8A = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
ACTIVISTS
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2002
protest:
In 1970, KU students protested the Vietnam War. In 2002, the crowd is mostly 'babies and old people' against a war in Iraq
Students haul fire hoses into the burning Kansas Union. The Union was set ablaze in Spring 1970.
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loving undergrad from New York, who seemed to find himself at some of the landmark events on the KU campus during the 1960s.
In 1968, Bill Turtle sat at a table with 24 students. As an assistant professor, he taught the first African-American history class at KU: a groundbreaking class for the University because other classes dealing with diversity would follow.
A Classroom Revolution
Tuttle used texts such as John Hope Franklin's "From Slavery to Freedom" to encourage discussion in a class split between black and white students.
Tuttle, who worked with the Lawrence chapter of the NAACP at the time, said much of the political turmoil and racial tension in Lawrence and on campus found its beginnings in Lawrence High School.
Tuttle worked closely with the black students at LHS and said students there wanted more black literature and material taught in classes.
"They weren't treated very respectfully by the high school," he said.
Today, Professor Tuttle teaches an American Studies class called "America in the 1960s." He notices how political activism is different among today's students.
"It's distressing that there's so little discussion on Iraq," he said.
Tuttle said he spent a great deal of time in his class drawing parallels between the Vietnam War and the United States' current conflict with Iraq. But, the main difference between students today and those of the 1960s is the lack of a lottery draft, Tuttle said.
ROTC cadets march past a crowd of protesting students at Memorial Stadium
Occasionally, Tuttle joins the line of Lawrence residents who protest against a war in Iraq each Saturday. He said he greatly supported their cause.
"I'm proud to associate with those people," Tuttle said.
Tuttle said he remembered Rick "Tiger" Dowdell as one of the LHS students who staged walkouts and formed a Black Student Union 50 years ago. Those students' activism would continue on to the KU campus, Tuttle said.
Later, during a summer when the racial and political tension boiled over. Dowdell would be dead.
Dowdell, who was 23 in 1970, said he became heavily involved in militant protests and subversive action with a local group called Brothers and Sisters in Blackness. In fact, carrying a gun was just a part of everyday life for Dowdell.
"It all led up to a spontaneous
combustion in the '60s," he said.
It was this oppression and his tough upbringing that led to an eruption of violence and anger when Dowdell and other black young people in Lawrence became adults. When the time came to pursue a degree in anthropology at the University of Kansas, Dowdell said he carried his anger to the campus.
"But we always kept the first cylinder empty," he said. "That way, if someone took your gun,
When Tiger Dowdell was shot by a policeman in the sum-
"Racism was so prevalent that if something came down, we were going to get blamed for it," he said.
Lawrence's "wake-up call"
you knew you had time to rush that person."
Dowdell said the main black organization on campus, the Black Student Union, was too docile for his taste. Brothers and Sisters in Blackness was modeled after the Black Panthers and worked toward establishing black history curriculum at KU by distributing flyers, Dowdell said.
Dowdell said his family was poor. Raised by a single mother, they were clothed by the Salvation Army, and they had little food.
Racism and segregation were just a part of growing up, Dowdell said.
mer of 1970, he was survived by six brothers, including Randy Dowdell, who now lives in Mesa, Ariz. For Randy, the upheaval in Lawrence in the late 1960s and early 1970s was a culmination of years of oppression that black people faced in Lawrence.
"We went to Woolworth and you couldn't eat at the welcome counter. You could get a to-go plate, but you couldn't sit down," he said.
As Dowdell got older, he said he learned to deal with increased harassment from police.
Officer William Garrett eventually shot him in the back of the head. Garrett was later cleared of any wrongdoing in the matter through a coroner's inquest.
A car chase ensued.
Dowdell also worked for Lawrence's black community from his home, a house named the Afro-House, on Rhode Island street. From the Afro-House, Dowdell administered free breakfast programs and clothing drives for black residents in the neighborhood. But, Dowdell said, the Afro-House also came under heavy surveillance from Lawrence police.
Tiger Dowdell, was leaving the Afro-House around 8:30 p.m. July 16, 1970, just before he was shot and killed.
Newspaper reports from the time say that police heard a gunshot from near the Afro-house, saw Dowdell leaving in a car, and followed him.
Randy Dowdell describes the days after his brother's death as days filled with warfare throughout Lawrence, with shooting between the police, the black community, and white Lawrence residents
"There were truckloads of rednecks hunting us. We were fight-
What happened next is unclear.
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