February 3, 2012

Maybe in some mystical land, there are families where children and parents like to do the same thing. A place where there is no fighting over which restaurant to go to, where the family all likes the same TV shows, and where common interests are shared. Brigadoon?

Yes, I believe this is a mystical and far off world, because it bears no resemblance to mine. Like most parents, my ability to do things that I really enjoy seems constantly compromised. There seems to be a direct correlation between the things I like and the things that really bore my children. If I want to go for a walk down by the river and ask my children to come, they typically would rather chew on rocks and run off to play on the Wii. If I suggest we watch an Alfred Hitchcock movie or something with John Wayne, they let me know that Sponge Bob is the only thing that is acceptable to them. If I suggest a trip to the salad bar for lunch, they recommend hot pockets and pancake wrapped sausage on a stick.

It is seldom that our likes and dislikes work in any sort of harmony. Luckily, I'm the dad so, I always get my way. Yeah, right. More often than not, it's easier to give in than to fight for the things that I want. Which means in the end, I spend a night playing some inane game on Wii, watching a ridiculous round of Sponge Bob, Squidward, and that ludicrous starfish while we eat a dinner of deep fried and battered pork dipped in maple syrup?

Well, this month, things are going to change. I actually found something that we all like to do. Beginning this Saturday and running through the end of the month, the park will be hosting a series of films that highlight some part of the African American experience in the United States. It's part of what we are trying to do to make Black History Month meaningful to more of our park neighbors. All the films are free; we will have popcorn and drinks, and these are actually movies that my kids want to see. This Saturday, we will be showing Remember the Titans - the story of a recently integrated high school football team and their battle to overcome racism and prejudice. Later in the month, it's the Princess and the Frog - the first Disney movie to highlight an African American princess. That is followed by the classic Look Who's Coming to Dinner (my kids like all of the shots of San Francisco since they were born there). We end the month with the classic To Kill a Mockingbird, which my daughter loves because she wants to be just like Boo Radley.

So, my plans for this Saturday are to have a healthy breakfast, get the kids on their bikes and go for a good, long ride on the Shunga Trail, and then ride into the park for a great afternoon movie. Realistically, it's probably not going to work quite this way. If I know my family, the kids will end up pining for Frosted Flakes and our morning bike ride will end up being a car trip to the nearest basketball court to shoot some hoops. But at least I know, for two hours that afternoon, we will all sit down together, watch a great movie, and learn something about how far we have come.

January 27, 2012

About ten years ago, my family had the chance to live and work in the San Francisco Bay Area for the National Park Service. I was working as a ranger on a historical trail project and my spouse took a job doing law enforcement on Alcatraz Island, part of the Golden Gate Recreational Area. When I heard about the Alcatraz job, I thought to myself, "Well, that's going to get old quickly." At the time, I couldn't even figure out why the place was a National Park.

When I thought of Alcatraz, I thought of a prison on a little island. Imagine my surprise, on my first tour of the island, when I discovered that it was so much more than that. The island was like an onion, with layer upon layer of history and stories. It was a stopping ground for American Indians as they traversed the bay for food and trade for thousands of years. During the Civil War, it served as a military prison for Confederate soldiers. For the remainder of the 19th century, it stood as a military fort protecting the San Francisco Bay from any potential foreign invasion. With the arrival of the federal prison, the island saw the development of distinct architecture, exotic gardens, and a community of prisoners, wardens, and their families who would call Alcatraz their home. Dig down a little deeper and you will find out more about the United Indians of All Tribes occupation of the island in 1969. Then there's the arrival of the Park Service, all of the movies, millions of visitors, and so on and so on. So much history in one small island!

I bring this up simply because the same holds true here at Brown v. Board of Education NHS. Yesterday, the halls of the park were full of the joyful sounds of three octogenarians who happened to be passing through town on their way back to California. For over an hour, they told us their personal stories of having attended this very school - back in the 1940's - and what it meant to be in a segregated school on the cusp of the civil rights movement. Here was another layer of history and of stories that we seldom think about. Earlier in the day, I was over at the site of Constitutional Hall on Kansas Ave. in downtown Topeka. As the home of the Topeka Constitutional Convention, the site marks the place where Kansans gathered to declare the territory a place that should be free of slavery. The site is now recognized as a part of the National Park Service's Underground Railroad Network to Freedom for its role in the Free State movement. The part abolitionists played in helping to make Kansas a free state, allowing African Americans to settle as freemen in East Topeka, was the reason why Monroe Elementary became a predominantly black school - and eventually a segregated school. Another layer of history.

Our National Parks may often commemorate a particular moment in time. Think about three of them: Golden Spike NHS in Utah, Ft. Sumner NM in the Charleston Bay, and the Statue of Liberty NM in New York Harbor. They are little parks that seem so limited, so specific in what they tell. But if you look deeply, they are so much richer than just that - so much more than the day that a golden spike was driven into the ground, a month when a federal fort was fired on, or the years that a monumental statue was built. These places tell a story that resonates today in so many more ways. They tell about the push for technological progress, the American battle of the role of the state, the role of immigration on the American spirit. That same richness is here today at 1515 SE Monroe Street. If we expose the layers before the U.S. Supreme Court cast their decision, we see connections leading us all the way back to the settlement of Kansas. If we look forward, there we see the struggle that Americans - as well as people all around the world - are engaged in to acknowledge their own civil rights.  That is why we are a National Park.

http://www.constitutionhalltopeka.com/

January 20, 2012

The weather is cold, the pipes just froze at my house, and there is no sign of spring on the horizon - but things are heating up quickly at the park. This weekend, we are bringing together over forty people - historians, teachers, civic activists, business leaders - all with the purpose of helping us guide the park through the next decade and into the future. For the next three months, we will collaborate, imagine, dream, argue, and hammer out a plan that will become the guiding document for how we pursue education and interpretation at Brown v. Board of Education NHS.

The Long Range Interpretive Plan is a standard tool in the bag of tricks every National Park uses to help tell the story of America's crown jewels. This weekend, we are bringing in park rangers from the Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, interpreters from Tallgrass Prairie NP and the St. Louis Arch, as well as our private contractor Interpretive Solutions from Westchester, PA. Using their well-honed skills, they will take us on a journey of discovery, helping show us how we can reach the broadest slice of the visiting public with the story of the history of racial segregation, the effects of Brown on public education, and where we still need to go as a nation.

So far, in listening sessions here at the park as well as at the library, we have heard some great ideas. One of my favorite has been trying to recreate a 1952 era classroom here at the park. Other ideas have included finding ways to work with schools to bus their classes here to the park. In an era of big budget cuts, the $70 involved in a bus trip to the park is too much of a barrier for many schools. Maybe that's a place where we can help. Other ideas we have heard have been to create more after school programs for local school kids, to create a jobs corps for area youth to work with summer school programs, and to reach out to Hispanic audiences and help tell their stories for civil rights here in Topeka.

Whatever happens, we are committed to telling the story of Brown and helping to make it resonate with our community here in Topeka as well as the rest of the country. Maybe even the rest of the world. I just finished reading a letter from a park visitor from Saudi Arabia. After visiting Brown v. Board of Education NHS and then heading on down to Little Rock Central High School NHS, he had an epiphany. Although he had never thought of discrimination as existing in his home country, he began thinking about how women - who are prohibited from driving or making many life decisions without the consent of a male relative - also face civil rights challenges that he had never before considered. He saw similarities in the struggle of African American kids here in Topeka with some of the women he knew back home. It took a trip to a little National Park in Topeka to help him confront issues of discrimination seventy-five hundred miles away. So maybe we have an international story to tell as well. Let's see where this planning process takes us!  

NPS\Justin Sochacki

Fourth graders from Ross Elementary celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr. Day by visiting the John Ritchie House and the Brown v. Board site. They learned about Dr. King, created protest signs, sang civil rights songs, and marched, too!

January 13, 2012

I was barely a year old the day the world lost Martin Luther King, Jr. Although I still couldn't walk, my parents can remember the day vividly. In a few short years, they saw the assassinations of President Kennedy, Malcolm X, and now MLK. They knew that these men talked about a better world, where all men could live as brothers. They also saw each of them struck down in their prime. It was a world full of promise and horror, of incredible potential and devastating sadness. It was a day that they would never forget.

By the time I was old enough to grasp who Martin Luther King, Jr. was, the world had moved on from that tragic day in Memphis in 1968. Although I knew there was a time when schools were segregated because of race, it was distant history and something that would not affect my life. My friends were brown and black and white. When I went to see my mom at work, she sat and worked with people that looked just like my friends. There is no doubt that issues of inequality were present and had a profound effect on many people's lives. But for me, they were beyond my horizon. Other than a reference or two in a history book these were not things that we talked about at school.

When my children go out into the community, when they go to school, when they dream about their futures, they see and do and think things that were unfathomable to children just a few generations back. They can no more condone or justify segregated schools then they could imagine treating people differently because of their hair color or their height. But at the same time, they know that segregation existed and that racism still exists today. In school, they study about the long march to equality. They know about MLK and have learned to honor his memory. They come to the park and read the exhibits, they hear the rangers, and they understand how far we have come. 

The world that we are confronted with today - with all of its flaws, problems, and hardships - is light years from the world that MLK saw in his final days on earth. During the next week, the park marks the contribution Martin Luther King, Jr. made to our country and the world. This is our chance as Americans to look back on where we have come from. More importantly, it is also a time for looking to where we yet need to be. As the school buses have pulled up to the park this last week, I have watched scores of school children at the site learn about MLK, sing songs of protest, and practice forms of peaceful protest. They continue to find injustice in this world and they let us know about it. The battle goes on.

The road to equality is a long one. Please consider joining us here at the park on Monday, January 16, for a variety of activities to help learn about the incredible journey we have taken. Come hear some of MLK's incredible speeches. Learn what it means to be a non-violent demonstrator in the fight for equality. Join a ranger in learning how MLK used the legacy of t the Brown case to help push us all down the road to equality. Activities go on all day, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. And, as always, the park is free. We can't wait to see you!  

Please click here for more information about the activities on January 16, 2012.

January 9, 2012

What a lousy way to ring in the New Year. For the Park Service family, the death of NPS Ranger Margaret Anderson was a sad reminder of why we have law enforcement rangers protecting our park resources as well as our visitors. Our park staff gathers with the thousands of other rangers and park personnel across the nation in mourning the loss of this courageous woman. A graduate from Kansas State, Margaret died in the line of duty in an effort to protect the visitors of Mount Rainier National Park. She leaves behind two small children as well as her husband who continues to serve as a park ranger at the park.

For our park neighbors, New Year's was also an especially tragic time. The robbery at Mo's Express and the resulting assaults and murders have cast a noticeable veil of sadness on the neighborhood. Our hearts go out to our neighbors and friends who are struggling with the fear, pain, and anguish brought upon by this brutal act of violence in our community.

In troubled times, parks have always made me feel safe. I have served as a park ranger for over twenty years, working in parks as diverse as this country. Although they were all special places that helped tell the story of our shared history, they always offered me and my family a degree of protection I didn't necessarily have in town. When I would take my family climbing at Joshua Tree National Park in the California desert, I always knew that we were safe. When I walked up the steps to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, on the battlefield of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, or the parade grounds at Fort Scott in Kansas, I knew I was on hallowed ground. Today, when I greet school groups at Brown v. Board of Education, I always make sure that they know that this is their park and that it is a place where they can come and learn. But I also remind them - this is a place where they know that they are safe.

It will take a long time for East Topeka to recover from the recent acts of violence. But we can take heart in what our forefathers and mothers and our neighbors and friends have done and continue to do to help our community and country. This historic site and park continue to stand as symbols of the battles we all must fight to end discrimination and to fight for civil rights. It also should stand as a symbol of what we also must stand for and fight to protect.

This last Sunday at 5PM, we gathered together to honor the life of Margaret Anderson and take a stand against the violence which has plagued our neighborhood. We met on the steps of the park visitor center, thankful for what we have and remembering those that we have lost. It is my sincere hope that vigils like this one will become increasingly rare.

Supt. David Smith