The Lawrence of the 1960s and 1970s wasn’t the somewhat progressive, leftish-leaning city some people think it is today. According to Rusty Monhollon, University alumnus and author of “’This is America?’ The Sixties in Lawrence, Kansas,” the community was tense and polarized along several different issues, such as the Vietnam War, racial issues, and culture, in terms of music and dress.
“It felt apocalyptic, it felt like it could be the end … that it was going to come to a battle in this town,” Nancy Stark, a Lawrence-local and former University student, said.
Lawrence continually props itself up as having been built on a legacy of the free state fighting on behalf of black people and others during the Civil War, despite the fact that Kansas, like the rest of America, was built by black people on stolen land in tandem with indigenous genocide. Unsurprisingly, the town has always had and still has its own struggles with race.
Lawrence is not all it is pretended to be, or what people say it is and was. It, like the rest of America, contains a very problematic, historically deadly, and often hypocritical white community. In many ways it’s willful ignorance; it’s a lot easier perpetuate a false narrative that this place has always been a center for freedom, and it just hasn’t been. In many more ways it’s home to blatant racism and anti-blackness. Full stop.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the university instituted a number of Jim Crow policies, like segregation in the Student Union.
While the university excluded black people from living in the dormitories, the city worked to limit housing near campus to white students.
While it’s not really all that hard to imagine why and how this happened, Bill Tuttle, professor emeritus in the American Studies Department said, “It’s kind of hard to know why this happened. I think one reason is that some of the prominent abolitionists that had been the conscience of the community had died.”
KU also barred black students from participating in intercollegiate sports teams and other extracurricular activities like orchestra and student council.
Tuttle said that the period from the 1890s to the 1920s was a period of increased racism across the country with things like the rise of the Klu Klux Klan.
In fact, the university had a sanctioned club called the “Ku Ku Klan,” which would “perform” in klan sheets and hoods on campus.
“They handed out the programs at the football games and marched down the field at halftime,” Tuttle said. “The chancellor, Phog Allen, and the dean of men all thought it was a wonderful idea.”
Yes, even the city’s beloved Phog Allen was a blatant racist and supporter of the KKK.
Fast forwarding once again to 1970, the tension reached a climax during the scorching hot summer, when Rick “Tiger” Dowdell, a 19-year-old black University student, was shot and killed in the alley between New Hampshire and Rhode Island streets by Lawrence police.
On July 16, 1970, Dowdell and a friend were driving in a Volkswagen to campus and noticed they were being tailed by Lawrence police. They got hung up on a curb and Dowdell went into the alley on foot.
What exactly happened in that alley is still unclear to some residents, but we know officer William Garret fired four shots from his .357 magnum, with one going through the back of Dowdell’s head. In other words, he was viciously and. cowardously murdered from behind while rightfully fleeing for his life from the racist police.
Upon hearing the news, Stephen Dowdell, one of Rick’s six older brothers, was infuriated and went to the police station and began shooting at the station building with a pistol until he ran out of bullets, but Lawrence police did nothing in retaliation.
“I guess they were so guilty that they killed my brother,” Stephen said.
The police’s relationship with the Dowdell family started off horrifically. As kids, they had a pet Dalmatian, but according to Stephen, one of their neighbors just didn’t like the dog and called the police falsely claiming it had bit them. The police showed up to the Dowdells’ home and called for their father, Frank, to bring out the dog. He refused, but Stephen said police threatened to arrest Frank if he didn’t comply.
Frank brought the dog out and Lawrence police subsequently shot the dog in the head.
“There we are, eight, nine years old, watching this. So what would make them think we would like the police after that anymore? We saw them shoot our best dog, our only dog and then they just got in their car and just took off and the dog was still laying there,” Stephen said.
Dowdell was a black rights activist involved with the Black Student Union and Afro House. Afro House was an institution partially funded by student senate and essentially served as Lawrence’s own Black Panther Party. Located at 946 Rhode Island St., the house offered breakfast and lunch programs for less-fortunate children and was a common hangout spot for Lawrence’s black youth. This was a direct reflection of the heroic Black Panter Party of the time.
While in high school, Dowdell participated in a 1968 student walkout at Lawrence High School, according to Monhollon’s book, which demanded things such as black representation on the cheerleading squad, black history courses, black literature courses and the hiring of black teachers and administrators. Reopening the investigation of his death was also included in the 15 demands Rock Chalk Invisible Hawks made in November.
On July 23, 1970, Dowdell was buried. During the procession hundreds of people marched down Vermont Street, then to Ninth Street and finally to St. Luke A.M.E. Church, located at 900 New York St. The men and women marching with Dowdell’s casket donned massive afros and black clothing. According to Tuttle, there was a man sitting on the casket with a rifle.
“I thought something terrible might take place, but it didn’t,” Tuttle said.
Dowdell’s death was met with several protests on campus and throughout Lawrence, but the violence didn’t stop there. Nick Rice, another University student, was also killed by a Lawrence police officer who recklessly shot into a crowd during a protest. Just like Dowdell, Rice was shot through the back of the head. According to Monhollon, Dowdell’s death is strikingly similar to deaths of numerous black people in recent memory.
Due to advances in technology and social media, we’ve seen an increase in the visible number of incidents between police departments and mostly unarmed young black men over the last several years. This is directly reminiscent of what happened in Lawrence in 1970 and how Rick Dowdell was killed at the hands of Lawrence police.
Forty-eight years later, the deaths of unarmed people at the hands of law enforcement bring back painful memories for Stephen. The 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., particularly struck a nerve for Stephen. According to the New York Times, Brown was laying on the ground for four hours. Stephen said his brother laid in the alley for just as long as Brown did in Ferguson, if not longer.
“It does make me feel kind of angry inside that after all them years, the same thing is still happening and I’m just trying to comprehend why is this still happening?” Dowdell said.
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Adapted from an article in The University Daily Kansan by Ryan Wright (July 24, 2016).
