Why Kansas? Dockum Drug Store Sit-in July 1958.
Kansas: U.S. Cradle of Direct Student Action to Desegregate Lunch Counters
Why Kansas? What was it about society in Wichita, Kansas beginning July 19, 1958, that allowed a few Students from the local Wichita NAACP Youth Council to successfully desegregate Rexall Drugstore lunch counters throughout the state in three weeks and two days? Were Wichita whites more socially ready to accept desegregation in 1958 than whites form other places in the country? Had Kansans been inculcated to accept and promote integration of blacks and whites? What was the history of Kansas that made it the petri dish of this specific type of protest’s success? These questions are complex and multifaceted.
To attempt an answer, we must reexamine the racial and political history of the formation of the Kansas psyche. What events led to this moment and influenced the behavior of all involved? To find out we must go all the way back to before there was a Kansas. Before the Territory was established. Before there were immigrants other than itinerant buffalo hunters, fur trappers, and frontiersmen. All the way back to the Missouri Compromise of 1820, when the 16th American Congress passed a law admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state in exchange for legislation which prohibited slavery in the Louisiana Purchase lands[1] north of the 36°30′ parallel except for Missouri. At this time everyone in the land thought it was settled ‘once and for all’.
And it was… until 1854 when another law was passed by the US Congress called the Kansas-Nebraska Act. This was the legislation that organized the Kansas and Nebraska Territories.[2] Congress felt it necessary to pass this legislation to facilitate the building of a transcontinental railroad with Federal assistance land grants. In the process, slave state Senators, with their northern Democrat Party compatriots, were able to include in this legislation a proviso that repealed the Missouri Compromise and opened the territories to ‘popular sovereignty’. This construct allowed citizens of each territory to choose to be slave or free as set forth in the Kansas-Nebraska Act; “…Territory of Kansas; and when admitted as a State or States, the said Territory, or any portion of the same, shall be received into the Union with or without slavery, as their Constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission…”.[3]
The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and its inherent repeal of the Missouri Compromise set off a rush of pro-slavery and anti-slavery citizens from various Northern and Southern States to ensure the position, one way or another, of the State regarding slavery.[4] This fight over slavery, yes or no, set off a series of armed confrontations between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces known as “Bleeding Kansas”. This conflict brought out the worst in political battling over territory prior to the civil war. Kansas became the focus of the ideological battle in the country over slavery and its future in the US. Many battles were fought, many people killed, wounded, impoverished, and left homeless in the Bleeding Kansas years of 1854 to 1859.[5]
One of the determining factors in the struggle for Kansas to be a free State was the work of Eli Thayer and the Emigrant Aid Society of Massachusetts.[6] Mr. Thayer through his unceasing and inexhaustible efforts, in 1854 through 1859, to recruit New England Patriots and human rights activists to emigrate to Kansas and make it a free State, was decisive. In a world of 2950 or so registered voters in 1855 Kansas, Thayer had sent 1000 or more. Another 1000 or so had come because of the example set by the Thayer colony’s willingness to give up hearth and home to fight the expansion of slavery throughout the United States. Despite the 2950 determined number of ‘eligible’ voters on March 30, 1855, over 6900 votes were cast. These votes were certainly cast mostly by Missouri pro-slavery interlopers crossing the border claiming to be valid and authorized voters in Kansas.[7]
Not only was there a physical war during this time but also a war at the ballot box. The concept of ‘Popular Sovereignty’ drove extremes of abuse of suffrage and disenfranchisement of voters.[8] Elections saw hordes of pro-slavery voters from Missouri invading Kansas in the days and weeks before the March 1855 ballot only to see them return home to Missouri in the days following. Anti-slavery factions were trying to fend off pro-slavery interlopers to maintain the free-state government that they had historically envisioned through the 1820 Missouri Compromise[9]. The result of all this fighting and election fraud was two State Governments being constituted and vying for approval of the US Congress. One in Lecompton, Kansas (pro-slavery) and one in Wyandotte, Kansas (anti-slavery). This wrangling for Approval was blocked by senators from the Northern States in the case of the pro-slavery government and in 1859 by southern Senators in the case of the free-state government.[10] [11] It was not until the Southern States succeeded from the Union at the start of the Civil War that Kansas was admitted to the Union in January 1861 due to the absence of the Southern States Senators.[12] This was victory and vindication for Eli Thayer and his Emigrant Aid Society and the thousands of Christian civil rights activists he supported in colonizing Kansas.
Kansas finally being admitted as a free state set the tone for the events that followed. Kansas organizes the “First Kansas”, a Regiment of Colored Infantry at Fort Scott in July of 1863, becoming the first African American combat unit to see action in the Civil War.[13] After the war Congress authorized the enlistment of two permanent regiments of Colored Cavalry and two of Infantry headquartered at Fort Riley, Kansas.[14] The “Bleeding Kansas” boarder war did not abate after Kansas became a state. It intensified as Quantrill and his Raiders, and the Jayhawkers and Red Legs vied for control of the Kansas-Missouri boarder.[15] The First Kansas Colored troops fought mainly in Southern Kansas, the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), Arkansas, and southwestern Missouri.[16] There ended up being over 160 Civil War engagements in this area and the First Colored Infantry participated in several and were the first to fight alongside white troops in the Civil War. They were very successful soldiers as they knew that Confederate troops would give them no quarter in defeat. In fact, many times they were killed rather than taken prisoner. Other times they were put in irons to be sold into slavery in Texas. In support of the war effort, Kansas suffered more casualties as a percentage of the population than any other state at a rate of 61.01 deaths per 1,000 population.[17]
So, the people of Kansas at this time had been through a migration to save the state as free soil, had persevered through the years of ‘Bloody Kansas’, had fought off the pro-slavery usurpers, and brought a free state constitution to fruition. They had seen the Wyandotte Constitution presented to Congress and seen Kansas accepted as the 34th State in the Union on January 29, 1861. They had further fought and died in the Civil War, both Kansas whites and blacks. They built cities, farms, and industry in the process. When the smoke of war cleared, Kansas was populated by thousands of blacks as well as a stock of white Americans from New England and many other Northern States, mostly righteous and Christian, lovers of freedom for all, including ex-slaves.
In 1874, the Kansas state legislature enacted a civil rights law making it illegal for any business serving the public or operating under a municipal license to discriminate on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.[18] This law became a beacon to Southern Blacks who began a migration to Kansas from the south. This exodus, reaching a high tide in 1879 was a flood of refugees who became known as the Exodusters.[19] Again, Kansans strode to the line to provide for the health and welfare of thousands of black migrants, short of cash and other means to sustain themselves. The State responded by organizing several relief organizations to aid these people and help them get to a place where they could find work and begin a new life. Through a public/private partnership to provide a pathway to prosperity for many, if not most, who came from the South with nothing but themselves in many instances, the people of Kansas who had fought and died for the Exodusters freedom to leave the deplorable conditions in the South and seek prosperity and freedom, once again came through.[20] All this indicates that Kansans in the years after the Civil War were much more tolerant of racial integration than the Southern parts of the country especially after the end of reconstruction in 1877.
The struggle for desegregation and equality goes back and forth in Kansas for the next sixty years. World War II accelerates desegregation in industry (Boeing Military Airplane Company was in Wichita at the time) with the signing of Executive Order 8802 in 1941 and the armed services when Truman signed Executive Order 9981[21] in 1948. Then in February 1951 thirteen Topeka, Kansas families filed a lawsuit against the Board of Education to force desegregation of Topeka schools, becoming known as the famous Brown v. Board of Education 1954. It is no accident that the seminal case in desegregation in the US is being fought in Kansas. Given Kansans long and illustrious history of support for Blacks for over 100 years, time and again, fighting with everything they have including life and treasure, an overall belief that the desegregation resistance would be less here than other places that maintained ‘separate but equal’ schools was well founded. As most are aware, this effort to desegregate the schools was successful even though the full implementation would take another decade.
We then come to 1958 when we find local school children in Wichita, Kansas planning direct action as part of the local NAACP Youth Council, to desegregate Wichita’s lunch counters. Only in Kansas could such youth believe that they could achieve results in a non-violent yet persistent sit-in type of protest. Beginning July 19, 1958, and lasting 3 weeks and 2 days until August 11th, the Wichita NAACP Youth Council held a sit-in at the Dockums Drugstore lunch counter. Three days per week from 12 to 20 youths and young adults participated by sitting at the counter and politely refusing to leave without being served.[22] According to one report there were “friendly smiles” from many of the observers who passed through the store.[23] The group was Sponsored by the Wichita Chapter of the NAACP led by the adult supervisor Rosie Hughes who both participated in the Sit-in with her charges and provided adult supervision to the group in all other matters.[24] Ms. Hughes stated that she believed the sit-ins changed Wichita for the better. Even though she felt comfortable shopping downtown in certain stores before the sit-in, after, several other stores became more accommodating and friendly.[25] Another participant in the sit-in was Lequetta Glass Diggs. At the time of the sit-in, she had just graduated from North High School in Wichita. Ms. Diggs was not surprised that the Wichita Sit-in did not get much notice in the press because Black people were always being overlooked “so overlooking the Dockum Sit-in was par for the course”[26] Another of the Sit-in participants, Arlene Ruffin said she felt fortunate that she did not feel overt racial discrimination from her teachers or classmates growing up.[27] Ronald Walters was the President of the NAACP Youth Council in Wichita at the time of the sit-in. He subsequently earned a PhD and became the Head of the Political Science Department at Howard University. Dr. Walters had occasion to write about the Sit-in several times in various publications. In The American Vision he writes about the prevailing attitude toward desegregation.[28] There were no lynching’s, no violent resistance to school desegregation, Kansas was much like the Northern States in attitude rather than the South. On the other hand, the sit-in participants were trained and practiced being well dressed, courteous, and non-reactive to criticism.
Just a few hours before the sit-in started, the national board of the NAACP sent notice to Chester Lewis, the President of the Wichita Chapter that it would not approve of the ‘direct action’ method chosen by the youth council. Up to that time the NAACP had not endorsed anything other than lawsuits to fight racism and segregation. Chester Lewis backed the Youth Council and told them that if they had any legal issues with the sit-in, he would represent them pro-bono. The stated reason from the national NAACP was that they did not, up to that time sanction direct action as a form of protest. The sanctioned method of combating segregation was through the courts prior to the Wichita Sit-in.
Another of the other participants in the Sit-in at Dockums Drugs was Robert Newby who later became a doctor. Robert stated in his interview that he spent his summer vacations with his Grandparents in Arkansas. In contrast to Wichita, Dr. Newby stated, “I was able to experience segregation … on a very first-hand basis in Arkansas, so I clearly knew what that was about.”[29] This comparison indicated that at least to Dr. Newby, there was a difference in the intensity and character of segregation between Kansas and Arkansas. Segregation was felt personally and manifested itself in more subtle terms in the North. Certainly, in the in the South it was practiced more aggressively. In Wichita the Junior High and High Schools were already integrated for several years in 1958 while in Arkansas the Federal Government was still forcing the Central High School in Little Rock to desegregate.[30]
Why then was Wichita, Kansas the place where lunch counters were desegregated in August of 1958? The culture had a “Northern” mind set where slavery was not tolerated, black emigrants were accepted and fostered, as far back as 1854. So, for over 100 years Kansans were pushing and fighting to ensure that black people were free and had rights. Throughout the Bloody Kansas and Civil War years, Kansans fought slavery and died alongside blacks. In 1874 Kansas was one of the first states to recognize black rights through the legislature by passing anti-discrimination law. Throughout the third quarter of the 19th century, Kansas welcomed thousands of displaced blacks fleeing the aggressive type of segregation and discrimination of the South after reconstruction. In the 20th century, Kansas society although not perfect, was much more welcoming to blacks than any of the Southern states. Although there was still racism, segregation, and prejudice, it was on a different level and scale than that faced in much of the South. Most of the whites in Kansas were not that invested in segregation and did not hold on to it as tenaciously as the slave states did, especially by the 1950’s. Directly because of the litany of anti-slavery, anti-racism, and the multitude of social welfare programs in Kansas since the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Kansans in Wichita were ready to accept a black neighbor at the lunch counter at Dockums Drug Store. In the demure announcement of the Owner: Serve them[31], I’m losing too much money! With that, the lunch counters in Wichita were integrated, the Rexall Drug Store chain throughout Kansas followed suit. The Sit-in methodology was emulated later in the summer in Oklahoma and was successful. Finally, the more celebrated sit-ins in the South of 1960 and beyond began a more broad and final string of desegregation victories.
Bibliography Primary Sources
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“African Americans Served at Formerly Segregated Lunch Counter.” In The American Mosaic: The African American Experience, ABC-CLIO, 2021. Image. Accessed November 4, 2021. https://africanamerican2-abc-clio-com.ezproxy.liberty.edu/Search/Display/2255665.
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Hughes, Rosie. “Dockum Drug Store Oral History.” Interview by Staff. Wichita, Kansas. Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum Collection. November 20, 2007. Wichita State university Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, MS 2020-04 Box 1 FF 4.
10.
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“NAACP v. Button (1963).” Oxford African American Studies Center. 30 Sep. 2009; Accessed 4 Nov. 2021.https://oxfordaasc.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195301731.001.0001/acref-9780195301731-e-33798.
15.
National Parks Service, 79th Regiment, United States Colored Infantry. New Organization (1st Regiment Kansas Colored Infantry). Search For Battle Units – The Civil War (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov).
16.
NBC Today, Third Hour, Front row Seat to History. “How the Dockums Drug Store sit-in blazed a trail for civil rights.” Featuring Sheinelle Jones, Aired on February 1, 2021, on Network Television.How the Dockum Drug Store sit-in blazed a trail for civil rights (today.com), AND Trailblazers from historic 1958 Kansas sit-in share their stories with Sheinelle Jones (today.com).
17.
Neubauer, Mary. “Civil Rights Pioneer Recalls Wichita Sit-in.” Wichita Eagle, May 17, 1991, B 3.
18.
Newby, Robert, Dr. “Dockum Drug Store Oral History.” Interview by Staff. Mt. Pleasant, MI. Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum Collection. January 25, 2008. Wichita State university Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, MS 2020-04 Box 1 FF 4.
19.
“President Eisenhower’s Statements Concerning Little Rock, Arkansas (1957).” Oxford African American Studies Center. 30 Sep. 2009; Accessed 4 Nov. 2021.https://oxfordaasc.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195301731.001.0001/acref-9780195301731-e-33704.
20.
Report of the minority of the select committee, relative to the admission of Kansas into the Union, made to the Senate of Pennsylvania, March 17, 1858. Report of the minority of the select committee, relative to the admission of Kansas into the Union, made to the Senate of Pennsylvania, March 17, 1858. (1858 edition) | Open Library.
21.
Ruffin, Arlene Harris. “Dockum Drug Store Oral History.” Interview by Staff. Wichita, Kansas. Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum Collection. December 27, 2007. Wichita State university Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, MS 2020-04 Box 1 FF 4.
22.
Staff, “Youth Group Attempts Break in Discriminatory Practices at Dockums Drug Store” The Enlightener, August 2, 1958, Front Page, Vol. 1, No. 8.
23.
Staff. “Drug Store Picketed by NAACP.” The Wichita Beacon, August 3, 1958, C 1.
24.
United States Congress, Report of the Special Committee Appointed to Investigate the Troubles in Kansas; With the Views of the Minority of Said Committee. Report No. 200, 34th Congress, 1st Session, 1856. Report of the Special Committee Appointed to Investigate the Troubles in Kansas; With the Views of the Minority of Said Committee. Report No. 200, 34th Congress, 1st Session, 1856. (ku.edu).
25.
United States Congress, An Act for the Admission of Kansas into the Union. ks-act-for-admission-of-kansas.pdf.
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Unknown, “Kansas in the Civil War”, The Union Army, Vol. 4: A History of Military Affairs in the Loyal States 1861-85. Forgotten Books, February 8, 2018. Kansas Civil War Battles Casualties Army Soldiers Union US (thomaslegion.net).
27.
Walters, Ronald. “Trying to Fix history’s Mistake.” Wichita Eagle, November 11, 1990, B 1.
28.
Walters, Ronald. “Standing up in Americas Heartland; Sitting in Before Greensboro.” American Vision, Feb-Mar 1993, 20-3.
29.
Walters, Ronald. “The Great Plains Sit-in Movement, 1958-60.” Great Plains Quarterly, January 1, 1996, 1093. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/1093.
30.
Walters, Ronald. “Dockum Drug Store Oral History.” Interview by Staff. College Park, MD. Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum Collection. January 25, 2008. Wichita State university Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, MS 2020-04 Box 1 FF 4.
31.
Woods, Christina M. “National NAACP Plans to Recognize Local Efforts.” Wichita Eagle, June 2, 2006.
Bibliography: Secondary Sources
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2.
Chaudhuri, Nupur. “`We All Seem Like Brother and Sisters’: The African American Community in Manhattan, Kansas, 1865-1940.” Kansas History 14 (Winter 1991/92): 270-288.
3.
Doherty, Joseph P. Civil Rights in Kansas: Past, Present and Future. Topeka: Kansas Commission on Civil Rights, 1972.
4.
Etcheson, Nicole. Bleeding Kansas; Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004.
5.
Fellman, Michael. Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri during the American Civil War. New York: Oxford university Press, 1989.
6.
Gass, Tony. “Fred Shuttlesworth.” In The American Mosaic: The African American Experience, ABC-CLIO, 2021. Accessed November 4, 2021. https://africanamerican2-abc-clio-com.ezproxy.liberty.edu/Search/Display/1477495.
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Katz, Milton S., and Susan B. Tucker. “A Pioneer in Civil Rights: Esther Brown and the South Park Desegregation Case of 1948.” Kansas History 18 (Winter 1995/1996): 234-247.
8.
Malin, James C. “Kansas: Some Reflections on Culture Inheritance and Originality [1854-1905].” Journal of the Central Mississippi Valley American Studies Association 2 (Fall 1961): 3-19.
9.
McCusker, Kristine M. “`The Forgotten Years’ of America’s Civil Rights Movement: Wartime Protests at the University of Kansas, 1939-1945.” Kansas History 17 (Spring 1994): 26-37.
10.
Morello, John. “Sit-In Movement.” In The American Mosaic: The African American Experience, ABC-CLIO, 2021. Accessed November 4, 2021. https://africanamerican2-abc-clio-com.ezproxy.liberty.edu/Search/Display/1477498.
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Painter, Nell Irvin. Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas After Reconstruction. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977.
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Raffel, Jeffrey. “Desegregation.” In The American Mosaic: The African American Experience, ABC-CLIO, 2021. Accessed December 4, 2021. https://africanamerican2-abc-clio-com.ezproxy.liberty.edu/Search/Display/1390565.
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Van Meter, Sondra. “Black Resistance to Segregation in the Wichita Public Schools, 1870-1912.” Midwest Quarterly 20 (Autumn 1978): 64-77.
[1] The Library of Congress, A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debate, 1774-1875, Missouri Compromise, Statutes at Large, 16th Congress, 1st Session, 546-548
[2]Ibid., 277-290
[3] The Library of Congress, A Century of Lawmaking, 284.
[4] Eli Thayer, History of the Kansas Crusade, its Friends and its Foes, (New York: Cornell University Library, 1889), xiv-xv.
[5] Nicole Etcheson, Bleeding Kansas; Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era, (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2004), 89-138.
[6] Thayer, The Kansas Crusade, 232-3.
[7] United States Congress, Report of the Special Committee Appointed to Investigate the Troubles in Kansas; With the Views of the Minority of Said Committee. Report No. 200, 34th Congress, 1st Session, 1856. 1-1204. Report of the Special Committee Appointed to Investigate the Troubles in Kansas: with the views of the minority of said committee: United States. Congress. House. Special Committee Appointed to Investigate Troubles in Kansas: Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming: Internet Archive
[8] The Kansas City Public Library, Broadside “Kansas Election! Qualification of Voters. Dissection of the Oath prescribed by the Governor.” The Contested Election of 1855 | Civil War on the Western Border: The Missouri-Kansas Conflict, 1854-1865
[9] Report of the Special Committee Appointed to Investigate the Troubles in Kansas. 4-24.
[10] Abraham Lincoln papers: Series 1. General Correspondence. 1833-1916: Martin F. Conway to Abraham Lincoln, Friday, November 09, 1860. Image 2 of Abraham Lincoln papers: Series 1. General Correspondence. 1833-1916: Martin F. Conway to Abraham Lincoln, Friday, November 09, 1860 (Urges statehood for Kansas) | Library of Congress (loc.gov)
[11]Report of the minority of the select committee, relative to the admission of Kansas into the Union, made to the Senate of Pennsylvania, March 17, 1858. Report of the minority of the select committee, relative to the admission of Kansas into the Union, made to the Senate of Pennsylvania, March 17, 1858. (1858 edition) | Open Library
[12] United States Congress, An Act for the Admission of Kansas into the Union. ks-act-for-admission-of-kansas.pdf
[13] National Park Service, First to Serve-1st Kansas Colored Infantry Regiment, First to Serve-1st Kansas Colored Infantry Regiment (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)
[14] Ibid. 1.
[15] Michael Fellman, Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri during the American Civil War, (New York: Oxford university Press, 1989), 23.
[16] National Parks Service, 79th Regiment, United States Colored Infantry. New Organization (1st Regiment Kansas Colored Infantry), 1. Search For Battle Units – The Civil War (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)
[17]Unknown, “Kansas in the Civil War”, The Union Army, Vol. 4: A History of Military Affairs in the Loyal States 1861-85, (Forgotten Books, February 8, 2018), 1. Kansas Civil War Battles Casualties Army Soldiers Union US (thomaslegion.net)
[18] Jean Van Delinder, “Early Civil Rights Activism in Topeka, Kansas, Prior to the 1954 Brown Case”, Great Plains Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Winter 2001), 47.
[19] Robert G Athearn, In Search of Canaan: Black Migration to Kansas, 1879-1880. (Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas, 1978), 55-8.
[20] Athearn, In Search of Canaan., 61.
[21] Executive Order 9981, July 26, 1948; General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National Archives.
[22] Staff, “Drug Store Picketed by NAACP”, Wichita Beacon, August 3, 1958, C 1.
[23] Staff, “Youth Group Attempts Break in Discriminatory Practices at Dockum Drug Store” The Enlightener”, Vol 1, No.8 August 7, 1958.
[24] Rosie Hughes, Oral History Interview by Staff, November 20, 2007, Wichita, Kansas, Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum Collection of Dockum Drug Store Sit-in Oral Histories, 2006-2008, Wichita State university Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, MS 2020-04 Box 1 FF 4. 23.
[25] Ibid., 24
[26] Lequetta Glass Diggs, Oral History Interview by Staff, November 20, 2007, Wichita, Kansas, Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum Collection of Dockum Drug Store Sit-in Oral Histories, 2006-2008, Wichita State university Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, MS 2020-04 Box 1 FF 4. 28.
[27] Arlene Harris Ruffin, Oral History Interview by Staff, December 27, 2007, Wichita, Kansas, Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum Collection of Dockum Drug Store Sit-in Oral Histories, 2006-2008, Wichita State university Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, MS 2020-04 Box 1 FF 4. 5.
[28] Ronald Walters, “Standing up in Americas Heartland; Sitting in Before Greensboro.” American Vision, Feb-Mar 1993, 20.
[29] Robert Newby, Dr., Oral History Interview by Staff, January 25, 2008, Mt. Pleasant MI, Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum Collection of Dockum Drug Store Sit-in Oral Histories, 2006-2008, Wichita State university Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, MS 2020-04 Box 1 FF 4. 7.
[30] Ibid., 10
[31] Ronald Walters. “Dockum Drug Store Oral History.” Interview by Staff. College Park, MD. Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum Collection. January 25, 2008. Wichita State university Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, MS 2020-04 Box 1 FF 4. 3.
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