Round about 1945, a young man with my name, my single eyebrow and my short attention span was bored with his college studies and seized upon an opportunity to stir things up for a good cause. And for fun.
The city of Lawrence was settled by abolitionists, burned to the ground by a pro-slavery militia and even now has a reputation as a liberal stronghold centered around the University of Kansas. So much so that Republican members of Congress keep trying to get it gerrymandered into some other congressman’s district.
But, as was the case in so many other places before the the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, or at least before Wilt Chamberlain, the city and its public accommodations were segregated.