History of Sumner High School
1905-1978
Sumner High School was a unique and very influential
public school in Kansas. It was established in Kansas City, Kansas
in response to the threat of racial violence in the city and a growing
demand for the exclusion of African American students from the local
high school. The push for segregation led the Kansas State Legislature
to pass a law in 1905 which exempted only Kansas City, Kansas from
the state law prohibiting racially segregated public high schools.
Reluctantly, the Governor of Kansas, E. W. Hoch, signed the "school
segregation bill," but successfully persuaded Kansas City, Kansas
voters to finance the construction of a new high school building
for African Americans that cost not less than $40,000 and which
was to be as well equipped as the existing high school building.
Sumner
High School Building, 1905-1940,
9th and Washington Blvd., Kansas City, KS
Located in a new structure at 9th and Washington
Boulevard, Sumner High School opened in the fall of 1905 under the
principalship of J.E. Patterson, an African American graduate of
the University of Chicago. After considerable discussion, the local
African American community named the high school Sumner, in honor
of one of the nation's most prominent abolitionists, Senator Charles
Sumner. Determined to overcome the inequities of racial segregation,
the teachers, students and community members of Sumner High School
strove to develop a tradition of academic excellence. Among other
things, they countered the local school board's proposals for an
emphasis on manual training courses by implementing a curriculum
at Sumner that emphasized college preparatory classes.
By 1914, Sumner was a member of the prestigious
North Central Association of Secondary Schools. Throughout the following
decades, the students of Sumner became well known for their academic
achievements, while the Sumner faculty earned a reputation for having
the highest percentage of graduate degrees among the public school
teachers in Kansas City, Kansas. Together, Sumner High School students
and faculty provided valuable leadership for Kansas and the Kansas
region – and to the nation – for most of the 20th century.
Sumner High School Building,
1940-1978
8th and Oakland Ave., Kansas City, KS
Under a federally mandated plan for racial integration
of schools in Kansas City, Kansas, Sumner was closed in 1978. But
the legacy of pride and achievement that Sumner High School created
has continued. In 1985, graduates of Sumner High School convened
a national reunion and ten years later held a national convention.
The second national convention of Sumner Alumni is being held in
July 2000.
It is fitting to recall the words of an African American educator
of 1935: "Sumner is a child not of our own volition but rather an
offspring of the race antipathy of a bygone period. It was a veritable
blessing in disguise – a flower of which we may proudly say,
'The bud had a bitter taste, but sweet indeed is the flower.'"
