Kansas and of the nation. In 1951, a student at the school, Linda Brown, and her father, Oliver Brown, became plaintiffs in the U.S. Supreme Court case that challenged school segregation. This Kansas school was one of five around the country that formed test sites for the case. Dexter deftly guided us through an experience of its significance. First he showed us pictures of a Monroe classroom next to one from a Topeka whites only school, and asked us to point out the difference.
Photographs on the walls of the school entranceway
Other than a particularly unhappy looking student in the Monroe photo, neither I nor the visitors from Wisconsin could see a difference. Dexter replied: “Right! So now your homework is to find out why the Supreme Court ruled the schools unequal.” He sent us off to explore the exhibits. With our homework complete, we met him back in a kindergartner classroom where we discussed our finding: the Court found that “segregation” in and of itself was a harm, and detrimental to the psychological well-being of black students. This finding helped launch the Civil Rights movement.
I always have taken pride in this Brown v. Board of Education and free state history of Kansas, a pride beautifully portrayed in a mural across the street from the Monroe school.
However, Dexter was having none of it. “I give Kansas no credit,” he told us. Kansas might have been “free,” but it still segregated, and when it desegregated, it laid African American teachers off work. It might have been “free,” but it removed Native people from its lands to make way for “free” people.
Dexter was a warm and powerful presenter of this story. His job at the Topeka Brown v. Board National Historic Site is the first time in his career as a federal employee that he has shared a post with another African American. The park service, as so many other American institutions, remain predominantly white.
The history of Kansas, no matter how it is told, provides no shelter from these realities. The winds of history are strong at my back, and move me as I ride.