Topeka's Black History Driving Tour

Entries on This Tour

E. P. McCabe was an influential member of the Nicodemus community. Born on October 10, 1850, in Troy, New York, he worked for a Wall Street firm before moving to Chicago to work at the Cook County Courthouse in the Treasurer’s Office. In 1878, McCabe arrived in Nicodemus with his friend Abraham T. Hall after joining the Exoduster movement. There McCabe served as secretary of the Nicodemus Town Company, and then County Clerk in 1881 before serving two terms as State Auditor, making him the first African American to hold a statewide office in Kansas. After losing the nomination for the third term, he was appointed Washington Representative of the Oklahoma Immigrant Association, which required him to move from Kansas to Guthrie, Oklahoma where he attained other political posts and fought against segregation, especially in railway coaches and waiting rooms. One of his most profound ideas included making Oklahoma an All-Black state, beginning with the founding of the city of Langston. He died on March 12, 1920, in Chicago but is buried in at the Historic Topeka Cemetery. Today, McCabe is remembered as one of the most important and influential Kansas figures. He is buried in Section 82 of the Historic Topeka Cemetery.

2. Nick Chiles Memorial Bridge

It is 1904. This event happened with one man in Topeka and another in The Vatican. Nicholas Chiles, an established editor and owner of The Plaindealer. Pope Pius X is the Pope during the turn of the century. The important groups were Western Negro Press Association who sent the letter and The Pope, Pius X, who sent a letter in response. This event gained a significant amount of attention during the time. This is a mostly unknown piece of Civil Rights history. Yet this event is only remembered because it was the Pope.

3. John Ritchie Homestead

Recently restored by the Shawnee County Historical Society, the John Ritchie House was home to abolitionists John and Mary Ritchie. The Ritchies supported John Brown and other militant opponents of slavery during the frontier period known as "Bleeding Kansas." They also used this home to shelter runaway slaves during Kansas's territorial period when slavery was legal and assisting runaway slaves was a capital crime according to the notorious slave codes of the Lecompton government.

4. Nick Chiles Buildings

These three Topeka buildings were owned by Nick Chiles, an African American entrepreneur, political and civil rights activist, and editor who moved to Topeka in 1886. Chiles founded, edited, and published the Topeka Plaindealer, which had the largest circulation of any Black newspaper west of the Mississippi River, from 1899 until he died at age 61 in 1929. The Plaindealer, published from 1899 to 1958, was the nation's longest-running Black newspaper. This trio of downtown Topeka buildings stand as a reminder of Chiles' and the newspaper's legacy.

5. Constitution Hall-The Free State Capitol

Constitution Hall was the first stone building in the city of Topeka and served as the headquarters of protest government formed by anti-slavery settlers in the early years of the Kansas Territory. Between the creation of the territory in 1854 and the start of the Civil War, Congress recognized a pro-slavery government based out of Lecompton as the legitimate government of the territory. In response, settlers representing the majority of Kansans who opposed the extension of slavery into their territory created their own government which was headquartered at this location. After statehood was granted in 1861 (without slavery) this building also served as the official meeting place of the new state government during construction of the East Wing of the Statehouse, five blocks to the south.

6. St. John AME Church, Topeka Kansas

Established in 1868 St. John AME Church remains one of the most essential institutions within Topeka’s African American community. The congregation assisted former slaves as they traveled west in search of farmland prior to and during the 'Exodus' of 1879 that saw twenty thousand African American sharecroppers abandon the South after the failure of Reconstruction. The church continues to play a central role in the community, offering everything from from religious services to a forum to address civil and social issues. Construction of the current church building began in 1908 and it was completed in 1926. The St. John AME Church was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.

7. Topeka High School: Separation of Sports

Before becoming one of the most diverse schools in Topeka, Topeka High School (THS), like many schools, was segregated and barred Black students from participating in many school activities. From 1929 to 1949, the Ramblers gave students an opportunity to participate in basketball and play against other black students teams from the surrounding area (Kansas City, St. Joseph, Fort Scott, Leavenworth, Coffeyville, etc.).

8. Langston Hughes Boyhood Home

Langston Hughes, an acclaimed African American writer, is known for his insightful portrayals of Black life in America from the 1920s to the 1960s. Langston wrote novels, short stories, plays, and poetry, including an innovative type of poetry referred to as jazz poetry. His work contributed mightily to the 1920s Harlem Renaissance. Additionally, he wrote a weekly column for The Chicago Defender, a leading Black newspaper, from 1942 to 1962. Although he only lived in Topeka briefly, recent evidence demonstrated that the historic Queen Anne home served as his boyhood home from around age one to seven when he moved to Lawrence, Kansas. At age six, his mother successfully enrolled him in a nearby, predominantly White school, despite their initial efforts to steer him to a school located further away (where African Americans attended).

9. Sumner Elementary School, Topeka

The Sumner Elementary School, constructed in 1936 by the School Board of Topeka, remained in the early 1950s what it had been from the beginning: an all-white school. Oliver Brown, an African-American welder for the Santa Fe Railroad and a part-time minister at a local church, tried to enroll his daughter, Linda, in the school, but was denied because of Linda's race. He agreed to be part of a class action suit in February 1951 in the First U.S. District Court of Kansas to have the Topeka Board of Education's decision declared illegal. But in August, the judges unanimously ruled against the plaintiffs, citing a previous Supreme Court decision, Plessy v. Ferguson, which had upheld the legality of segregation. The plaintiffs took their case to the Supreme Court, along with cases from four other districts and, because Oliver Brown was the lead plaintiff, the case forever became known as Brown v. Board of Education. On May 17, 1954, the high court unanimously overturned the District Court's decision, making segregation in U.S. public schools illegal. The school was closed in 1996 and abandoned, but was purchased by a Los Angeles-based minister in April 2009, with the intention of turning it into a community center and human rights memorial. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.

10. Nicholas Chiles Residence

This was the location of the home of Nicholas Chiles while he lived in Topeka. Chiles was an important figure in the early Civil Right's Movement as he worked to get the Catholic church involved in creating a better future for African Americans. As an influential voice on the place of black people in the Midwest at the turn of the 20th century, Chiles helped to found the Western Negro Publishers Association in 1896. Famously, he sent a letter to the Pope urging him to speak out on the treatment of African Americans in the US. He would live in the Topeka for much of his life after moving there in 1886.

11. Buchanan Elementary School

Built in 1885, Buchanan Elementary was a cornerstone of the Topeka's Black "Tennessee Town" Community. In 1893, Reverend Dr. Charles Sheldon opened Topeka's first free kindergarten in Tennessee Town, which moved to Buchanan Elementary School in 1910. By the time of the Brown v Board of Education lawsuit in the 1950s, Buchanan Elementary School operated as one of Topeka's four African American elementary schools. However, despite the abundance of positives emanating from segregation, the landmark court case and consequent desegregation did alter life within Black enclaves and affect their schools; Buchanan closed in 1959, and many Black teachers lost their jobs.

12. Topeka Council of Colored Women’s Clubs (1931)

Starting in 1931, the white frame house at 1149 SW Lincoln was the headquarters of the Topeka Association of Colored Women and Girls. Black women began organizing in the 1880s and 1890s, a time of escalating racial tension that saw the proliferation of both formal and informal racial segregation throughout America. The Kansas Association of Colored Women's Clubs was founded in 1896 and chartered in 1906. In addition to taking an interest in popular Victorian ideals of self-expression and morality, Black women who were members of clubs throughout Topeka and beyond fought for economic opportunities, political equality, and civil rights for their entire race. Black clubwomen worked to help other Black women who worked outside the home - the majority of whom were employed as domestics in this era. The women's clubs worked to establish childcare and kindergartens to help working women. In 1917, eight separate organizations were members of the Council of Colored Women’s Clubs. The African American women’s clubs were important institutions in the development of organization, unity, and leadership within the Black community. The building was later acquired by a local organization known as The Living the Dream Foundation. Among their goals is a historic landmark designation for the building and more education about the experiences of African American women during the late 19th and early 20th century.

13. Monroe Elementary, Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site

Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site commemorates the history of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal" and violated the equality of citizens under the 14th Amendment. Members of the local NAACP and thirteen parents representing twenty children filed the lawsuit against the Topeka Board of Education in 1951. Some of these children attended Monroe Elementary, one of the four Black schools at the time. Monroe Elementary is now the headquarters National Historic Site, established in 1992. As part of the National Park Service, the site offers programs and exhibits that explore the legal and social history of Brown v. Board.

14. Brown v. Board Mural

Across the street from the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site is a new mural to commemorate the landmark Supreme Court case which ruled racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. The mural, brilliant and colorful, depicts themes of diversity, equality, and justice through the eyes of a new generation.

This Tour is a Driving or Biking Tour.

Topeka's Black History Driving Tour

Created by Public and Digital History (University of Kansas) on April 25th 2023, 2:24:21 am.

Get a QR Code for this tour

Description

A tour of significant locations in telling the story of Black Topekans and Kansans, as well as important locations to black history and culture in the area. These locations work to tell critical stories in the state capital's history. It also seeks to provide some context for the historical and cultural changes in the city throughout the state's history. Each of these locations show that Topeka has a rich section of black history and culture as a part of its foundation.

Entries on This Tour

Topeka's Black History Driving Tour

Description

Share