"Through her close study of events in Wichita, Eick reveals the civil rights movement as a national, not a southern, phenomenon. She focuses particularly on Chester I. Lewis, Jr., a key figure in the local as well as the national NAACP. Lewis initiated one of the earliest investigations of de facto school desegregation by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and successfully challenged employment discrimination in the nation's largest aircraft industries."--BOOK JACKET.
The African American community of Wichita is as old as the city itself, dating back to early pioneers, cowboys, and business figures. Once relatively integrated, Wichita became more segregated as the 20th century unfolded. In response, African Americans developed a lively neighborhood downtown with its own businesses, churches, schools, and organizations. World War II brought new populations to work in the aircraft industry and set the stage for profound changes. In the 1950s, a younger generation of leaders challenged racism and discrimination, unleashing a period of change that was both hopeful and painful. In recent years, the African American community has become more complex, with generations of established families joined by recent transplants, emigrants from Africa, and children of mixed marriages. While challenges remain, African Americans are more visible than ever before in local life, evident in politics, business, sports, and education.
Wichita, Kansas, has grown significantly since the mid-19th century, when a group of pioneering entrepreneurs arrived to build on the trading and hunting activities of the Osage and Wichita peoples. Those early days of commerce gave way to Coleman, Cessna, and other companies whose influence helped shape the city's development. From the Texas cowboys who ran the cattle drives to Lebanese merchants, the population of the city has been as diverse and as dynamic as its companies. This visual history of early Wichita showcases the colorful landmarks, people, and businesses that built the bustling city on the Arkansas River.
Although African American pioneers arrived in Des Moines, Iowa, in the early 1860s, the population exploded in the 1880s due to the surrounding coal mines. In the 1860s, the Burns Methodist Episcopal Church was the first African American church built in Des Moines, and its only address was "East Side of the River." From 1900 to the 1960s, African Americans across the United States called Center Street "the coolest place in the country." The likes of Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and many others graced the hotels and clubs there. In Des Moines in the late 1960s and early 1970s, young African Americans discarded the term Negro and demanded to be referred to as Afro-American or black, as black pride swelled in their chests.
Business in Black and White provides a panoramic discussion of various initiatives that American presidents have supported to promote black business development in the United States. Many assume that U.S. government interest in promoting black entrepreneurship began with Richard Nixon's establishment of the Office of Minority Business Enterprise (OMBE) in 1969. Drawn from a variety of sources, Robert E. Weems, Jr.'s comprehensive work extends the chronology back to the Coolidge Administration with a compelling discussion of the Commerce Departmen's “Division of Negro Affairs.” Weems deftly illustrates how every administration since Coolidge has addressed the subject of black business development, from campaign promises to initiatives to downright roadblocks. Although the governmen's influence on black business dwindled during the Eisenhower Administration, Weems points out that the subject was reinvigorated during the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations and, in fact, during the early-to-mid 1960s, when “civil rights” included the right to own and operate commercial enterprises. After Nixon's resignation, support for black business development remained intact, though it met resistance and continues to do so even today. As a historical text with contemporary significance, Business in Black and White is an original contribution to the realms of African American history, the American presidency, and American business history.
African Americans arrived in Topeka right before and after the Civil War and again in large numbers during the Exodus Movement of 1879 and Great Migration of 1910. They came in protest of the treatment they received in the South. The history of dissent lived on in Topeka, as it became the home to court cases protesting discrimination of all kinds. African Americans came to the city determined that education would provide them a better life. Black educators fostered a sense of duty toward schooling, and in 1954 Topeka became a landmark for African Americans across the country with the Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education case. Blacks from every walk of life found refuge in Kansas and, especially, Topeka. The images in African American Topeka have been selected to give the reader a glimpse into the heritage of black life in the community. The richness of the culture and values of this Midwestern city are a little-known secret just waiting to be exhibited.
The history and contributions of African Americans in northeast Indiana have been largely overlooked. This new publication, African Americans in Fort Wayne: The First 200 Years, does not claim to be a definitive history of the topic. It does, however, recognize and honor the pioneers who have made the African-American community in Fort Wayne what it is today. Through diary excerpts, oral histories, and studies of social organizations, religion, and community, a rich, 200-year heritage is vividly depicted. The story begins in 1794, when evidence points to the first black inhabitant of Fort Wayne. The first known, free black in the area was identified in 1809. During the early part of the 1800s, Indiana state funds partially financed a movement to send Indiana blacks to Liberia. Few left, and those who remained worked diligently to make Fort Wayne their own. The fruits of their labor can be partially seen in the development of the first black church, Turner Chapel A.M.E., which was started in 1849 and has been a pillar of the community since its completion. A migration of African Americans from the south, due to industrialization, greatly increased the population from 1913 through 1927, and new churches, organizations, and opportunities were developed. Today, the black community in Fort Wayne is rightfully proud of its extensive past.
The story of black Chicago is so rich that few know it all. It began long before the city itself. "The first white man here was a black man," Potowatami natives reportedly said about Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, the brown-skinned man recognized as Chicago's first non-Indian settler. It's all here: from the site of DuSable's cabin--now smack-dab in the middle of Chicago's Magnificent Mile--to images of famous and infamous residents like boxers Jack Johnson, Muhammad Ali, and Joe Louis. Here are leaders and cultural touchstones like Jesse Binga's bank, Robert S. Abbott's Chicago Defender, legendary filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, Ida B. Wells, the Eighth Regiment, Jesse Jackson, Oprah, and much more . . . including a guy named Obama. Here is the black Chicago family album, of folks who made and never made the headlines, and pictures and stories of kinship and fellowship of African Americans leaving the violent, racist South and "goin' to Chicago" to find their piece of the American Dream. Chicago has been called the "Second City," but black Chicago is second to none.
Wichita, a city of entrepreneurs, offered an ideal home for Middle Eastern Christians who started arriving in the 1890s. Initially identifying themselves as Syrians, they operated as peddlers across southern Kansas and northern Oklahoma. Peddling rapidly gave way to wholesale, grocery, and dry goods companies. Patriarchs such as N. F. Farha and E. G. Stevens established themselves in local business and civic circles. Primarily Eastern Orthodox, the Lebanese established two churches, St. George Orthodox Church and St. Mary Orthodox Christian Church, that became focal points of community life. After World War II, entrepreneurs responded to new opportunities, from real estate to supermarkets to the professions. In recent decades, an additional wave of immigrants from war-torn Lebanon has continued the entrepreneurial tradition.
