KU News Release

June 14 , 2007
Contact: Lauren Beatty, University Relations, (785) 864-8858.

KU students spend semester researching exodus of African-Americans to Kansas

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LAWRENCE — History is not always pretty: That’s what a group of University of Kansas students learned after a semester of researching the exodus of African-Americans to Kansas in 1879.

David Peavler, a doctoral student in history at KU, taught the class, titled History of the Peoples of Kansas. For the research project, the 54 students in the class each picked a Kansas newspaper from that time period and wrote papers on what the newspapers reported about the exodus.

At the time of the exodus, Kansas was known for being progressive and tolerant, but the students found articles that seemed to suggest otherwise.

Danielle Bergeron, a senior studying to become a teacher from Pittsburg, Calif., said she was surprised by what she read in the Miami (County) Republican.

“Everyone hears the story of ‘Bleeding Kansas,’ but they don’t hear how Kansans did not want free men settling in their state. The Miami Republican stated there was an ‘isothermal line,’ and ‘Kansas was too cold for (African-Americans).’ ”

Peavler said he assigned the labor-intensive project because there is little in current history books about the exodus, in which 10,000 to 20,000 African-Americans left the south after the Civil War to settle in Kansas. And what is available doesn’t necessarily tell the whole truth.

“Textbooks tell a simple story, a happy story,” Peavler said. “This was not always a happy story. In Atchison, they were lining up with rifles. They didn’t want the African-Americans to come to Kansas.”

The students spent hours reading the old newspapers on microfilm. Peavler said the Kansas State Historical Society and the Interlibrary Loan program were instrumental in the research project.

“Technology has made research more accessible, but that doesn’t mean it replaces what can be found in a library,” said Bergeron. “Manually looking through the microfilm made me feel like an actual historian.”

Another notable thing the students discovered, said Peavler, was that the newspapers used the exodus to expound their beliefs. Opinions were hurled back and forth between rivals like a political football.

“I learned that the political views of the paper had a lot to do with the content,” said Whitney Novak, a journalism student from Shawnee who researched the Daily Capital of Topeka. “I found an article that was somewhat of a disclaimer, saying that the Daily Capital was a Republican publication and would take on Republican views. They often had little wars with neighboring papers that had different views.”

Peavler said that finding was disheartening.

“The people themselves were being completely forgotten,” he said.

Although the research project was sometimes frustrating for the students, Peavler said the end product was enthusiastically supported by the class.

“The students liked that they were working on something that mattered,” he said. “It will last. It wasn’t just a grade.”

Callie Penzler, a senior from Lawrence majoring in elementary education, said she was glad she enrolled in the class.

“I learned a lot about my hometown and state,” said Penzler. “Not the glorified, sugar-coated version of Kansas history I was taught throughout my years in the public school system, but the straightforward truth.”

The 54 research papers will be printed and bound together for distribution at local libraries and the state historical society. Peavler said he hopes someone will use the research to write a detailed, honest book about that time in Kansas history.

Peavler also said he’d like to repeat the project in future classes using other topics, such as women’s suffrage.

Students who were enrolled in Peavler’s class are listed below.

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