Archiver

This episode is about the Haskell Institute in Lawrence back when it was a boarding school for American Indians. Tens of thousands of school age Indians were forced into these boarding schools all across the country, many times kidnapped by soldiers or police. Kids would, naturally, run away from such semi-imprisonment. How could any of this be good? I have to admit upfront that I started out on this story absolutely sure how I was going to tell it. But I ended up in a very different place, and it’s a place that I’m not totally comfortable with. 

This Archiver starts in 1984. Sen. Nancy Landon Kassebaum is running for reelection. Now with Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi, you may not realize the uniqueness of a woman in the United States Senate in 1978. Depending on how you define it, Kassebaum was the first or second woman elected in her own right to the senate. Women in Kansas politics go back to before women could even vote in most elections. And, wouldn’t you know it, the very first women to be elected mayor of an American city was from Kansas.

Newspaper endorsements were crucial for political candidates, be it for president or city council. It’s less so now, but they’re still important. Even President Trump when he was a candidate met with the editorial boards of the Washington Post, New York Times and Chicago Tribune.

This story starts with a tape that, until recently, was in a box at the Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas. Archiver historian Virgil Dean found it.

Anyone with a passing knowledge of the civil rights movement knows about the lunch counter sit ins at the Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina. But before Greensboro and Miami there was Dockum Drug Store in Wichita. 

Archiver fans, get ready for another season of audio gems that tell the most surprising stories from Kansas history. 

If you look around YouTube, you’ll find no shortage of videos featuring William S. Burroughs, the famous beat writer. One of the best videos shows rock ‘n roll hall of famer Patti Smith playing the acoustic guitar in Burroughs tiny bungalo in old east Lawrence. That’s Lawrence, Kansas. River City. #LFK  This episode of the Archiver podcast is just as much about #Lawrence as it is about Burroughs. According to his closest friends and confidants, he changed Lawrence and Lawrence, well, let Burroughs be Burroughs.

As a kid, Ed Dwight never dreamed he might one day go to the moon, but he did fantasize about escaping life in Kansas. And it was that idea of escape that was so powerful for a young black man in the 50s.

John McLendon changed the way basketball is played forever with his "fast break" style, and he broke the color barrier for black athletes in the sport.

We start this episode of Archiver in 1918, the end of the first World War, because the way America treated those veterans would forever change the way the country takes care of its soldiers, sailors and marines. Make no mistake, it would take decades plus lots of pain and suffering to do the right thing, but it happened. And wouldn’t you know it, it took a Kansan to get it done.