Segregated Black Schools Dominated in Science: Spotlight Sumner H.S. K.C.KS

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The Atomic Age had dawned and the space race was on, so the nascent science fair phenomenon was a big deal at America’s high schools. The 1950s were also the era of Jim Crow, which meant that Sumner High School in Kansas City, Kansas, racking up win after win in area science fairs was a head-turning accomplishment. That’s because Sumner was a Black school.

Yet Sumner’s very success … served as validation in the minds of many Kansans that Blacks and whites should live separately.

David J. Peavler,
Kansas History magazine

It all started with a murder. Kansas, a non-slave state, long had integrated schools. But in 1904 a white freshman at Kansas City High School, Roy Martin, was shot dead by a Black youth, Louis Gregory, who was convicted of murder despite claiming self-defense. The killing nearly sparked a race riot. The next day, white students blocked Black students from entering the high school in protest.AMIBC® - VOTE! BE COUNTED! BE HEARD!
SOURCE ⇒ OZY

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