Segregation in Wichita Kansas 1954 by Elaine Creed
From MemoryArchive
Who: Elaine Creed What: Reaction to Brown vs Board of Education When: 1954 Where: Wichita Kansas
The teacher handed each of us the daily newspaper and told us to read the headline and the story that acompanied it. The headline read "Supreme Court Bans School Segregation." Then as if an afterthought, she explained that our final assignment in her class would be to write an essay explaining our experiences with school segregation and how this new ruling would help eliminate negative feelings among the races. My first reaction was sheer panic. As far as I knew, I had never had eny experience with school segregation. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that the very fact that I had never had any experience with segregation was in fact an experience of that very type.
Segrgation was something I had never thought about. My grade school and jr. high had all white students. I had no contact with any black students and I'm sorry to say did not think about them at all. In fact, their existence did not enter my mind. I guess I was so programed to the white world that I did not even wonder where they were let alone wonder where they went to school. The first inkling I had of the black race came when my older brother came home from high school and told us about two new friends he had made who were black. Even after that, I didn't think about where the black students my age went to school. Again, out of sight, out of mind. Then when I finally got to high school I was introduced to black students for the first time. Not many I will have to say, but enough so that I realized there really was a black population in my city. However, I did not include any of these students in my group of friends so I remained fairly aloof from them. My feelings for these students was the same as for those who were casual acquaintances with whom I had nothing in common. I did not dislike them but rather had no feelings about them one way or the other. My first and only negative experience with black students was at a track meet. While my friends and I were sitting in the stands some black girls threw something at us. I'm not even sure what it was and it did not hurt anyone but I remember being confused about why they would do something like that. Later, I would come to realize that while I did not resent them they certainly resented us. However, at the time I put it on the back burner and it was forgotten. I definitely did not think of it as a problem of black versus white. In fact, I spent the rest of the time I was in high school in complete ignorance of a segregation problem until the segregation assignment was given. I wish I could say that the assignment changed my way of thinking and that from that moment on I became a strong supporter of improved race relations. That was not the case. Although I sympathized with the black students. I did nothing to try to change things.
I realize now that this "silent" segregation is possibly the worst kind. It leaves people ignorant of a problem and thus compounds it. Without discussion to bring the issue to peoples attention problems fester and grow. This is what happened in parts of my Kansas community for a long time until the passage of Brown vs The Board of Education. Now that I am older and definitely wiser, I'm proud of the fact that Kansas was instrumental in bringing segregation to the forefront of our consciousness. You see, the "Brown" in the suit was a young Topeka Kansas girl who just wanted to go to school close to home. I am not so proud of my own participation. About the only good thing that happened as a result of my "awakening" of a segregation problem was that at least I did think about it long enough to put it into my memory so that I could write this piece. As for the assignment that the teacher gave us - I got a fairly good grade which means that I was thinking and went on to graduate that same year. The year, by the way, was 1954.
