Traveling Exhibit - Panels

 

Brown v. Board of Education - In Pursuit of Freedom & Equality - Traveling Exhibit
   
Panel 6 - Achievement Despite Segregation: African American Schools
The public school stood with family and church as the foundation for African American institutions under "Jim Crow". Between 1890 and 1920, the illiteracy rate for African Americans in Kansas declined from 32.8% to 8.8%.

In Kansas high schools, social activities were segregated by color.
Courtesy Merrill Ross Collection, Kansas Collection, University of Kansas Libraries.

Dance at Topeka High School, 1940s.

In smaller cities in Kansas African American neighborhoods frequently had their own schools. Plaza School in Ft. Scott and Douglas School in Manhattan were built about 1900.
Courtesy Historic Preservation Association of Bourbon County, Riley County Historical Society, and Kansas State Historical Society.


Plaza School


Douglas School


Kindergarten Class, Buchanan School, Topeka, 1923.
Loan from Ardenia Brown, Kansas Collection, University of Kansas Libraries.

 Sumner High School in Kansas City, Kansas, the first and only African American High School in the state, 1906-1978, was established by special legislation.
 

Science Class at Sumner High School, 1920


Sumner High School Second Orchestra, 1918


Sumner High School Student Council Minutes, 1931-32.
Courtesy Sumner High School Alumni Association Collection, Kansas Collection, University of Kansas Libraries.


Washington School, one of four all black elementary schools in Topeka, occupied this new building in 1910.
Courtesy Kansas State Historical Society


Baseball Schedule.
Courtesy Josephine Brice Collection, Kansas Collection, University of Kansas Libraries.


Monroe School Eighth Grade Graduation Program, Topeka, Kansas, 1929.
Courtesy Allabelle Napue Collection, Kansas Collection, University of Kansas Libraries.