This is a photograph of the 10th, 11th, and 12th grade at Burlingame High School during the 1911-1912 school year. Zella, a senior, is at the top left, in the center of the window in a dark dress. Winifred, a sophomore, is in the front, standing, just to the left of the pipe, also in a dark dress.
Incredibly, she was also able to identify nearly everyone, when she was putting albums together in the 1970's. Of course, lots of the people mentioned in her diaries are pictured here!
From what I have read so far, I don't get the sense that the black and white kids were playing together after school or that their parents were playing Whist. Farming and coal mining were the principle industries in the area, both requiring lots of manual laborers and being unpredictable or seasonal and provided jobs regardless of skin color. Lots of families struggled. "Papa didn't work." does not mean that he decided to take a day off. So socio-economically there was not necessarily a big divide between those of African descent and those of European descent.
ReplyDeleteSome comments came up on Facebook about the school being integrated. I too was a bit surprised. I hadn't really thought about it. And it's not a subject that Winnie addresses head on. I wish she shared more of her thoughts and feelings on what were then current events and are now history. But what would you write about as a 14-year old? Likely major events like an election or the moon landing, but would today's 14-year olds even say anything about the military conflicts the US is currently involved in?
ReplyDeleteKansas was very much a Free State and Lawrence, Kansas was known for its Abolitionists from its early settlement. A branch of the Underground Railroad ran from the Missouri border through Osawatamie, Lawrence, Topeka, Holton, Horton, and Albany before entering Nebraska.
ReplyDeleteAs to how integrated things were in Burlingame, I'm not sure. The photo suggests that there weren't very many African-Americans in high school, so probably not very many in town. I don't know if the families had been there for a long time or were more recent residents looking for work having left the South after emancipation, which Kansas encouraged.
Of course, Brown v. the Board of Education happened in Kansas too.
As far as anything Winnie wrote, she does use the "N word" but not in a pejorative way. It's very unsettling for me to read, "Four n... came and sang at school today." Or about school children putting on black face as part of a Minstrel show for the town's entertainment. So integrated, yes, but colorblind or unprejudiced, no.
When this picture was taken, those that fought in the Civil War, including Winnie's grandfather, were still alive, and likely there was some self-congratulating for being on the "right" side of things and little reflection on the way African-Americans were treated. And there was certainly prejudice toward immigrants too.