‘What’s Emancipation Got To Do With It?’ brings noted historians to Memorial Hall
Baseball historian and author Phil Dixon, left, prepares to lead the audience in singing “Take Me Out To The Ball Game,” while Dr. JohnElla Holmes, CEO and President of the Kansas Black Farmers Association, watches virtually on Mon., Feb. 17, 2925 in Memorial Hall CREDIT GINA LONG/THE HUTCHINSON TRIBUNE
By Gina Long
On Monday, Hutchinson Emancipation Day held its first “What’s Emancipation Got To Do With It?” workshop and panel discussion at Memorial Hall.
The Hutchinson Emancipation Celebration organizations sponsored the workshop, which featured poetry, music, history, food and storytelling.
Phil Dixon became a baseball historian and statistics fan while collecting sports trading cards in his youth. He is a founding member of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Mo., and has written several books about the Negro Leagues, players and events. He is currently working with Major League Baseball to verify historical accuracy as the Negro Leagues’s statistics are merged with the MLB’s.
Dixon told several stories about notable Kansas Negro Leagues players, including Leavenworth-born Chet Brewer, who lost three toes in a childhood trolley accident, became a Kanas City Monarch player and batted .350 in 1952. After retiring from baseball, Brewer moved to Los Angeles, created a developmental league, and recruited players. Reggie Smith and Bob Watson were notable stars who started as “Chet Brewer’s Rookies.”
While researching the Kansas City Monarchs, Dixon discovered that the team played two games in Hutchinson. The city’s first night game took place on Sept. 27, 1930. The Monarchs returned to Salt City in 1935 to play the white House of David team, which was composed of members of a Michigan commune.
In 1929, Haskell Indian School in Lawrence was the first school to install lights for nighttime games. The Monarchs traveled to Lawrence to practice under the lights.
“Lights were installed all over the country, which saved baseball during the Depression because working people could go after work,” Dixon said.
At the end of his presentation, Dixon pulled out a trumpet and led the audience in a rousing rendition of “Take Me Out To The Ball Game.”
Dr. JohnElla Holmes is the CEO and president of the Kansas Black Farmers Association. She presented virtually about the famous Exoduster town Nicodemus, located in Grant County.
Holmes tied Dixon’s baseball knowledge together with stories about sports figures from Nicodemus. Baseball player Freddy Switzer is reported to have hit a home run off the legendary Satchel Paige, and his brother Veryl integrated the Green Bay Packers in 1954.
Holmes is a fifth-generation descendant of Nicodemus homesteaders. She retired from Kansas State University in 2015 and returned to her hometown.
“I came back home. We call Nicodemus ‘home,'” she said.
She described the complex legal land arrangements in the town and surrounding area that led to its designation as a national historic site and administration by the National Park Service. She noted that one of the park rangers is a direct descendant of the town’s first homesteaders.
The first settlers built dugouts because the area had no trees. On Oct. 20, 1977, the first baby was born in Grant County. The town welcomed 300 more settlers in 1878. Most early homesteaders were from Kentucky and celebrated “The Colored People’s Fair” annually, commemorating the August 1, 1934, British Slavery Abolition Act, which freed slaves in the West Indies. The celebration spread to other towns, including Hutchinson, and is now part of the annual Emancipation Day commemorations held on the first weekend of August.
The annual event became one of the biggest celebrations in Kansas, bringing people from around the area, including soldiers from Fort Hays and Fort Larned. Due to segregation laws, there was a dance floor for the whites and one for blacks.
Nicodemus’s population declined rapidly in the 1950s because crop farming experienced some difficult years. In 2023, the census showed 17 residents in the town and another 65 living in the township as farmers.
Holmes talked about her mother’s musical group, The Williams Sisters, who released an album in 1973 that included “We’ve Come a Long Way.” That song is played in one of the historical buildings. Holmes sang the song to the audience’s applause.
“When you see that people were free to live freely, have their own land, and worship as they want, you’ll see how important that was,” she said. “Several black women were allowed to homestead in Grant County.”
Holmes turned to her role with the Kansas Black Farmers Association, which was formed in 1999 to combat discrimination in farm assistance programs. In 2014, it expanded to include urban gardeners, now called “urban growers” and “urban farmers.”
The association collaborates with Kansas State University to introduce urban children to agricultural students who are members of minority groups. The kids learn about sustainability and water and go to Nicodemus, where they learn about history.
“They see it doesn’t have to be called ‘black history.’ It’s just history,” Holmes said. “That’s what they learn; it takes us all to work together.”
The KBFA now has over 190 members, including growers and product developers. It also offers programs such as health screenings. The organization was awarded over $50 million in grants last year. They saved two farms from closure and supported eleven new farmers. Kansas only has seventeen black crop row farms.
The KBFA has expanded to include farmers in Texas, Oklahoma and Nebraska, offering succession planning and heir property laws classes. NBA superstar Magic Johnson funds that program.
Haven resident Jennifer Vierthaler said that her family had initially homesteaded in the St. John area but were forced off the land. A Stafford County historian came across old photos of black families and looked at property records to see what happened to them.
“We have got to get it together on Emancipation because it’s all we’ve got. If we don’t do it, we’re doomed,” Vierthaler said.
Natasha Russell of Hutchinson Emancipation Day is working with a national organization to learn more about tracing land records.
She described the work as “Finding information on doing genealogy regarding land rights, land that was later stripped from [black settlers].”
The participants were invited to a soup dinner provided by Iverson’s Smokehouse.
Russell wants to hold an annual Emancipation Day workshop. She sees abolition and emancipation as fundamental to American ideals.
“The dictionary definition of emancipation is ‘The fact or process of being set free from legal, social, or political restrictions. Liberation. Abolition.
“Abolition and emancipation are not just for black people. They are for everyone. Emancipation is dear to American democracy and the ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. White people were the abolitionists. They had the privilege to do it. We have to remember that progress happens when people come together for change,” she said.
Baseball historian and author Phil Dixon, left, prepares to lead the audience in singing "Take Me Out To The Ball Game," while Dr. JohnElla Holmes, CEO and President of the Kansas Black Farmers Association, watches virtually on Mon., Feb. 17, 2925 in Memorial Hall CREDIT
