HUMANITIESKANSAS

Volume XLII • Issue No. 1Winter 2017

Wichita faces the same challenges of many of our nation’s urban centers, including changing cultural demographics and racial tensions. Following the

escalating violence between citizens and police officers this past summer in Dallas and other communities, organizers of a local Black Lives Matter protest worked with Wichita police chief Gordon Ramsay to organize a community cookout. Video of police officer Aaron Moses dancing the “Cha Cha Slide” with community residents went viral online, providing a moment of levity to the news cycle and a ray of hope for police-citizen relations.

It is within this spirit of collaboration that the Kansas Humanities Council is partnering with the Wichita Public Library to support a community-wide series of events that examines issues of race and policing in Wichita. Under the guidance of Julie Sherwood, WPL program and outreach manager, the library is collaborating with the Wichita Police Department, the Urban League of Kansas, and other community and university organizations to develop Candid Conversations, a series of 2017 programs.

“We are hoping this year-long project will be only the beginning of an ongoing partnership working toward community engagement on a topic that affects all Americans,” said Sherwood.

With financial support from a special initiative by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Candid Conversations will explore race, policing, and civil rights, with a special focus on the experiences of the people of Wichita.

SPEAKERSJeannine Bell, law professor at the Maurer School of Law at Indiana University Bloomington, delivered the keynote lecture,

“Mining the Trust Gap: Ferguson and Americans’ Changing View of Policing,” on February 16. Bell is a nationally known researcher who has written extensively about racial segregation in housing, hate crimes, and policing. Other Candid Conversations presentations will focus on Wichita and the 1960s Civil Rights movement, criminal justice in Wichita today, and voting laws and how changes to the voting system affect minority communities. Wichita State University professor Michael Birzer will give a lecture about community and police perceptions of racial profiling on March 24.

DISCUSSIONSFollowing a screening of the documentary “Cracking the Codes: The System of Racial Inequity” on April 22, audience members will participate in a workshop that features small table discussions. WPL has also planned a series of facilitated book discussions that explore important works about race and ethnicity today: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, and Citizen by Claudia Rankine.

EVERYDAY WICHITA ON FILMAs the finale in the fall, the library will screen a locally produced film made in Wichita. This Candid Conversations project will feature the real-life stories of everyday Wichitans and their experiences and actions that have contributed to civil rights and racial equity in their city.

Because of its collaborative, inclusive design, Candid Conversations will add new partners and events as the year progresses. Visit the KHC website, www.kansashumanities.org for events and updates.

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Candid Conversations: A Discussion of Race in Wichita

“First Steps” community cookout in Wichita. July 17, 2016.

2h u m a n i t i e s Kansas Humani t ies Counci l • www.kansashumani t ies .org • Winter 2017

Dear Friends of the Humanities,

Thank you for your generous contributions to our annual Fall Fundraising Campaign. Good things happen when we work together to keep hometown humanities in our communities.

2017 is an important year for the Kansas Humanities Council. We celebrate our 45th anniversary, kick off the Water/Ways initiative, and select a new Poet Laureate of Kansas. We’re so glad to have you by our side.

Thank you again,

Lisa Stubbs Julie L. MulvihillChair, KHC Board of Directors Executive Director

P.S. Financial contributions to the Kansas Humanities Council are always welcome, any time of year. Visit www.kansashumanities.org or use the enclosed giving envelope to donate to KHC in support of hometown humanities.

KHC MISSIONThe Kansas Humanities Council connects communities with history, traditions, and ideas to strengthen civic life.

BOARD OFDIRECTORS

Patricia E. Ackerman, AbileneTony Brown, Baldwin CityLeAnn D. Clark, HesstonCheryl Hofstetter Duffy, HaysLon Frahm, ColbyLori A. Goetsch, ManhattanNatalie G. Haag, TopekaBrandon Hines, BurlingtonJan Holwerda, Dodge City Clarence Lang, LawrenceJames D. Oliver, Overland Park Leonard Ortiz, LawrenceKim Perez, HaysWilliam Ramsey, LeawoodSam Sackett, WichitaLinda K. Smith, SalinaScott Smith, TopekaJan Stevens, Dodge CityLisa Stubbs, TopekaKip A. Wedel, North Newton Jason Wesco, Pittsburg

STAFF

Julie L. MulvihillExecutive Director

Virginia CraiOffice Manager

Ruth MadellBudget Director

Valerie MendozaGrants Officer

Tracy QuillinAssociate Director Leslie Von HoltenDirector of Programs

FOLLOW KHC

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STOR IES MOVE US MAKE USTHAT AND

As the United States prepares

to commemorate the centennial of our nation’s involvement in World War I, a new project is using technology to tell the story about how Lindsborg — a small town of recent immigrants in 1917 — was affected by the Great War. Lindsborg During World War I: Service, Sacrifice, and Dissent is a digital humanities website produced by Bethany College and the McPherson County Old Mill Museum with the support of a KHC Heritage grant.

200 men from Bethany College served in the war. Men and women in the community planted war gardens, participated in war drives, and served in the Kansas Home Guard. Other community members expressed opposition for the war. The website features digitized images, texts, and artifacts that document the people and events in Lindsborg during World War I and serves as a resource for historical researchers. Explore the collection at: https://www.kansasww1.org/special-projects/bethany-college-dh/

A Small Town & The Great War

WWI & Lindsborg: The Student Army Training Corps on the Library steps at Bethany College.

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h u m a n i t i e s Kansas Humani t ies Counci l • www.kansashumani t ies .org • Winter 2017 3 112 SW 6th Ave, Su i te 210 • Topeka KS 66603-3895 • (785) 357-0359 h u m a n i t i e s

A Tale of Two GrantsAll across the state, Kansas cultural organizations are preserving and sharing local stories with KHC grants. Here are two examples that demonstrate the community impact of Heritage and Humanities grant projects.

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Plains Talk

For 13 years, retired teacher Ron Barkley interviewed “the interesting people living on the High Plains” on his weekly radio program “Let’s Talk About the High Plains.”

Broadcast on KLOE in Goodland from 1996 to 2009, Barkley’s program showcased a wide range of Sherman County stories, from longtime residents who reminisced about traveling in a covered wagon to experts explaining the water system in northwest Kansas.

Episodes of “Let’s Talk About the High Plains” were recorded on cassette tape and by 2016 those tapes were deteriorating. Recognizing the value of the information and community memory stored on those tapes, the Goodland Public Library applied for and received a KHC Heritage grant to digitize the material and make it available on CD for library checkout.

“Without the KHC Heritage grant, this project would not have been possible,” said Laura McClung, reference librarian

at the Goodland Public Library. “The project inspired community members to contribute additional funds, allowing us to digitize 70 more interviews than originally planned. Goodland residents enjoy reliving the past and learning about the people, places, and events that shaped our community’s history. Many of the subjects have passed on and it’s a wonderful experience to hear their voices again.”

Learn more about the “Let’s Talk About the High Plains” project at www.goodlandlibrary.org.

History on the Move

Ron Barkley shares stories of the High Plains at a

December 2016 event.

The Johnson County Museum is on the move. This spring, the northeast Kansas museum, formerly located in Shawnee, will open at its new location at the Johnson County Arts & Heritage Center in Overland Park.

The new museum will house a 10,000 square foot exhibition that tells the story of the people, ideas, and events that shaped the state’s most populous county. A KHC Humanities grant supports a section of the exhibition about the Sunflower Army Ammunition plant near De Soto. “The acreage that once housed the plant is slated for re-development,” said Mindi Love, director of the Johnson County Museum. “Thanks to the support from the Kansas Humanities Council, visitors will gain a deep understanding of how the activities that took place on the land over the past 70 years will help shape that future growth.”

For more information about the Johnson County Arts & Heritage Center, visit www.jocogov.org.

The Sunflower Army Ammunition plant’s history will be on display at the new Johnson County Arts & Heritage Center.

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Humanities and Heritage grants are available for 2017. The deadline for Summer grants is May 25 and the deadline for Fall grants is September 21. Exciting updates are coming to the Humanities and Heritage grants. Visit www.kansashumanities.org and follow KHC on Facebook and Twitter for updates.

For more information, contact Valerie Mendoza, grants officer, at grants@kansashumanities.org.

4h u m a n i t i e s Kansas Humani t ies Counci l • www.kansashumani t ies .org • Winter 2017

Imagine being a young Black kid in Lawrence, Kansas, in 1914 or so. The social and political attitudes in Lawrence of that era mirrored those of the wider state. Racially, it

was a time of contradiction, confusion, and conflict. The infamous 1896 Supreme Court case Plessy vs. Ferguson was responsible for this social malaise when it gave legal sanction to “separate but equal.” Of course, few people practiced equality, only the separateness. The school system in Lawrence followed the mandate of many Class One cities: schools were racially segregated from kindergarten to the third grade. At that point, integration was permitted.

For Langston Hughes, a seventh grader entering the integrated Central Junior High School, the world probably made little sense. By 1914, he had traveled around the region widely enough to develop an appreciation for different kinds of people and even a love for them. (Many years later, he confessed that he learned never to hate people, even those who were “not knowledgeable” or who had “small minds or small spirits.”) In those early years, he also developed a strong sense of social justice. This feeling probably came from sitting on his grandmother’s knee and listening to her many stories of family heroism and achievement. A staunch opponent of slavery, she was the widow of two prominent abolitionists. Her brother-in-law had enjoyed a career as an attorney, law school dean, and Congressman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Heroism, insurgency, and a sense of what’s right were Langston’s inheritance, his birthright.

So, when Langston entered the seventh grade, he was greeted with a worldview and pedagogical practice that flew in the face of his family’s heritage. His teacher, a young woman named Ida Grace Lyons, had her students form a circle in the classroom. Then she seated them alphabetically—that is, all except the Black children. She placed them on the last row in the back of the class!! Incensed by this insulting and demeaning act of discrimination, he responded assertively, in an act of civil disobedience. He created little cards and placed them on the desks of his fellow Black students. The cards read: “Jim Crow Row”!! The extra ones he threw out of the window onto the playground. At recess, he led a protest, proclaiming: “Miss Lyons has a Jim Crow row!!!” For his violation of the social norm, Langston and a co-conspirator were expelled. Only a persuasive delegation of parents and a prominent doctor enabled them to be readmitted.

With funding from a KHC Humanities grant, the Dream Documentary Collective and the Watkins Museum of History retell Langston’s story in a short documentary film: Langston’s Lawrence. To recreate the story is to situate it in the context of Lawrence history in the second decade of the twentieth century. It means locating the significance of Langston’s rebellious act in the shaping influence of his family’s traditions. Further, it means demonstrating how Lawrence, over the years, rediscovered and embraced him as a favorite son. Most important, retelling Langston’s story becomes a way of reaching across time to connect communities with historical traditions to strengthen personal and civic life.

An Incident in the Life of Langston Hughes

Before he was a poet, novelist, social activist, and key figure of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes was a boy growing up in Lawrence. John Edgar Tidwell, a professor of English at the University of Kansas, writes that even at a young age, Hughes demonstrated a commitment to social justice that would later define his life and work.

Langston Hughes. Photo by Gordon Parks, 1943.

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Langston’s Lawrence premiered in Lawrence

early this year and additional screenings

take place in Parsons on April 24 and

Topeka on May 17. Visit KHC’s Calendar of Events

at www.kansashumanities.org for details.

5h u m a n i t i e s Kansas Humani t ies Counci l • www.kansashumani t ies .org • Winter 2017 112 SW 6th Ave, Su i te 210 • Topeka KS 66603-3895 • (785) 357-0359 h u m a n i t i e s

Jump into the Water Conversation

Ground water, surface water, too much water, too little water – water has always been a topic of

conversation in Kansas. The new Water/Ways catalog offers Kansas nonprofits the opportunity to convene meaningful, humanities-based discussions about water in their communities with Speakers Bureau presentations, TALK book discussion series, film discussions, and Shared Stories of the Kansas Land reader’s theater presentations.

The new catalog is part of Water/Ways, a statewide initiative that focuses on the numerous relationships between people and water – how it shapes our history and traditions and how it impacts our daily life. Speakers Bureau topics feature presentations and discussions about water, from irrigation to the past, present, and future of water in Kansas. Short film discussions offer insight into the state’s current water issues. Shared Stories of the Kansas Land reader’s theater events bring to life the voices of people who lived through the events that altered the land and the environment. The This Shared Earth TALK book discussion series explores our relationship with the natural world.

Rex Buchanan presents Water in Kansas: Past and Present.

Visit www.kansashumanities.org

to download the catalog.

For more information, contact

Leslie Von Holten, director of programs,

at leslie@kansashumanities.org.

Shared Stories of the Kansas Land reader’s theater event.

6h u m a n i t i e s Kansas Humani t ies Counci l • www.kansashumani t ies .org • Winter 2017

As part of the special initiative, The Pulitzer Project in Kansas: William Allen White and Freedom of Speech, Kansas nonprofits can invite trained instructors to

facilitate writing workshops in their communities. Just as William Allen White defended free speech “by voice, by posted card, by letter, or by press,” participants are welcome to express themselves through essays, poems, letters to the editor, memoirs, fiction—any way they so choose. Below is the experience of Anthony Funari, KHC writing instructor who teaches writing and literature at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park.

The daily experience of writing is changing, where our words can be distilled to 140 characters and instantly sent out to thousands. What is lost perhaps is the potential for writing to be about reflection and discovery. In “The Maker’s Eye,” Donald Murray characterizes writing as a process: “Most writers share the feeling that the first draft, and all of those which follow, are opportunities to discover what they have to say and how best they can say it.” Implicit in Murray’s claim is that writing requires courage; it is the willingness to be vulnerable, to lay open the holes, the gaps, the assumptions in our view of the world. The value of writing is the introspection that writing demands of us, which can topple our unacknowledged assumptions when they are brought to the light of critical scrutiny.

I am not a native of Kansas. I grew up in Pennsylvania, so when I was offered the chance to be part of a KHC writing workshop series, I felt this was an opportunity to meet people from beyond Kansas City in a state I now call home. On January 7, I journeyed to the Effingham Public Library, further north in Kansas than I had ever been. Chris Taylor, the executive director of the Atchison County Historical Society, greeted me with coffee on that cold Saturday morning. As writing workshop participants trickled in, I figured out the last-minute technical issues and was ready to get started.

We opened the session by discussing the role argumentation has for us today. Do we use arguments to just advance our views? Can arguments allow for dialogue and growth? We examined how a thesis links a piece of reality to our interpretation of that reality. However, our examination of argumentation did not stop with attaching a claim to evidence. Instead, we understood that the link between a fact and a claim is made of assumptions, implicit and unstated beliefs on how we see the world logically working. These unstated beliefs are the underpinning to writing an argument.

On that cold Saturday, the writers in Effingham dug deep into their process. By using courage and interpretation to express themselves in thoughtful argument, we had ongoing feedback, working and reworking our writing and strengthening the messages we wanted to convey.

Community writing workshops are

available for Kansas nonprofits. Visit

www.kansashumanities.org or contact

Leslie Von Holten, director of programs, at

leslie@kansashumanities.org for more

information.

The Pulitzer Project in Kansas: Community Writing Workshops

Anthony Funari

7 112 SW 6th Ave, Su i te 210 • Topeka KS 66603-3895 • (785) 357-0359 h u m a n i t i e sh u m a n i t i e s Kansas Humani t ies Counci l • www.kansashumani t ies .org • Winter 2017

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Getting to Know You

In this issue of Humanities, we get to know Aaron Otto of Roeland Park, a Friend of the Humanities since 2009 and KHC Board Member from 2009 to 2016. Aaron is executive

director of the Johnson County Airport Commission. He is a native of Manhattan who has lived in Roeland Park since 2006.

One of my most memorable experiences with the Kansas Humanities Council happened in Topeka at a screening of Porubsky’s Transcendent Deli in March 2010, a film supported by a KHC Humanities grant. We watched the documentary film about C.W. Porubsky Grocery and Meats in Topeka’s Little Russia neighborhood while we sampled the deli’s legendary chili and pickles.

The screening was followed by a discussion about Porubsky’s importance to community, past and present. The event demonstrated what I believe the Kansas Humanities Council does best: to help us know where we have come from so that we can understand where we are going.

Another experience that comes to mind is the night the Corinth Library in Prairie Village hosted “Kansas Brewers and Breweries,” a Speakers Bureau presentation by Cindy Higgins. It was a weeknight event and I was amazed by the number of people who came to learn about and discuss Kansas’ brewing history. Even more amazing was the fact that most of the

audience was made up of new patrons to the library. The KHC program served as a gateway for them to know about the resources of their local library. That’s when it struck me that KHC programs provide tremendous bang for their buck. By investing time and planning, the libraries, museums, and other community organizations that use KHC programs receive new audiences and community engagement in return. It’s a win-win.

Time is the one non-renewable resource we have in life. We can’t go back in time and recreate glass plate photographs from 1912 or talk about what it’s like to be a 3rd generation Boeing employee fifty years from now or even go back to the Porubsky’s screening or the evening at the Corinth Library. The window to preserve these community heritage resources will close and when it does, the stories will be gone forever. That’s what makes the Kansas Humanities Council’s work so important. KHC provides the resources for Kansans to preserve their stories before it is too late so that residents can better understand where they have been and where they are headed.

There is a three-legged stool for humanities support: federal, state, and individual. Not all are balanced, but all are vital. Without funding for KHC to carry out its mission, the stories, histories, and perspectives will all be lost to time. I hope you will join me as a Friend of the Humanities to build a strong foundation for the humanities in Kansas that will carry us forward into the future.

Aaron Otto

Call for KHC Board MembersDeadline: April 7, 2017

KHC is currently seeking nominations of Kansans to fill vacancies on its Board of

Directors. Nominations are due April 7, 2017.

“The role of the humanities is important in strengthening the cultural and civic life in our communities across Kansas,” said Linda K. Smith, chair of the KHC Membership Committee. “Kansas Humanities Council board members play an important role in providing access to the humanities for Kansans. We are currently looking for a few new board members who have a passion for the humanities and are willing to both promote and support the work of KHC. Please consider a nomination to the KHC Board of Directors.”

The KHC is governed by a 21-member volunteer Board of Directors. Individuals may nominate themselves or others for board service. For more information, visit www.kansashumanities.org or contact Julie Mulvihill, executive director, at (785) 357-0359 or julie@kansashumanities.org.

Nonprofit Org.U.S. Postage

PAIDKansas City MOPermit No. 523

112 SW 6th Ave., Suite 210Topeka KS 66603-3895(785) 357-0359 (785) 357-1723 fax info@kansashumanities.orgwww.kansashumanities.org

Can We Count on You?

D E A R F R I E N D S O F T H E H U M A N I T I E S ,

News outlets recently began reporting on the possible plan to eliminate funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the

Arts, and other important agencies critical to our American democracy. Many of us thought the same thing: We won’t let this happen. Kansans depend on the humanities.

At this time, the threat of elimination exists in a report and not in an actual budget. We remain heartened by the bipartisan support we have seen for the humanities in Congress over the last 45 years. We’ll work hard to make sure it stays that way, but we are going to need your help.

Are you willing to speak up on behalf of the humanities and the Kansas Humanities Council? Visit www.kansashumanities.org to sign up for to be the first to know updates on humanities funding. When the time is right, we will call on you first to share our story with your member of Congress.

Thank you and all the very best,

Julie MulvihillKHC Executive Director