(music) - [Male narrataor] Funding for I Just Want to Testify was provided by The Federal Home Loan Bank of Topeka, The Topeka Shawnee County Public Library, The Brown versus Board National Historic Site, The Topeka Community Foundation, Humanities Kansas, and the Topeka Public Schools Foundation.

- [Announcer] Due to mature subject content, viewer discretion is advised.

(upbeat music) - The year is 1954.

It was a different time in our American history.

Dwight D. Eisenhower was in his second year of his first term as President.

The average cost of a new house was just over $10,000.

The cost of a gallon of gas was a mere 22 cents.

The first all electronic color television set went on sell for $1,000.

A movie ticket was 70 cents.

A brand new car cost about $1,700.

The first issue of Sports Illustrated was published.

The Boeing 707 flew its maiden flight.

Marilyn Monroe married Joe DiMaggio.

And Shake, Rattle, and Roll by Joe Turner was number nine on the music charts, being played by blacks in juke joints all over the country.

♪ I said shake, rattle, and roll ♪ ♪ Shake, rattle, and roll ♪ ♪ Shake, rattle, and roll ♪ ♪ Shake, rattle, and roll ♪ ♪ You won't due right to save your doggone soul ♪ But 1954 was more than a narrative of newspaper headlines.

It was a pivotal point in American history, changing the course of the disenfranchised and creating angst and anxiety among the privileged.

Hi, I'm Eugene Williams your host.

Welcome to I Just Want to Testify.

(gospel music) For years the Supreme Court decision of Plessy versus Ferguson supported the ideology that separate but equal met the tenants of the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection.

It was this decision that unjustly segregated public facilities and perpetuated a system of racism and classism in America.

If you live in Topeka, Kansas, I'm sure that you have heard some of the more familiar names and seen some of the more familiar faces associated with this historic paradigm shift in American culture, names such as Oliver Brown, Mrs. Richard Lawton, Mrs. Sadie Emmanuel, Mrs. Lucinda Todd, Mrs. Iona Richardson, Mrs. Lena Carper, Mrs. Shirley Hodison, Mrs. Alma Lewis, Mrs. Darlene Brown, Mrs. Shirley Flemming, Mrs. Andrew Henderson, Mrs. Vivian Scales, Mrs. Marguerite Emmerson, Mckinley Burnett, Daniel Sawyer, Robert Carter, Jack Greenburg, Charles Bledsoe, Charles Scott, John Scott, Chief Justice Earl Warren, and of course Thurgood Marshall.

Each day the students, teachers, administrators, and family members who fought segregation get older and pass on.

In this show, we hear from just a few of those students, teachers, administrators, and family members that lived the fight of segregation and dealt with the early turmoil of integration here in Topeka, Kansas.

Known for many things, in 1954 Topeka gained its greatest notoriety in the landmark US Supreme Court case Brown v Board of Education, the case that reversed the ideology and rule of separate but equal in segregated schools.

With me are just a few of the former students, teachers, and administrators that lived in Topeka during this time.

The name of this program is Let's Testify, and so that's what we wanna do right now.

We wanna start with talking about growing up in a black community in Topeka.

Before we even got started, you had some great things that you wanted to say.

Tell me about growing up in a black community in Topeka.

- I think the black community was a place where people really enjoyed where they lived and were proud of where they lived.

And, even though we were segregated in the schools and everything, the teachers were definitely a part of the community.

They went to the same churches we went to.

They were a part of, visited our families.

They came to our homes to eat and were really good friends.

So, it was kinda like you were integrated with the teachers and the community which was beautiful.

And, you just loved it.

- Let's talk about black family life growing up in Topeka.

Who wants to tell me about that?

Okay, what were some of your experiences in your own homes?

Now don't all speak at once.

(audience laughs) - Gladly, I mean, I'm kinda in the integrated phase of going up, but in those days, when I grew up, we had three generations, grandma, mom, dad and the kids.

And so, extended family was a big thing.

So it was a wonderful kind of period.

I grew up in North Topeka over in Sand Town, went to Second Baptist Church.

And it was one of those, the church was full.

I mean, we had, it was a small church, meaning by these megachurch standards now.

But everybody knew everybody.

I mean, I know the Hicks' when I got in trouble, my teachers and they were Hicks was a big family over there, but they kinda, they had a bunch of sisters.

And, I mean, every one of them was a parent.

And when you did anything and got out of line, first all, you're going to get in trouble there.

And then you better hurry home because if your dad found out about it, you're gonna get in trouble again.

So it was a, it was a wonderful, extended period, where everybody kinda raised, the truly, the whole concept of a village was there.

And everybody raised everybody else's kids.

And there was no issue.

You never embarrassed your parents out in public.

- Yeah, yeah, let's talk about that, because that's the real important thing in the black community, okay.

And I know that that's a tough one when you start moving into integration and stuff.

How important is the black family in the black community?

How important is that?

- It's everything.

- That's the backbone.

- [Woman In Audience] Yeah.

- So talk to me about that Sonny.

Tell me about that you guys.

- Well, you came up with respect.

Yes sir, no sir, yes ma'am.

Everybody in the neighborhood was your mamma and dad.

- Yep.

- And we had all professional people in our neighborhood, doctors, teachers, lawyers, bootleggers.

(everyone laughs) - We sure had them.

- We had everything.

We had a few other things too, but.

- [Woman In Audience] Yep.

- What was a typical day like for you, say a weekend?

This is a Saturday that we're taping this.

So what was a Saturday like for all of you growing up?

- Well, you mean when we was kids or when after we got grown?

- [Eugene] No, no, no.

A kid.

- He said growing up.

- I don't need to know too much.

- [Man In Audience] This is wash day.

- Go head, yeah.

- [Eugene] Why wash day.

- Some of us are old enough that we did wash in the backyard.

And, the old wringer washer and you had the two tubs.

- [Man In Audience] And a scrub board.

- Yes.

That's where the day started.

- Really.

And, that went on for quite a while.

I don't know where dad was at that time, probably off to work, but mom was supervising this operation.

Hang the clothes on the fence, on the clothesline.

Alright, that was the first order of business.

Then, of course, you got a little play time in between.

And now it's time to take down or you're shooting marbles.

You're throwing cans.

You're talkin' to the chickens, trying to control the pigeons.

The neighborhood was really alive, 'cause everybody was doing the same thing.

And then of course as you get in my neighborhood in East Topeka, at that time was Mudtown.

(everyone laughs) At that time was Mudtown.

We all ended up in Chandler Field.

- Now tell me about Chand, what was Chandler Field?

- And Chandler Field was just like a melting pot, because you had a little of everything down there.

It was just a big old field.

It's there right now.

It's there right now between Indiana, Chandler, 10th, and 17th, just a big open field in this black neighborhood where white schools all come to practice their football and all that.

Incidentally, one last thing is that at the head of that part of 10th street, that's where one of the former white schools was, right here sitting in the middle of this black neighborhood.

We'll get to that later on.

But, yeah, the day started off getting that wash done.

And then of course, the last thing for that day was put your butt in the tub so you could get ready to go to Sunday school.

- Don't leave out the ironing, 'cause when them clothes got dry, you had to sit there and sprinkle your clothes and starcj and then iron.

And, then you got to go and play.

But, we had work to do before all that happened.

- That was for Saturday.

- That was Saturday.

- From a girl's perspective, I went to Washington Street, Washington Elementary too and leaved down the street from Jack.

And we played jacks, not kick the can.

We roller skated up and down the high, the sidewalks.

We rode bicycles freely throughout the neighborhood.

Nobody worried about where you were.

And that was the best part, because that's when you got your freedom.

And so you could go around.

And when you talk about family, I had my grandmother that lived on the corner and my grandmother and grandfather were divorced, but he lived on another corner.

I had an aunt that lived on the other corner and two uncles that lived behind me.

So there was extended family all around.

I actually had family that lived around me, but I would tell you that the neighbors were harder on me than the family members, because if I went to the store.

And I didn't look right, Ms. Molly would call my mother, and say, Leslie why didn't you comb that girl's hair.

So you had to look right when you went out of the house.

While you had freedom and fun, there was some expectations that you weren't gonna embarrass the family.

You were gonna look right and behave right.

So, it was a, and to have Jack up the street.

- That must've been hard.

(everyone laughs) - I wanna say something though.

What Lonnie said about a village.

Now, everybody wanna give Hilary kudos for saying it takes a village.

Let me tell you something.

That's who we are.

That's our culture.

In my neighborhood, my whole family lived in my neighborhood.

My, I only had one uncle that live over on the east side.

But everybody else, my aunts, my uncles, we all lived in the same neighborhood.

And the neighbors were like family.

So yeah, if you're out there doing something, and the neighbors saw you, you was gonna get it from the neighbor, and then they was gonna let your parents know.

And they knew before you got home, and you were gonna get it again.

So yeah, it takes a village, but we were a village.

- The Topeka chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People played a major role in desegregating the Topeka schools.

Let's watch this short clip.

- [Male Narrator] The NAACP or National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded in 1909.

Arguably, it is America's oldest civil rights organization.

Formed in New York by both white and black civil rights activists.

Some of the most notable African-American founding members were WEB Dubois and Ida B.

Wells.

In Topeka, the NAACP played a major role in the fight against segregation, notably McKinley Burnett, Lucinda Todd, Charles Scott, John Scott, and Charles Bledsoe would formulate a basic strategy that would lead to victory in Kansas and other NAACP cases in Delaware, South Carolina, Virginia, and Washington DC.

(gospel music) - Community is much more than a physical, geographical location.

It's a feeling, a place in the mind and heart of an individual.

Let's talk about family, friends, and neighbors and the bonds held within the black community.

So who would like to go first?

- I'll go.

- Here we go, here we go.

Go head.

- Yeah, like I said earlier, the community was everybody around you, your family.

You had your church.

When I was a little girl, I thought the whole world was in North Topeka, see.

I had all my family.

We grew up with our cousins.

We were close, our first cousins.

At each other's house all the time.

And church was where we got all our news and everything.

You know what I mean?

And, they had different auxiliaries and clubs there that your parents went to.

And they would have teas and all that kind of socials, and all that kind of stuff.

So, the community was just, it was just your whole world.

I mean, I didn't even know there were white people in Topeka.

Okay.

And didn't care, you know what I mean.

I was, I wasn't missing anything.

You know what I mean I was just there.

- You were just being you.

- Yeah, well I mean, I was just there.

That was my whole world.

If we never went across the river, big deal.

We had everything we needed in North Topeka.

We had a downtown area, down on North Kansas Avenue.

It's NOTO now.

I'm glad to see that.

But, we had department stores, bakeries, banks.

Everything was over here.

So, yeah, there, this was my community, North Topeka.

- That's cool.

You were gonna say something.

- Well in Tennessee Town we had a lot of fun.

We come from a fairly large family, had eight kids in our family, four boys, four girls.

My dad built our house on Lincoln Street from scratch.

And he had to go and gather lumber from different places, where they's tearing down houses.

So when we started out, we had two bedrooms.

My mom and dad had a bedroom and then the boys had a bedroom.

The girls had to sleep in the dining room after we ate dinner and clean up the table and stuff.

And they put their bed up.

And, but we never did get crowded out or nothing.

And then my dad added another bedroom and a TV room.

But, we had one bathroom.

But, I never can recall somebody had to wait on the bathroom or nothing.

I mean, we all, somehow worked it out all together.

And we had a lot of fun, and it seemed like it was cramped up.

And I went by that house just before we had it tore down.

And I said, man, how did all of us fit.

(everyone laughs) Live in that hou.

Yeah, how we lived in.

And, I mean, we wasn't fighting or...

I mean, we got along.

I mean, the boys go back in their room and play.

And the girls had their little room.

And then we had the rest of the neighborhood come over there and visit.

I mean, and my mom was a great cook.

She always cooked and always had something good to eat and sweets and stuff.

And, we just, I mean the neighborhood, we just got along.

Everybody was family.

Everybody was family.

- Who were some of the friends that came over and hung out at your house?

- [Woman In Audience] My goodness.

- The Bradleys lived what?

- They lived two houses down.

- Two houses down.

The girls had more kids come over than us boys did, 'cause we was always going some place.

- The Lewis family they'd come over.

- [Darlene] I think there's 12 of them.

- Yeah, 12 of them.

And let's see the Bryants, Arnie, Clinton, and Vegee.

They would come over.

Our family, we had a tetherball in our backyard.

But we also had a swimming pool that was what maybe two feet deep, but it was a big square swimming pool.

So in the summertime, everybody would come over there to go swimming.

(everyone laughs) And they played tetherball.

We had a tree house.

And we also had a pear tree.

Our next door neighbor, Miss Dolly we called her.

She had a pear tree.

And so, if you wanted a snack, you would just climb up the pear tree and get a pear.

And you'd eat it.

Across the alley, there was a cherry tree, and on down the alley there was a apple tree.

So we had, back then, the neighborhoods had fruit trees.

And so the kids would eat fruit all day.

You didn't have to worry about a snack.

And so, everybody came over to our house, and we played.

Mom would feed 'em.

And we just had Scott that was on Brown versus Board, his son Charles he would come over.

We, back then we called him Dude, and that was his nickname.

And, our house was like the neighborhood house.

And I talked to someone recently who knew we had had the house torn down.

And that's what he was saying.

He said, he hated to see it go.

He said, because that was the neighborhood house.

- [Eugene] Yeah, yeah.

- Well down further in Lincoln Street, our house was a neighborhood house.

And we never had grass in the front yard, because everybody played in our front yard.

And we never had grass.

Everybody else around us had grass.

Everybody came to the Wilson house and played marbles and jacks and ride their bicycles through our yard and the scooters and whatever.

We just never had grass.

And so, we just never worried about it.

- Well let me give some of these others a chance to kinda jump in here.

Let's talk some more about friends and some of that backyard stuff, play, and all those different types of things.

Who were some of your friends and buddies that you hung out with?

Yeah, go head.

- Well, I lived on Locust Street.

And I had white friends, Mexican friends.

I had all kind of friends.

And they were very good friends too.

In fact, I just had my 50th anniversary and I had a Mexican friend there that I met in 1944.

He came up from.

So, when I grew up, I had all colors in my neighborhood and in my house too.

My father was pretty prejudiced.

He didn't like it, but he tolerated it.

And, but I got the feeling that it was okay.

But I'll tell 'ya, it was okay growing up with them.

But once you got to be an adult things changed.

- Some of the people that I remember in our neighborhood was, I won't, some of you may have known the Pryors.

The Pryors were there.

They were...

I almost become a member of Calvary Church, 'cause every time they'd go to church, they'd come grab the little bad boys off the corner and take us to church.

(everyone laughs) And the Rameys, the Shaws.

It, but again, it was a neighborhood that was tight.

And then if you went closer to Washington School, you got into Joandy, which was the barbecue place.

There was another, Nick Wright's dad had a grocery store there.

So there was some... - [Woman In Audience] Lived directly across from the school.

- Yeah, it was.

And then the biggest place in the whole area was right there by Eveline's.

Any of you know anything about Eveline's?

No.

You too young.

But anyway, the Rock House was right across, this was over on, I'm on.

- Rock House.

- Yeah.

- Are you making this up?

- No, no, no.

This was a gambling, biggest gambling shack in town.

- You mean down on Washington.

- No, no dear, on 11th Street.

- [Woman In Audience] But 11th and Washington.

- Come to my corner and then head south.

Remember Eveline was right there behind Mrs. Water's house.

- Okay, so that's the reason my parents never wanted me to go to Washington School by going through Wood Street.

She would, they always forced me to go long distance, all the way down 10th Street, then turn to Washington.

- The next time you go through there, there's a gap between Antioch Church and that street.

And that's where the Rock House was.

- That explains it.

- [Eugene] Now you're learning something about... See you didn't know.

- Well, that's what they used to tell me.

Now, I didn't, I wasn't old enough to go.

(everyone laughs) - [Man In Audience] That's your story Jack.

- You wanted to say something.

- Well I was just gonna say, and all of us have our neighborhoods.

And those were all important to us.

But another big part of our neighbor, our community was Fourth Street.

Fourth Street was a big part of all of our communities.

And to me that was a black enterprise zone.

We had all kind of businesses on Fourth Street, I mean, drug stores, doctors, restaurants.

There was even a hotel.

And you went to the Green Book.

The Dunbar Hotel is in the Green Book.

We had service stations.

We had taxi companies.

All those things were a part of all of our community on Fourth Street which was a great, I mean, a thriving black enterprise zone for us.

- Separate but equal wasn't a concept the young children understood, but their parents knew that segregated schools violated the 14th Amendment and harmed black students.

With only four elementary schools for blacks in Topeka, the idea of attending a neighborhood school was virtually impossible.

Parents became creative and strategic.

- [Female Narrator] A simple story of parental involvement in Brown v Board goes like this.

A father was upset that his third grade daughter had to walk all the walk all the way across town to attend an all black school while the white school was only a couple a blocks away.

The parents tried to enroll the student in a white school but were denied.

In Topeka, a group of 13 parents representing approximately 20 students, participated in this activity as a way to document the injustice of segregation and filed a lawsuit against the Topeka School Board.

(gospel music) - In Topeka, from the early 1900s until integration, there were four segregated schools that served black students, Buchanan, McKinley, Monroe, and Washington schools.

So let's talk about attending these segregated schools here in Topeka.

Who'd like to start with, well Jack you've already kinda started.

- Okay, yeah, in my mind, that was the only thing that I knew.

I lived a half a block from a school, a white school, played behind it all summer long.

But come time to go to school, I did what everybody else in my neighborhood did.

I went to Washington and had no reservations about going to Washington or wanting to go to this other school.

And, primarily, I think that Washington at that time was just an extension of my family.

People in the neighborhood, all of us played together.

We went to school together.

We got beat up by their mamas and daddies together.

And so, I didn't, I really didn't feel segregation, even though I was in that setting.

- Yeah, others who.

- And my feeling, and I have to follow, 'cause I went, ought, went to Washington School later.

But I think none of the, my experience from Washington School was that it did not convey to me my inferiority.

Instead, what it conveyed to me was my inner strength.

And sort of ways in which calling on the church, we were the good ones.

And we had to defeat those who weren't.

And we had to prove that.

So when I was coming up, it was in, starting at '51 and at that time the move obviously was for integration.

So by '55 all the schools were open.

And the intention of both my parent, of my parents, and my church and everything else and the teachers was to push us and to ensure that we were going to succeed.

So the tension was great.

We had the science fairs.

And you had to really do well on that.

I remember Mr. Ross just going off.

And I've never saw him to do that.

And I did not realize at the time that he was a part of the Air Force, the Tuskegee Airmen.

Of course, his competitiveness was conveyed in his teaching.

And I think that all of those things were important.

And the teachers just knew that once we stepped out into the junior highs in particular that they would be judged by the way in which you did.

And but, we did know another thing that happened and now that I was thinking about it, by the fifth grade into the sixth grade, and this is my time period, they started doing these IQ test.

And once you graduated from sixth grade, from junior high through the rest of the public school system, you were in a tracking system.

And you were really often divorced from other people who attended the same school with you based on that.

And I think that is the way in which you began to feel it.

But you knew what you had to do.

And you had, you knew you had to prove yourself.

You engaged in that politics of respectability which I remember Mr. Rolston and the rest of us walking us to East Topeka and what he was affording.

Don't chew gum.

Don't talk loud.

Have certain way you wear your clothing.

So that politics of respectability we understood that, because we had to prove ourselves.

But it was our intellectual strength that brought us through and our self of sense of security.

The NAACP, our churches, they'd reinforce that.

And I didn't expect for them to like me when I walked to junior high East Topeka.

You walk past some of the homes around in that area were predominantly white.

And you know hell nigger, that kind of stuff.

But you kept going.

I didn't feel scared in that sense.

And I just kept going.

But there were no expectations.

Kids would write on my notebooks in, at East Topeka, the N word.

I shouldn't have used that.

Should I?

- Yeah you should.

- No that's fine.

- And you think well who in the heck did that.

And but you really didn't care.

And so, I think that that's why I think our, my experience was a very positive one.

And it enabled us to work in this integrated setting very well and to protect ourselves.

- Yeah, yeah.

Others.

- I would agree with that.

- I agree with that.

- I would like to share McKinley, coming up in North Topeka.

I was very thankful that, I don't like that statement that we were gonna be harmed or inferior to the white kids when we went to an integrated school, 'cause we were not.

We were valued everyday.

We were told that we could succeed in whatever.

So then when we went to Curtis Junior High, Mr. Charles Hadley was our principal.

And the teachers there, they knew that the kids that came from, excuse me, as a black student.

Our teachers said you don't say, we're not kids.

And every now and then I slip and say that we were children, 'cause kids are goats.

And there's just things like that that still stick with me from my elementary.

But they knew that the ki, the children that came from McKinley had their basics that we were ready, and we succeeded, so I would never felt any inferiority to the white kids at Curtis, 'cause I knew I was service superior to 'em in my founda, seriously.

And we, and you talk about carrying ourselves properly and all.

And, so this is my, I'm thankful that I'm a part of segregation.

A proud product is what I call myself.

And I felt sorry for my brother, 'cause I was able to go from kindergarten to the sixth grade at McKinley, all black teachers, all black students.

When I went to Curtis I knew that's the way it was gonna be.

It was okay.

I made some friends.

I had some that were very hateful to me, but hey I didn't care.

So I thank God that I'm a product of segregation and the fond memories and the families that we have.

We folks from North Topeka we are family still today.

- And the thing of it is, I had to fight all the time.

- [Man In Audience] Thank you.

- When you were in school to get to... - Yes, when I went from McKinley to I felt like you're not doing my any favors by having me go to a white school.

You're not doing me any favors.

Well, what Deborah said is true.

And what Carolyn said is true.

In our home, hey, I didn't know I was a little black nigger until I went to a white school.

I'm like what, so we, hey, this is what time it is.

You meet me after school over here.

And that's how we settled stuff.

But even the teachers, some of them.

Now listen North Topeka, okay, we used to be called the River Rats.

River Rat, but everybody in Topeka came to North Topeka, okay.

So anyway, there was a lot of poor, like the Grapes of Wrath type of white people.

That's the kind of people lived in North Topeka.

So they were dirt poor.

There were families over there, white families that had dirt floors.

They swept the dirt floor.

You hear me.

I had a classmate that lived behind us.

After the flood we moved up on Morris.

And she, they lived on Polk.

Sandra Holly, a little red head, freckle faced girl.

She had real thick pony tails.

She come to my house one day, and I was, we had chores.

And I was sweeping and she went over and raised up the rug.

I was what you looking for.

I'm looking for the dirt.

I said what dirt.

Well, don't black people sweep the dirt under the rug?

I made her leave.

But that's the kind of stuff we came up with.

The, oh my God, you little black nigger.

Oh but they, you big lips.

You got big feet.

You... That's what we had to deal with.

So we had to fight.

And the teachers they didn't know how to deal with us.

We were proud.

We were intelligent.

And I don't think they liked that.

And now, I'm the type of person, probably you can tell, that you're not just gonna tell me anything.

You know what I'm saying?

I mean, I respect you.

I want you to respect me, 'cause that's how I was taught in my home.

But they didn't respect us.

And I've had 'em grab me.

One teacher almost pulled my arm out of the socket.

So my mom had to go over there and tighten her up.

You know what I'm saying?

Now, and that, that's because they're...

I've never had that problem at McKinley.

- Now you might need to explain that term tighten her up.

- She had to jerk the slack out of her (laughter drowns out Glenda).

- Yeah, I got you, I got you.

Enslavement was never legally established in Kansas.

The racial separation was a fact of everyday life.

What was Topeka like in the '40s and '50s?

Just how separate was separate?

(gospel music) - [Tyson] The earliest settlers to Topeka arrived in the 1850s.

Cyrus K. Holiday was one of the original founders and the first mayor.

Contributing to the growth of Topeka were the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad, Forbes Air Force Base, and a large Goodyear tire and rubber plant.

A number of African-American families migrated to the area after the Civil War.

By the 1940s and '50s, the black population was a little less than 10%.

Public transportation was integrated, but hotels, restaurants, movie theaters, and other public places were segregated, not by law but by social practice.

(gospel music) - Ezekiel Ridley, a retired principal of Washington School said that at least 90% of the colored people in Topeka wanted their children to go to colored schools.

So let's talk about your experiences everybody once integration actually occurred.

And we'll start with you Sandra, alright.

What was it like once integration actually began?

- Integration for me was my sixth grade year.

And that was the first year of integrtion.

That was my first year at Quincy Elementary in North Topeka.

Right now where the old Kaw Valley Bank is.

I remember the principal was at the top of the stairs, and he was welcoming us all there.

But there really wasn't a lot of us from Jurden Town which is the east side of North Topeka where I was raised at.

There was myself, Eugene Sharp, Ornette Bryce, Marteta Ford, and Sharon Willingham.

So it wasn't bad for me, because I knew half of the kids in the classroom already, because they were, they grew up in my neighborhood.

So they were my neighbors already.

And we always, already was playing with one another over the years even though we didn't go to the same school.

I had a male teacher that year, Mr. Getz, Robert Getz.

And... - You remember everything.

Don't you?

- Yeah, but that was a good year for me, because besides teaching in the class and how welcome he made us feel, one thing that I do remember that Mr. Getz had a farm out on the outskirts of town.

And twice during the year, on a Saturday, we, he took the whole class to his farm.

So, we did many roasts, hay rack ride.

And we got to have, it's a lot of fun.

So it was rememorable year for me and one that I've never forgotten.

- Who else has a good story about their either first day, first month, first year of entering into an integrated school?

Who wants to tell?

- [Woman In Audience] Mine wasn't good the first year.

- Alright, Miss Avery gonna tell me something different.

- Yeah, I went to Washington.

I lived on the east side and I used to walk past Parkdale every year.

It was a block from my house.

And so I had to walk six blocks to get to Washington.

So went they got integrated our first year I should've been in the second grade.

So they tested the kids that came over to Parkdale.

And...

I'm left-handed.

Well, I'm going through the class.

The teacher was gonna try and make me to be right-handed.

(everyone laughs) And, she did everything she could, but, my hand back here.

Hollering at me and all that and trying to just make me right-handed.

And I couldn't write with my right hand.

So I ended up being put back into the first grade because of that.

Yeah, my mom raised...

But during that time it didn't do any good, but that was, it was a lot of moments when I didn't wanna go back to school, because it was just, I was scared of the teacher.

And she was pretty awful.

But she was determined.

And finally some of the head people had to come in to make the school understand she is left-handed.

You can't change that.

It doesn't work.

- Yeah, other stories, anybody?

Come on, I know there some good ones out here, some that you may not necessarily wanna tell.

- I just remember when my mom, they told us that we were gonna be going to Lowman Hill as opposed to Buchanan, well me and my friends we were upset.

We couldn't figure out why do we have to go to Lowman Hill.

And so she said well you're gonna be going to school with the white kids.

And so, our thing was well why can't the white kids come to Buchanan.

I mean, that was our reason, but we went to Lowman Hill.

And I didn't have any problem that I remember.

Making the adjustment but still we, our feelings was that the white kids should come to Buchanan instead of us at Buchanan going to Lowman Hill.

- And the black teachers were out of jobs, a lot of them.

- Yeah, so tell me about that with the teachers and stuff.

I've heard a lot about that.

- We had a, at Buchanan my last year, we had a white teacher half a day, Miss Coates.

And she used to drive a Volkswagen.

And I think it was a we had Miss Barbara in the morning.

And she'd go to I don't know what other school she'd go to.

And then Miss Coates would come in the afternoon.

- And the physical education guy, Mr. Didemore.

And all of those supervisors were white in all black schools.

And they came to the black schools periodically.

They wasn't there everyday.

And they were all white.

- What happened to the black teachers?

What happened to the black administrators?

- Some of 'em they took to some of those schools, but some of them didn't have old job.

- Well then, it could've been an age factor in there, retirements.

- Tenure.

They did not, that did not impact tenured faculty and faculty principals included.

So they kept those.

And the other thing is this was the baby boomer time.

So these schools, black and white, were crowded.

So they needed the teachers even although that threat came to Ms. Buchanan.

You know that famous letter.

I mean the schools were crowded.

I mean, they couldn't have that kind of choice.

My, I didn't, my parents made the choice to stay at Washington School.

Although it was only three housing down from Parkdale.

But, I remember having the third and fourth grade, we having two classes, because it we were so overcrowded.

So you really couldn't afford.

And most of the people, I think most of the parents in African-American parents in Topeka decided to keep their children where they were, 'cause, I mean, the majority of Washington did not go to Parkdale.

- We didn't have no choice.

You didn't have no choice.

You couldn't stay in Buchanan, 'cause they closed it.

- Buchanan was exceptional.

It's a smaller, it was a smaller school.

It wasn't big, like Washington was the largest.

And so, we didn't affect it.

I think Monroe was another one that was kind of, didn't have the full impact.

- [Sonny] 'Cause we had a full house of teachers when I went.

- What school was this Sonny?

- [Sonny] Monroe.

- [Eugene] Yeah.

- Yeah, they.

Do you remember them leaving?

- No, all of them stayed there.

- Stayed there and including the principals.

So, the threat was there.

And that's what they had hoped.

That's what the superintendent of schools had hoped, but it didn't happen.

- You know one of the other little pieces there.

Our teachers in those four schools in my opinion were a hell of a lot better educated teaching-wise than most all of the other schools.

So I think those that wanted to leave town or go someplace else they had the skills to do it.

It's one thing I used to tell all of my good, white friends.

I gotta better grade school education than you did, because the persons that taught me couldn't do anything but teach.

They couldn't hope to be anything else, nothing else but a teacher.

And schools out, they off getting some additional skills.

So, those teachers were well-prepared.

I can't say that they, where they went or why they went.

But they were well-prepared with the background that they had established for themselves in education.

- When researching the history of segregation in Topeka through the 1940s, letters written provide two names as possible barriers to equality in education in Topeka, one white name and one black name.

- [Female Narrator] In 1948, in a letter written by Mr. Daniel Sawyer of the Topeka Citizens Committee, he alleges that Dr. Kenneth McFarland, white superintendent of schools and Mr. Harrison Caldwell, top principal and coordinator of Negro education were stumbling blocks to early integration efforts.

In a previous case in 1941, Graham versus Topeka, the Kansas Supreme Court found the refusal to admit 12 year old Ulysses Graham to enroll in junior high school was discriminatory.

Soon after their defeat, eight colored teachers were discharged or retired affecting morale and bitterness within the community.

- As the years go by and we get further and further away from the original time period that this occurred, it becomes more and more important that we remind new generations of the freedoms they enjoy and how they came to be.

So this segment here we want to talk about the societal impact of Brown v Board.

And, during that break, we talked about a lot of stuff, okay.

Let's talk about societal impact.

Where are we today?

Is it better, worse, the same, anybody?

- [Sonny] It's hidden - It's hidden, okay, alright.

Explain what you mean by hidden Sonny.

- They haven't change.

It's full of three, six, nine.

It's hidden, covered up.

- It's better.

I'm not saying it's the ideal.

But it's better because without that change in law we would not be here now.

And I think the process is slow, changing society.

No one's gonna give up power willingly.

And I think the one thing that we've kept, we've got to keep pressing on it, as we say, as a group collectively, making that effort.

And it's not going to be easy.

But once that law was down, then other doors opened.

And they, while we've had to really fight hard to keep that door open, at least ajar.

At least we, that has been completed.

And just hopefully this current Supreme Court won't overturn Brown v Board or Emancipation Proclamation or anything else.

But I think it's very pos, I think it's a step forward, a slow step, but a step forward.

- I agree with Deborah, because when we talk about Brown v Board, everybody thinks it only impacted education.

It changed public institutions.

So now we had libraries and restaurants and a lot of different facilities where that have then been subjected to you've gotta have equal access.

That wouldn't have happened if but not for this case.

And one of the things that I like about is when you talk about Brown v Board, it came from Topeka, Kansas, our hometown with people that we know, respect, and admired.

And so, if they hadn't stepped up and had the courage of their convictions to persevere, then our nation morally and legally would still be in that place that it was before.

Have we met the entire spirit of Brown v Board?

Heck no.

We have a long way to go.

But it is still improved.

We can't sit here and say that it hasn't, because some of us wouldn't have had the jobs we've held.

Some of us wouldn't have the positions that we've held.

So the door of opportunity was opened up, not enough.

There's still a lot to be done for all people of color.

I'm only really at this juncture concerned about what happens to children of color that might be African-American quite honestly, because they're still the ones that are lagging further behind.

When we look at public education though, while it's improved, some things are still the same quite honestly.

We still have kind of a tracking system.

We still have children, mainly young men of color, black men that are expelled more often, that have less opportunity, because there seems to be some kind of fear that if you're tall and your heavy and you're black, then it's scary for some of our teachers and educators that are in place today.

So we need a lot of extra assist, if you will.

And I think it's gonna have to come from our community.

That we're gonna have to continue to stand up and say help.

We're demanding something different than we're seeing today.

- But along those same lines.

I'm gonna jump in a little bit, because both these brilliant individuals have packaged and un-packaged and opened exposed a great deal.

We had a thriving business district.

It's gone.

Arguably, the best business district in certainly the eastern portion of Kansas.

Anything that you can imagine you can have.

- Yeah.

- It's gone.

They build a through urban renewal, we came in and they wiped out a whole business district, put in a bridge now that has to be taken down, because it was designed poorly.

That bridge is such that it can't carry the traffic that goes over it.

But to, in order not to destroy the non-minority businesses, the buildings downtown, they weaved a bridge through there, but wiped out the whole black business district.

That's a major piece.

- [Sonny] well they've done that all over, urban renewal.

- But that's just urban renewal.

But I'm, let's talk about Topeka as it relates to here.

- They did the same thing with the North Topeka Bridge.

- And I wanna go head and address another piece of that when we talk about the educational processes.

We look at the, where they took away the scholarship programs for going to college.

But you, at the same time when you look at the increase in the prison population.

We have one of the small, one of the, for modernized societies in the world, we have the highest number of incarcerated people in the world, over a million.

But the majority of those people are people of color.

There's something inherently wrong with that.

So as we, are we, as we are more enlightened, as we're more, as we are more engaged, and I'm a product of that.

I've gotten the opportunity to go to the best schools in the country, Harvard, Dartmouth, Washburn Law School, KU, and Washburn itself.

Gone to all those schools.

I know I'm a benefactor.

I know who's shoulders I stand on.

I'm very clear about that.

But I also know that there a lot others who didn't get that chance.

I know, as Pam was talking about, if you're big and black and muscular, you're a threat.

There were so many people who were killed by police accidentally.

You're stopped while driving black.

There are so many things going on.

Brown has opened up a lot of doors of opportunity, enlightened a lot of folks, yes.

But, there are still some consequences that, of, that integration, so while it supplanted segregation, that segregated environment found those loving teachers, those loving councilors, those loving communities or you couldn't go anywhere else, so you had to be where you were.

I'm not saying that that was necessarily good, but I'm saying to you that at the same time there are good bit of stuff that came out of that that we may be the last generation to have benefited by that in a great number.

That next generation, that Gen X, that Gen Y or whatever they're suffering because of the fact that they've assimilated so much that they've lost a greater peace.

- [Woman In Audience] Look I've worked with young people for about 30 years.

- [Eugene] Thank you Dr. New.

- And okay, well and what is interesting is, I think generationally we have the set of things that were relevant to us.

And so, we can relate to those, and we assume that they oughta be able to relate to it too, 'cause it worked for us.

And I think even in Topeka, there's been a gap in the years when some of the family structure broke down.

We had people come in from the east who brought drugs and other things to our communities.

I'd never known the time until maybe about 15 years ago when I could look at a child and not know who their mother was and who their grandmother was.

And these are people that joined Topeka community.

And they don't understand the family network that's important.

And they don't have the the things that we felt were important to build a community.

And but now we're raising up a group who really wanna be a part of Topeka.

They really wanna do positive things.

You'll see 'em all the time.

I mean, they'll show up.

They were here for the Hermanitas Conference.

They'll go to something at the Ramada Inn just because they wanna be a part.

But what's lacking is allowing them to have a voice and asking them where would you like to be included or listening when they say this is what we wanna do and supporting them to do it.

And I heard you say we can't be their leaders.

- Yeah.

- We gotta empower them.

- But we have to empower them.

And if we do that, we'll have opportunity to bring our values to them, to help them become a part of the fabric of the Topeka family and really that's what'll keep some of these traditions alive.

But as long as we assume we know what's best for them and try to impose that on them, we're gonna run 'em a, run 'em off.

And we'll lose 'em.

- [Eugene] Alright, so let's wrap it up, alright.

If you could come up with one sentence that you would say to someone who is not from Topeka about the settling of the case Brown v Board of Education, about what it has meant for Topeka, okay, what would that one sentence be?

- [Darlene] Become involved.

- [Alonzo] Brown opened the doors of access, but it is a bit of a Pandora's box.

- Smoke and mirrors.

Smoke and mirrors.

- Topeka, no different than Mississippi.

We couldn't do no, only thing we could do, we didn't have to ride the back of the bus.

Other than that you couldn't sit at the restrooms.

They do anything to us.

- That's right.

We need to work together and to pull people up, because what happen, one or two of us might get to a certain status.

But we don't pull enough of the others up.

And we gotta keep pulling us up and empowering the young people really.

And let them know that they gotta work and pull each other up.

And no matter who you are, whether they're your relative or what, you see a young black person that's worthwhile or something, help him.

If it's money or whatever, help him.

That's what we need to do and quit thinking about I and think about we.

- Yeah, I think Brown v Board was a non-violent revolution that's going to require perhaps a different solution that is not violent, but one that involves a coalition of many interest and many people with the values of humanity and justice.

- A new generation of children, parents, teachers, and administrators walked through school doors each day unaware of the great significance of Brown v Board decision.

A comprehensive treatment of the impact of Brown is virtually impossible.

So the simple goal of this documentary project is to keep our society healthy by remembering the promise of Brown v Board of Education and to inspire a new generation to continue to preserve the basic tenets of human rights.

I'd like to thank our participants.

And I'd like to thank you for watching.

Thanks everybody.

(everyone applauds) ♪ I can't believe my eyes, all of this belongs to you ♪ ♪ I believe to my soul you're a devil in nylon hose ♪ ♪ I believe to my soul you're a devil in nylon hose ♪ ♪ Well the more I work the faster my money goes ♪ ♪ I said shake, rattle, and roll ♪ ♪ Shake, rattle, and roll ♪ ♪ Shake, rattle, and roll ♪ ♪ Shake, rattle, and roll ♪ ♪ Well you won't do right to save your doggone soul ♪ ♪ Yeah blow it Joe ♪ - [Male Narrator] Funding for I Just Want to Testify was provided by the Federal Home Loan Bank of Topeka, the Topeka, Shawnee County Public Library, The Brown versus Board National Historic Site, The Topeka Community Foundation, Humanities Kansas, and the Topeka Public Schools Foundation.

♪ Shake, rattle, and roll ♪