Pressing west, I came close to the Harry S. Truman national historic site, but I'd been having such a nice time wandering Jefferson City that I was going to be too late there. Instead, I crossed into Kansas and got to the capital, Topeka, not long before dark.
The next morning I went downtown and had to fill my tires since it had gotten so cold that night. I drove to the Capitol, which was under construction. Topeka's 3x the size of Jefferson City, and it just seemed more run down and more industrial. After a walk around the under-construction Capitol, I made the short drive over to the Brown vs the Board of Education National Historic Site.
Ends up, it could've been my 2nd Supreme-Court-ruling NPS site in as many days, but I didn't go into the St Louis old courthouse where the Dred Scott case was argued. Even so, it was interesting being at a civil rights site so far from all the others I've been to from Alabama to Boston. But, it was here that the flagship of 5 de-segregation lawsuits was filed. Mr Brown was the one male litigant among 7 on the original Brown case, and his name was put on the overall case since it was from Kansas and not a southern state.
While many states mandated segregation, and many outlawed it, Kansas allowed school districts to decide. The plackards there told of the black children of Topeka being forced to walk to far away schools while white children were bused to closer ones. The NHS is at one of the original schools, and pictures inside show segregated classrooms, if not segregated schools. I guess integrated classes came later...
Visitor's Ratings (out of 5)Significance: 3 -- an actual school part of a landmark civil rights case.
Beauty: 1 -- school in a flat, treeless community
Fun: 1 -- not at all designed for that
Overall: 2 -- definitely worth a stop as you pass through Kansas.
Accessibility: Downtown Topeka, just a mile or two off of I-70
Logistics/signs: 4 -- very good, with especially helpful rangers, very good displays & movie.
Time required: an hour or so
Time to visit: anytime.
Kid friendliness: for mature kids it should be very sobering
0 comments:
Post a Comment