Topeka, 40 years later

Some things change some don’t. Topeka is one of those places that have not. Spent Friday tooling around town. Instead of a 1983 Cutlass Calais, two doors with tee tops, I am in a 2021 Sprinter PV. The handling is so much different.

I am camping at Lake Shawnee, just a couple of miles from the first and only home I ever owned, and the sunset last night after the storms was great.

Today was a day of education, time with some old and a visit to my old house.

First education, Brown v. Board of Education National Park. Amazing place with some real history and to be there on the 70th year anniversary of the court decision (which I did not know). Our guide was excellent in explaining the NAACP 4 cases before that failed and this one that exceeded.

So, Kansas, which was a free state, had only segregation in elementary schools in cities with populations of 15,000, which Topeka was one of. They centered the case around Monroe Elementary School, which had a PhD as the principal, the science teacher also had a PhD and most of the teachers had Master’s. The school out performed all of the other elementary schools (all white) and the facilities were better than most of the other elementary school (all white). So, one would think why did they pick this one.

Shout out to the park ranger, Lawson Nwakudo, who explained to us, that the NAACP wanted to focus on Topeka, was because there was that level of equality. If they could prove there’s something inherently wrong with a place like Kansas, that would mean that there’s something inherently wrong with everywhere else.

The case happened because the Board of Education refused to enroll local black resident Oliver Brown’s daughter at the school closest to their home, instead bussing her to a segregated black school farther away. The case went all the way to the supreme court. The ruling was 9-0 which led to Chief Justice Warren, stating, “We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place.”

Next stopped by the old house and was really disappointed in the way it looked, the tree I planted so long ago was down, the grass looked bad and the placed really need a paint job.

Finally dinner with some old friends that I have not seen in forty years and we chatted until just before dark.