Monday, August 16, 1999
The University Daily Kansan
Section D·Page 3
Lawrence past reflects U.S. historical movements
Continued from page 2D
Basketball's birth
James Neismith invented basketball. He was KU's first and only losing men's basketball coach. Contributed photo
KU's first basketball coach was James Naismith, the father of basketball. Naismith came to KU at a time when students didn't know there was a University basketball team, and when the University Daily Kansan was publishing ads pleading for students to play on the team, Jansen said.
Students protest on Jayhawk Boulevard. The late 1960s and early 1970s was a time of civil unrest at the University of Kansas like many other locations in the United States as students and citizens alike worked for equal rights. Contributed photo
For nine years, Naismith's teams played in a basement with 16-foot ceilings and iron support pillars in the middle of the court. Before leaving KU, Naismith convinced the University to build a gymnasium — the old Robinson Gym, where Wescoe Hall now stands. Besides holding 2,000 fans and kindling the first sparks of KU basketball mania, the new gym ushered in Phog Allen, who fanned the flames of the University's best known tradition.
"James Naismith represents a very special tradition in Lawrence," Jansen said. "He also represents coming from some place else but adopting Lawrence and KU as his home."
Jim Crow and Wilt Chamberlain
As Lawrence's basketball tradition was beginning, the town's free-state tradition vanished. Jim Crow laws left KU cafeterias and Lawrence restaurants segregated.
Many professors called a separate roll for the Black students who sat at the back of the classroom. And Black students could only use the swimming pool on the last day of the month — the day before it was drained and cleaned.
At its birth, KU took pride in being one of few universities to admit Black students, but at the turn of the century it suddenly seemed determined to follow the status quo. Notable exceptions included the student-run chapter of the Congress Of Racial Equality (CORE), which actively protested segregation. Also, student editors in the Kansan often denounced racism as early as the 1940s. One editorial said that KU was no better than Hitler for sponsoring a blood drive that kept the blood from African-Americans separate from the blood from Caucasians.
Despite Phog Allen's proclamation that he wouldn't have blacks on his team, he soon gave in to pressure from KU's new chancellor, Franklin Murphy, to recruit black athletes.
Bill Tuttle, professor of history and American studies, said that major changes began to happen in Lawrence once Murphy became chancellor.
"He did a lot of clever, courageous, overdue things to desegregate Lawrence," Tuttle said. "I think Franklin Murphy knew all along that if he was able to recruit Wilt Chamberlain that things would change, that they would work
KU basketball recruit Wilt Chamberlain brought a bold presence that challenged the town's apathetic attitude toward its free-state heritage, often lashing out at segregation.
together in unusual and interesting ways to try to make this a more diverse and less segregated community."
Tuttle said that when Chamberlain arrived, the town's thick racism nearly made him return home.
"But Wilt immediately went to see the coach, made his feelings known, and from that point on, things changed," he said.
While Chamberlain was well known for his domination of basketball, he was also active in the Lawrence community. He led students in CORE and staged sit-ins at segregated restaurants, bringing media attention to a largely unquestioned practice. At the time, 33 of Lawrence's 38 restaurants were segregated; three had Black owners.
After Chamberlain left KU in 1958, it was widely believed that he harbored bitter feelings from his experience in Lawrence. He did not return to Lawrence until the University celebrated 100 years of KU basketball two years ago. Chamberlain later said that he hadn't returned because he felt he had let the community down after losing in triple overtime to North Carolina during the NCAA championship. He said that he had been proud to be a Jayhawk and left the court saying "Rock Chalk Jayhawk."
Elizabeth Watkins donated 26,000 acres of farmland to the University of Kansas. Contributed photo
Student protests and counterculture
Student protests and counterculture Lawrence changed considerably in the next several years, largely because of the University's influence. Chancellor Murphy urged area businesses to treat people of other races with respect, saying that was the only way KU would attract scholars from around the world. Later, he threatened to show first-run movies on campus if theaters did not desegregate. They promptly did.
Once the student opposition to the Vietnam War was added to discontent over sluggish Civil Rights reform, Lawrence erupted into a hotbed of social unrest which culminated in the burning of the Kansas Union in 1970. Headlines in the Laurence Journal World in the late '80s told of citizen snipers, bonfires in the streets and bricks bombarding police cars. In the summer of 1970 two students were shot by police and the National Guard was deployed.
Rex Johnson, Douglas County sheriff from 1965 to 1990, said that before the civil rights movements and war protests the Lawrence community generally took peace and stability for granted.
"Whatever you thought of that cause, they made the University and town a better and closer community," Johnson said. He said the police and community leaders had met with students and town
activists to find a solution to the ongoing violence. In doing so, law enforcement was able to resist pressure to severely crack down on all protesters. Johnson said that the interaction fostered community-wide cooperation that continues today.
The student protests brought more than cooperation. The general mistrust of the "establishment" fostered a counterculture of long hair, Afros, peaceniks, love-ins, head shops and open drug use.
Today traces of that counterculture remain embedded within this generation's expression. Decentralized media like the KAW community radio and theKaw Valley Independent newspaper offer free thinking not available in most communities of Lawrence's size, Tuttle said. A testament to this town's peculiarity is that William S. Burroughs, renown writer of the Beat generation, chose Lawrence as his home.
The future of Lawrence
The original planners of Lawrence centralized the town's layout around a downtown district on Massachusetts Street, named after the home state of most of the first settlers. After Quantrill's raid, the 75 destroyed buildings were quickly rebuilt to serve a town of some 5,000 citizens. During the next century, Lawrence's population increased by less than 2,000 per decade.
But by 1950, Lawrence was quickly expanding. Part of the growth came from increased KU enrollment as a result of the GI Bill of Rights, and much of the rest was industrial development along the railroad.
The picturesque face of Lawrence wasn't compromised by its growth. Dennis Domer, associate professor of architecture and urban design, said that developer Bob Billings greatly enhanced Lawrence when he could have easily built strip malls and made off with quick earnings.
Billings, a former KU basketball player and graduate, designed the Alvamar neighborhoods around golf courses to preserve open, wooded areas and to ease the stress of urban density.
"People that worry about planning and the environment are generally poo-pooed in favor of quick development," Domer said. "By the time politicians begin using the environmentalists' arguments, it's too late."
Ten years ago, Lawrence voters shot down a proposal to level the 600 block of Vermont Street to make room for a mall. Instead, Domer said, the south end of Iowa Street is being stacked with discount stores and other commercial chains. The
west end of town is exploding with cookie- cutter housing as Lawrence becomes the evening home of many commuters working in Topeka or the Kansas City area.
Domer said that as Lawrence sprawls to the south and west, it will struggle to maintain its identity as a unique and dynamic city.
Tuttle agreed. He said that Lawrence's rapid expansion will distance it from its heritage.
"The result will be kind of a schizophrenic place, Tuttle said. "I'm not sure how much of a sense of experience will remain. Now, at any one time, there are
many, many different Lawrences functioning."
While the intimate Lawrence that Moyer described in 1971 may have been compromised by the suburban developments on the fringes of town, the vitality of the town's heritage is still not hard to find.
"There are always multiple stories; there are always multiple perspectives," said Lawrence historian Jansen. "The challenge is, the closer it is to us, the less sure you are that you've got enough of the stories."
Edited by Kimberly Erb
Chancellor Franklin Murphy poses for an artist. Murphy's impact on campus included pressure on the community to improve race attitudes. Contributed photo
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