These Federation types are cowards. The negotiations will be short.

“These Federation types are cowards. The negotiations will be short.” – Qui-Gon Jinn, Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace

We left our hotel this morning in a steady rain. Having stayed in the nicest hotel room of our whole trip, I hated to leave it. Just so you know, if you find yourself on I-70 west of Kansas City, KS, we highly recommend you check into Hyatt Place. $99 got us this adorable suite:

Being in Topeka, we simply had to visit the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site. It would have been wrong for any peace-loving, why-can’t-we-all-just-get-along, American not to go. It was… It was… It was so much more than I thought it would be. Than any of us thought it would be. Maybe a plaque on the wall. Perhaps a bit of literature and some pictures. A reminder that allowing segregated schools and facilities was beneath the dignity of a free nation.

I had no idea that segregated schools, public services and facilities were mandated in many states; I had assumed it was just tolerated. Kansas was one of states that allowed each school district to decide for themselves regarding segregation policies. Among the five cases, Topeka was chosen to be the lead in the class action lawsuit because, despite having segregated schools, the two school systems were pretty uniform in the quality of the teachers, instruction and buildings. This was important, because it forced the focus away from the normal complaint of merely damaged buildings to the damage that segregation inflicted on the children themselves.

I admit that segregation had always been a “those states” issue in my brain, up to today. *puffs my chest out* I’m from the Great Frozen Midwest. We didn’t have drinking fountains with Whites or Colored signs hanging above them. Poll taxes were not collected when my grandma was registering voters. Neither bus and train seating nor waiting rooms were assigned by race in my state, thankyouverymuch.

Then I started to read the signs, watch the videos, listen to the recordings filling the room. I heard about riots in “integrated” Northern and “progressive” East  and West Coast cities, when desegregation was put into action. I read newspaper headlines about school districts across the country, including states that never officially allowed segregation, being closed in protest. I saw clean cut teenagers with crisp Midwest accents spewing hate, promising violence and wishing death on other teenagers simply because they were goingn to be bussed to their school. I thought about my mom, going to high school in Michigan, and Dad Windu’s father, going to university in Arizona, and I wondered what they had thought about it. Were they afraid? Were they welcoming? Did they spew polite venom in the form of, “Schools just work better when they’re filled with only their own kind.”

It is really a remarkable museum, and I haven’t been able to get my brain around it all yet. Since it was once a school, a letter grade is probably the most appropriate way to evaluate my experience. I give it an A++.