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CITY OF LAWRENCE, KANSAS
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LAWRENCE FAIR HOUSING ORDINANCE
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50th ANNIVERSARY ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
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Interview of Richard & Phyllis Sapp
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October 28, 2016
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MR. ARNOLD:
Today is October 28th, 2016.
I
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am local historian Tom Arnold interviewing Dr.
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Richard Sapp and Mrs. Phyllis Sapp at the Lawrence
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Public Library in Lawrence, Kansas, for the City
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of Lawrence Fair Housing Ordinance 50th
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Anniversary Oral History Project.
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At the time the ordinance passed in July,
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1967, Richard was a professor on the faculty of
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the University of Kansas and Phyllis was active in
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community organizations, such as the Lawrence
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League of Women Voters.
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To start off, I would like to have both of
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you tell me a little bit about your backgrounds
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and what you were doing in Lawrence in the 1960s.
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MRS. SAPP:
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DR. SAPP:
You go ahead.
We came to Lawrence in 1957 when I
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got a position with the University of Kansas in
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the Physics and Astronomy Department, and that was
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just at the end of the era when Wilt Chamberlain
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had made some inroads in the civil rights areas by
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the sheer size of his presence, such as
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integrating barber shops and movie theaters.
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A big issue right after we came was the
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swimming pool.
There was a private pool called
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the Jayhawk Plunge down on Sixth and Florida
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Street and it was open only to members, white
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members was understood, and an attempt was made to
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try to integrate that pool and instead it was
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closed and so the city was doing without a public
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pool at that time, and later there was a temporary
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one down in the south part of town, before the
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swimming pool complex was constructed downtown.
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I was invited to participate in the picketing
and protesting at the Plunge but I had just
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arrived in town and didn't have a firm grasp on
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the local politics by any means and I also felt I
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didn't have any tenure at the university and I
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just didn't want to stick my head out at that
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time.
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footing and then I could participate in these
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things that I wanted to.
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Later, of course, I was on more firm
MRS. SAPP:
Well, I came because Dick came.
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We'd just been married a few months before but we
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knew each other at Ohio State University, where I
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did my undergraduate work and Dick did his
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graduate work, and I was very happy to move west
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from Ohio.
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parents had come from South Dakota so I always
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felt that going west was best and happy to move
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out here.
I grew up in northern Illinois and my
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I had been to Lawrence once with a group from
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Ohio State coming to a conference so I liked the
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place, and I liked the fact that it was near a
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city, that's been a big advantage, or two cities
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actually.
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But Dick's right about the swimming pool.
I
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don't remember it was members only because I
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actually went there with a neighbor or friend
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asked me one time and I wondered about this, but I
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decided I would go and see what it was like.
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Wasn't that much, that great a swimming pool, for
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that matter.
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So after that we did not participate in it,
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and we didn't go to any pool unless it was open to
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the public until the one downtown was opened.
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would not join a swimming pool, and our children
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remember that.
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or one of their early lessons in, you know,
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everyone needs to have access to these public,
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what should be public, like the pool.
We
It was one of their first lessons
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(9:58:13)
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MR. ARNOLD:
Right.
And I'll come back to
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the swimming pool, I've got a question about that
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later, particularly in what involvement you may
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have had in the effort to get the bond issue
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finally passed after the Fair Housing Ordinance
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passed the same year but later.
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When you arrived in Lawrence in those early
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years how did the racial environment, the climate
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of racial relations strike you, how did the
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degrees of discrimination, segregation strike you
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as compared to what you may have been used to and
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the attitudes that you had grown up with in Ohio?
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MRS. SAPP:
I moved to Ohio when I was about
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14.
I don't -- it was pretty usual -- well, no,
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it was worse than in northern -- in northern
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Illinois, very near Wisconsin border, there wasn't
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much said about, at least about black/white kinds
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of things.
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against Jews, to a small extent anyway, at least
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talk about it, but not, I don't think excluded, at
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least not from anything I knew about it.
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course, I was pretty young and I didn't know about
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things like country clubs and that kind of thing.
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So when we moved to Columbus, southern Ohio,
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I was taken aback by some of the segregation, and
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particularly in our high school.
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fellow who was very active and well liked.
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went on a senior class trip to Washington, D.C.,
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and he was not allowed to eat in the cafeteria
I know there was discrimination
Of
We had a black
We
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where we were eating.
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I went into the cafeteria.
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what to do at that point, because I remember one
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of the teachers staying out with him and I don't
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know where they went to find some food.
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shocked me, so that was part of the whole thing.
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(10:00:32)
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MR. ARNOLD:
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I've always regretted that
Right.
I guess I didn't know
That
Richard, how did you
find Lawrence compared to your experiences growing
up?
DR. SAPP:
Actually my small hometown in
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southwestern Ohio was very much like Lawrence when
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we came.
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MR. ARNOLD:
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DR. SAPP:
Okay.
It was understood that blacks had
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to use certain facilities and not others, certain
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area in the theater where they could sit but not
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others.
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to me and I didn't like it, I never liked it, but
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I had never really taken any public stands against
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it up to this time.
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(10:01:07)
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MR. ARNOLD:
All that kind of thing was very familiar
Right.
To describe Lawrence a
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little bit, what you found once you came here, you
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have already mentioned the inroads that Wilt
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Chamberlain and some of the K.U. athletes made and
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also the swimming pool issue.
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of discrimination or segregation in Lawrence
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struck you at that time as being, you know,
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particularly objectionable?
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segregation quite obvious?
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MRS. SAPP:
What other aspects
Was housing
Well, it certainly was there.
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was very much so, fairly obvious, I think, yes,
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and I think there was still some segregation in
It
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the theater.
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really, or in just, in some of the public places
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like this, because I think with Wilt coming they
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got the theaters desegregated.
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Well, I don't know in the theaters
The restaurants, I'm not really -- well, we
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didn't have that many restaurants.
In fact,
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Lawrence was really, when we came here Lawrence
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had something like 27,000 people, which to me was
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very small, because I'd always lived in bigger
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cities, and I don't know, the kind of restaurants
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that were here, I don't really know too much about
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that.
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But, yes, and we kept hearing about
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segregation, and this Lawrence League for the
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Practice of Democracy had started working against
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segregation and toward integration and what could
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be done there.
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very indignant to see people not able to buy homes
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and such.
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It made a person, well, it made me
Now, this is getting toward the ordinance and
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what we did for that so maybe Dick wants to speak
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before I do.
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DR. SAPP:
Well, I was just going to comment
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that this is leading right into our first kind of
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involvement.
We think it was somebody at the
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League of Women Voters who told us about a program
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of white people visiting in negro people's homes
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in Lawrence and talking about their experience
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with housing segregation, so we went to one of
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these meetings at James and Elizabeth Chieks'
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house, C-h-i-e-k-s.
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MRS. SAPP:
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DR. SAPP:
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MRS. SAPP:
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Near the hospital.
It was over in that area -That's where they could buy a
house.
DR. SAPP:
-- near the hospital, and there
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were six or eight of us visiting there and we
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talked about their experience in trying to buy a
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house where they saw a realtor and he told them
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where he could show them a house in Lawrence and
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it was only in areas where black people already
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lived, essentially redlining.
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MR. ARNOLD:
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DR. SAPP:
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MR. ARNOLD:
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Right, right.
Yes.
Yes, that's what we've heard.
It's been described by several people to us.
DR. SAPP:
So that really fired up my feeling
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of this is very unfair and play along to our other
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activities, I think.
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(10:04:39)
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MR. ARNOLD:
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Right.
How about your own
neighborhood where you all lived?
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DR. SAPP:
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MR. ARNOLD:
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MRS. SAPP:
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(10:04:45)
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MR. ARNOLD:
Was it --
All white.
All-white neighborhood?
All white.
Yes, pretty much the surveys
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that were done at the time showed that most of the
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neighborhoods were either --
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DR. SAPP:
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MRS. SAPP:
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DR. SAPP:
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MR. ARNOLD:
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DR. SAPP:
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MR. ARNOLD:
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North Lawrence, East Lawrence, -The hospital.
-- some in the northwest, -Right, kind of Pinckney, --
-- around Pinckney.
-- West Lawrence neighborhood,
but even within those neighborhoods usually it was
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confined to a block or two --
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DR. SAPP:
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MR. ARNOLD:
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Yes.
-- where they tended to be
congregated.
Any other forms of discrimination that were
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apparent?
Employment discrimination?
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to a store downtown would you most likely find
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only white clerks in most of the stores or --
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MRS. SAPP:
Yes.
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(10:05:19)
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MR. ARNOLD:
If you went
Yes, I would say so.
What would you say, before I get
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into -- and I want to talk to you about not only
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what motivated you all to get involved, which
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you've already touched on, but also talk about
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kind of what motivated other people that you
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recall, but what do you think were the major
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impediments to bringing about changes to those
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things?
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you to name names, but groups or local interests
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that were opposed to change that you can remember?
I mean, were there, and I don't expect
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MRS. SAPP:
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DR. SAPP:
Oh yes.
Well, about this time in the
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middle '60s was when there was a fair housing bill
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in the Kansas Legislature and people in Lawrence
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were amazed to find that the fight against that
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bill was led by realtors from Lawrence.
Four,
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four agencies sent people over there to testify
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against it.
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probably not important anymore.
I could name some names but it's
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(10:06:20)
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MR. ARNOLD:
You can probably find those
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names in the newspaper if you wanted to look for
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them.
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DR. SAPP:
Yes.
And so, again, that was
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motivation for us to try to do something better
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here, since we were not going to get it on the
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state level apparently.
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(10:06:40)
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MR. ARNOLD:
Right.
So would you say, and
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I'm jumping a little bit ahead, but was part of
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the motivation of moving forward to pursue a local
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ordinance the disappointment --
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MRS. SAPP:
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MR. ARNOLD:
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wasn't taking action?
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DR. SAPP:
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MRS. SAPP:
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DR. SAPP:
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MRS. SAPP:
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Yes.
-- with the fact that the state
Yes.
Definitely.
Definitely.
The Human Relations Commission
had been formed, what, around, around '64?
You
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probably have the date better than I.
MR. ARNOLD:
Little bit earlier than that, I
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think about a year after the swimming pool, '61,
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'62 time frame.
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MRS. SAPP:
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MR. ARNOLD:
Okay.
Okay.
But they really didn't become a
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very active organization I would say until
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probably '64 and after.
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MRS. SAPP:
All right, yes.
So people there
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took up the cause, and the League of Women Voters
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had helped or encouraged the Human Relations
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Commission to get started, and I just don't
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remember who specifically set up this program
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where we'd go and visit at the Chieks' or at
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someone's house and hear firsthand what their
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experiences with housing were but I think it
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probably arose out of the study that the League of
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Women did.
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research and study an issue, will take a stand on
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issues, not on political candidates, so I can't
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say exactly but -- and it was a small -- it wasn't
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that huge a number of people did this but I think
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there were several groups that --
They always, and they still do,
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MR. ARNOLD:
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MRS. SAPP:
Right.
I can actually --
-- did this and it just was so
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powerful to hear people actually, you know, say I,
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you know, I was not allowed to buy a house
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anywhere but here or here or here, and they had
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the money.
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necessarily, this was people who were what we
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might say middle class economically and they could
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have afforded a house in other areas.
This was not low cost housing
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MR. ARNOLD:
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MRS. SAPP:
Right.
I also, this probably should come
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later, but I will say that in our neighborhood on
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our street we had a couple of black families move
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in after, after the ordinance.
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(10:08:59)
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MR. ARNOLD:
Well, that's good, because we've
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tried to get a sense in some of the interviews as
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to whether people saw change come about.
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often change comes about slowly, but that is
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something I'd like to raise with you to kind of
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get a sense of how apparent change was after the
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ordinance was passed.
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Yes, actually in the probably '64, '65 time
frame the NAACP did a housing survey --
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MRS. SAPP:
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MR. ARNOLD:
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I know
Yes.
-- and they found that of all
the new neighborhoods built since the early 1950s,
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not a single black family resided in any of them
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and I think then at the time the ordinance was
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passed somebody else had done a survey and found
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by then there was only one African-American family
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in all those neighborhoods, so it hadn't changed
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much in that time.
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The United Church Women of Lawrence did a
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housing survey and I think did some housing visits
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and gathered signatures in support of fair
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housing, the League of Women Voters I know did
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their own study, so there was quite a bit of
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interest and activity.
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Now, we've already touched on it a little
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bit, but a group that actually started looking
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into it even earlier was the League for the
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Promotion of Democracy.
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involved in that organization?
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MRS. SAPP:
Were the two of you
We were not members of that
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Lawrence League for the Practice of Democracy.
We
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did know about it.
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moved here and I think we were just getting into
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the community and into the university and what was
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going on and that, then into the League of Women
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Voters, which had many of the same members in
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these groups, so we were not actually members but
We were told about it when we
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we certainly supported -- they were the very first
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grassroots, I would say.
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(10:10:41)
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MR. ARNOLD:
Right.
They actually started in
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1946 and the story is in their own little history
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that they wrote that it came about because an
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African-American World War II veteran had come
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back to Lawrence after fighting in the war and was
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ejected from a movie theater in Lawrence because
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he wouldn't sit in the colored-only section and
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that upset enough people that they formed that
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group to start fighting discrimination.
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You have talked a little bit about what
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motivated the two of you to get involved in these
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types of groups and to work on bringing about
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these kind of changes.
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other people who were involved and what kind of
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motivated them in general and was there pretty
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significant involvement of the university
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community in that?
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some of your colleagues and --
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MRS. SAPP:
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DR. SAPP:
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MRS. SAPP:
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the university.
Can you kind of generalize
Were they particularly active,
Yes.
Yes, yes, I would say.
I'd say a big part of it was from
University people didn't worry
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about the customers; they had the customers, the
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students.
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jobs, or losing friends, for that matter.
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there would be some but, you know, it tended, I'm
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going to reinforce what a lot of people think,
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that university people, people who work and teach
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at universities are liberal and -- at least in
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these views.
They didn't worry about losing their
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(10:12:08)
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MR. ARNOLD:
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MRS. SAPP:
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MR. ARNOLD:
I mean,
Right, and generally -I would say so.
-- far more diverse because
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they've come from all parts of the country so they
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have a different, broader world view.
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MRS. SAPP:
Yes, this is very true.
As I
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said, my experience of like, I don't -- I'm sure
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where I grew up in Rockford, Illinois, there was
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no -- blacks were able to sit anywhere in the
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theater.
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segregated, so all this was a surprise; not a
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surprise but, you know, just foreign to me,
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different.
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I don't remember a thing about being
DR. SAPP:
Another source of my motivation
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was that in the middle '60s we had become members
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of First Methodist Church and I became first a
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member and then the chair of what they called the
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Committee on Social Concerns and so I was sort of
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casting around for a direction to lead some
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activity in the area, in that area and fair
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housing popped up on my horizon partly through
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that, so when I went to Fair Housing Coordinating
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Committee I was recognized as a representative of
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a fairly substantial church in town.
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(10:13:32)
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MR. ARNOLD:
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Okay.
Very good.
So that was
kind of your entree into that organization?
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DR. SAPP:
Yes.
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MR. ARNOLD:
Now I was going to ask you about
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the churches, because we've also found that there
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was quite a bit of activism coming out of a number
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of churches and certain churches in particular.
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Plymouth Congregational Church had a Social Action
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Committee, I think the Unitarian Church had one,
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--
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DR. SAPP:
Yes.
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MR. ARNOLD:
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MRS. SAPP:
23
MR. ARNOLD:
-- and so -Unitarians were active.
So would you say that the
24
churches were very much kind of a, provided a
25
foundation of support, in addition to really
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university people, in trying to bring about
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change?
3
DR. SAPP:
Yes, and I imagine some of the
4
names on this list here are people connected with
5
the black churches in town.
6
of the members of the Fair Housing Coordinating
7
Committee from 1966]
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MR. ARNOLD:
9
MRS. SAPP:
[referring to a list
Right, right.
Well, I would also say, though,
10
about churches, there were a number of people who
11
I'm sure were not as enthusiastic about it.
12
did not have everybody agree on things in the
13
church and we really didn't stay with -- well, we
14
stayed with the church for awhile but got a
15
little, not so happy with some of the attitudes.
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MR. ARNOLD:
17
DR. SAPP:
We
Okay.
I can illustrate the way pressures
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could be brought to bear to people who didn't have
19
protections.
20
of a savings and loan on Ninth Street, it was
21
Anchor Savings & Loan, his wife wrote a letter to
22
the editor in the Journal-World in support of fair
23
housing and some of these realtors came to his
24
office and said shut your wife up or you've lost
25
our business.
The young man who was local manager
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(10:15:31)
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MR. ARNOLD:
3
Wow.
That's an eye-opening
story.
4
DR. SAPP:
Yes.
5
MR. ARNOLD:
I actually heard a similar story
6
from one of the other people I interviewed about a
7
visit that he actually personally got by people
8
who didn't like some of his activities.
9
Would you say, then, following up on that,
10
that there was, towards the university people,
11
towards especially the ones who were involved in
12
bringing about change through the churches, that
13
there was a degree of resentment among certain
14
segments?
15
DR. SAPP:
Certainly resistance.
16
MR. ARNOLD:
17
MRS. SAPP:
18
MR. ARNOLD:
Resistance?
Resistance.
And who did that primarily come
19
from?
20
but who did it come from and kind of what were
21
their motives in fighting change, other than just
22
an acceptance of this is the way it's been, don't
23
rock the boat?
24
25
And again, don't mention names necessarily,
MRS. SAPP:
Well, they were afraid of losing
business, business people, people who own
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2
restaurants or stores or things like this.
And what else would you say?
I would say
3
just like this.
4
up I thought rather specious arguments, but it was
5
important to them.
6
somebody else would get the business if they gave
7
in to this, and one of the very valuable things
8
about having a law we found was that the, and the
9
realtors found was that they could say "This is
10
the law" to people who were selling homes, you
11
know, "You don't have a choice of who you sell
12
to," and they found that actually it worked in
13
their favor.
14
MR. ARNOLD:
15
MRS. SAPP:
The realtors themselves brought
They felt, I'm sure they felt
Right.
We heard that from a man who had
16
been very much against the law and within a couple
17
years was very much for it.
18
(10:17:36)
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MR. ARNOLD:
20
Do you recall any, as you started getting
That's an interesting point.
21
involved and working on the fair housing issue do
22
you recall any particular individuals who played
23
kind of important leadership roles, who stood out
24
as having, you know, taken on particularly
25
prominent roles in helping to mobilize support?
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MRS. SAPP:
Well, Glenn Kappelman, who was a,
2
I know you've heard of him, a realtor, and he was
3
very much for equal rights, for fair housing.
4
stayed with the realty board and worked from the
5
inside, this is how he put it, and we found that
6
that was very valuable.
7
quitting and saying, "Well, I don't like your
8
attitudes," he worked -- Glenn was very good at
9
talking with people and he had patience.
He
Instead of, you know,
Where I
10
would tend to say some, become quite indignant, he
11
would be much more patient with it, so I think
12
Glenn was one of the most valuable people that we
13
had working with this, because he was involved
14
with the business community.
15
member of the Chamber of Commerce, all that kind
16
of thing.
I'm sure he was a
17
Who else, Dick, would you say?
18
DR. SAPP:
I think Reverend Dick Dulin was
19
useful as chair because he was pretty much not
20
subject to any pressures, although he was only
21
associate pastor and so forth, but he was, as I
22
recall, he was a very calm person and kind of kept
23
us focused and moving toward objectives and he was
24
a good leader.
25
(10:19:39)
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MR. ARNOLD:
Good.
Since you bring up his
2
name, and he, of course, was the youth, or I think
3
the campus minister at Plymouth Congregational
4
Church, so you're right, he wasn't necessarily
5
under any particular pressure from, even maybe so
6
much from the congregation itself, but as the head
7
of the Fair Housing Coordinating Committee he
8
obviously played an important role in that group,
9
but describe the Fair Housing Coordinating
10
Committee to me, how you recall that it came
11
about, who the members were, what organizations
12
sort of supported it and were involved with it, as
13
best you can recall.
14
DR. SAPP:
We were not involved with it at
15
its inception so we don't know about that at all.
16
The list of people who were members in 1966 pretty
17
much identifies the groups who were being
18
represented there, if you know who the people are.
19
MR. ARNOLD:
20
MRS. SAPP:
Right.
Well, okay, [reading from the
21
1966 list of Fair Housing Coordinating Committee
22
members,] Ann Moore, Tom Moore was with the K.U.
23
Y.
24
had been involved with the YWCA when we came here,
25
the campus one, and then it became a joint one and
I don't think we even called it YMCA, YWCA.
I
�23
1
Tom was hired with that, and Tom and Ann were
2
Quakers, Friends, and with all the attitudes that
3
go along and very good in the community; again,
4
patient, kind people, working that way.
5
Reverend Louis Branch was black.
6
DR. SAPP:
7
With the church at New York, Ninth
and New York, Saint --
8
MRS. SAPP:
9
DR. SAPP:
Oh, St. Luke's?
St. Luke's.
10
MR. ARNOLD:
11
DR. SAPP:
12
MRS. SAPP:
Okay.
Yes.
That was a black church, and
13
that's still, of course, going on.
The churches
14
are still very much black or white I'd say.
15
MR. ARNOLD:
Right, right.
16
MRS. SAPP:
17
DR. SAPP:
They were members of that church.
18
MRS. SAPP:
And Ben Hanan was pastor of the
The Stanfields were black.
19
First Christian --
20
DR. SAPP:
21
MRS. SAPP:
22
Dorothy Adams was the wife of a professor at
First Christian.
-- Church, and his wife.
23
K.U. and I'm not sure what other things she did
24
but she was very active in the community so -- and
25
Jean Shaw was, too.
Ed Shaw was at K.U.
�24
1
We women who didn't have paying jobs did a
2
lot of League of Women Voter type things and other
3
work.
4
5
I don't remember Jim Griffiths.
Do you,
Dick, --
6
DR. SAPP:
7
MRS. SAPP:
No.
-- a reverend?
Mike Marr was at
8
the university and was very active in these kind
9
of things.
10
"Petey" Cerf, Ann, Mrs. Raymond Cerf, Ann
11
Cerf was involved with all kinds of things in
12
this.
13
(10:22:58)
14
MR. ARNOLD:
Tell me a little bit about her.
15
Her name comes up quite a bit as a real leader in
16
the early '60s.
17
MRS. SAPP:
Well, she had a forceful
18
personality.
I wouldn't say that she got mad --
19
well, I'm sure she did get mad about things but
20
she didn't show it in that way, but she was
21
forceful and when she talked about something you
22
listened, you heard.
23
most -- well, I don't know that most people did
24
but most people who were on her side or felt she
25
was on their side.
I liked her tremendously and
�25
1
She got a lot of things started and done and
2
she did have some financial, was in a financial
3
position to put money toward some things, too, so
4
she got a number of things going in town.
5
(10:23:52)
6
MR. ARNOLD:
7
10
MRS. SAPP:
She certainly had been here
awhile when we came and I don't know when they
came.
Her husband --
11
DR. SAPP:
12
MRS. SAPP:
13
Was at the university.
Yes, taught -- wasn't he a violin
--
14
DR. SAPP:
15
MRS. SAPP:
16
DR. SAPP:
17
MRS. SAPP:
18
THE SPEAKER:
19
MRS. SAPP:
20
(10:24:13)
21
MR. ARNOLD:
22
23
Had she been a long-time
Lawrence resident, do you know?
8
9
Good.
Musician.
Musician.
Raymond Cerf.
Yes.
Cello.
Cello.
Okay.
So she was involved in
community organizations?
MRS. SAPP:
And her son, William Dan, is
24
involved in things now, more financially than
25
anything else right now.
I see his name on
�26
1
various things.
I don't really know him.
2
MR. ARNOLD:
3
DR. SAPP:
Right.
He writes, or at least he was
4
writing trenchant letters to the editor of the
5
Journal-World.
6
MRS. SAPP:
Yes, yes.
Well, "Petey" died a
7
number of years ago, I can't tell you when, it's
8
just that she's still a presence.
9
(10:24:43)
10
MR. ARNOLD:
Right.
As I said, her name has
11
come up.
12
leadership role, spurring action by a number of
13
people.
14
15
Fred Six said that she played an early
MRS. SAPP:
live.
16
MR. ARNOLD:
17
MRS. SAPP:
18
She also lived near where we
Okay.
Which meant I saw something of
her, I guess.
19
Marion Boyle, her husband was in the Art
20
Department at K.U. and didn't know her real well.
21
I think she worked at Haskell for awhile and then
22
at K.U., too, with students, with students needing
23
tutoring, needing help, students who were
24
disadvantaged, I guess we might say.
25
Howard Rosenfeld.
�27
1
DR. SAPP:
2
MRS. SAPP:
History professor.
Yes.
And Lee Ketzel, who has
3
been involved in all kinds of things, I'm sure
4
you've come upon her name, and she's someone you
5
could interview I'm sure.
6
other day to see what she remembered about League
7
of Women Voters.
8
community.
9
I talked with her the
She's doing a lot still in the
Ada Swineford.
10
DR. SAPP:
11
MRS. SAPP:
At the university.
(indiscernible) and she, yes, she
12
was at the university but she left to go to
13
Washington State so she didn't do a whole lot.
14
15
16
And I don't know Reverend John Ayres, that
doesn't -DR. SAPP:
I think the list makes pretty
17
clear that the religious institutions and the
18
university provided a lot of the --
19
(10:26:17)
20
MR. ARNOLD:
Right, exactly.
And then so
21
really the university community, the church
22
community, and then groups like the League of
23
Women Voters, United Church Women, which I'm sure
24
there was a lot of involvement of people among
25
those groups, the NAACP, --
�28
1
MRS. SAPP:
2
MR. ARNOLD:
3
Commission at --
4
Yes.
MRS. SAPP:
Now Dorothy Keltz, --
She was on the Human Relations
But I don't know, her husband
5
wasn't at the university I don't think.
See, all
6
these people who had to watch what they said and
7
did because of business were, I don't know whether
8
you say --
9
DR. SAPP:
10
MRS. SAPP:
Harold Keltz.
11
DR. SAPP:
Hal Keltz, yes.
12
MRS. SAPP:
13
DR. SAPP:
He was not at the university but
15
MRS. SAPP:
And she was very active so that
16
would be somebody --
17
(10:27:05).
18
MR. ARNOLD:
14
19
I forget what Keltz' job was.
I don't --
Hal Keltz.
--
Right, and I think she was
actually on the Human Relations Commission --
20
MRS. SAPP:
21
MR. ARNOLD:
Yes, she was.
-- at the time the ordinance
22
came up.
She was in charge of their little
23
housing subcommittee so she was probably very --
24
MRS. SAPP:
Ah, I know that she was involved.
25
MR. ARNOLD:
-- (indiscernible) so obviously
�29
1
2
she had been involved with housing.
MRS. SAPP:
That would be very interesting to
3
know what her husband did just in light of this,
4
you know, was there pressure.
5
(10:27:26)
6
MR. ARNOLD:
7
MRS. SAPP:
Right.
she felt any pressure.
9
MR. ARNOLD:
that out.
11
store]
12
I --
-- didn't see any pressure, that
8
10
I certainly --
-- can probably go back and find
[Hal Keltz owned the Lawrence Surplus
Just for the record for the transcribist, I
13
just want, because I can't remember if we
14
mentioned it when you first started reading the
15
list, the list you just read was of members of the
16
Fair Housing Coordinating Committee in 1966.
17
MRS. SAPP:
Yes, as of April 25th, 1966.
18
MR. ARNOLD:
19
DR. SAPP:
20
MRS. SAPP:
Okay.
Somewhere I -Says beginning list of interested
21
persons, actually, rather than members, but
22
beginning list of interested persons, so that's
23
when it was just getting formed.
24
25
DR. SAPP:
Well, somewhere in our collection
I found a letter I had written to Dorothy Keltz
�30
1
expressing my personal opinions about the need for
2
fair housing and it's just now become apparent why
3
I wrote her on that subject.
4
(10:28:13)
5
MR. ARNOLD:
Exactly.
And the other
6
interesting thing that this brings to light is,
7
and I had asked a couple people previously and
8
they just weren't sure, but was there, before the
9
Fair Housing Ordinance proposal was even brought
10
to the Human Relations Commission by the Fair
11
Housing Coordinating Committee had there been some
12
interaction between Human Relations Committee
13
members and the committee talking about this
14
beforehand, and it sounds like if she was involved
15
both in the housing --
16
17
MRS. SAPP:
I'm sure there was because there
was so much go-between --
18
MR. ARNOLD:
19
MRS. SAPP:
Right.
-- between them.
The League of
20
Women Voters sent observers to various City
21
Commissions and committees and such and Lee Ketzel
22
was one of the observers --
23
MR. ARNOLD:
24
MRS. SAPP:
25
Commission.
Right.
-- of the Human Relations
�31
1
(10:28:57)
2
MR. ARNOLD:
So let me ask you why fair
3
housing, of all the, you know, employment
4
discrimination, the swimming pool issue, the
5
schools and educational opportunities, of all the
6
different things why did so many people seem to
7
coalesce at that time around the fair housing
8
issue?
9
Do you have a sense of that?
MRS. SAPP:
I think that the people who were
10
being discriminated against brought it to our
11
attention somehow, you know, that it really did,
12
this -- we were aware of it in various ways but
13
this going to the Chieks' home and having them
14
say, you know, "We could afford a house other
15
places but we were only allowed to buy over here
16
by the hospital or one of those other places."
17
was so unfair.
18
MR. ARNOLD:
19
MRS. SAPP:
Right.
So, and perhaps maybe a little
20
easier to work on than employment.
21
such a great, huge, big issue to try to do
22
something about.
23
DR. SAPP:
It
Employment is
Discrimination and segregation was
24
such a huge, massive problem, an individual needs
25
that focus, place to enter it, fair housing seemed
�32
1
like one of them but we quickly realized, you
2
know, that jobs, education, there are other very
3
important things.
4
MR. ARNOLD:
5
DR. SAPP:
Right.
But this was something that we
6
could address directly so that's where we focused
7
our attention.
8
MR. ARNOLD:
9
MRS. SAPP:
10
11
Sure.
And certainly now we're realizing
so much about low cost housing.
DR. SAPP:
We, well, --
Oh, that was so interesting, it
12
came up at our recent meeting that they quickly
13
leaped beyond housing discrimination to the
14
problem of --
15
MRS. SAPP:
16
DR. SAPP:
17
The meeting at the library.
-- affordable housing, which has
been a problem in Lawrence ever since.
18
(10:30:59)
19
MR. ARNOLD:
Right.
Lawrence has always
20
been, as I understand it, one of the more
21
expensive communities in Kansas.
22
MRS. SAPP:
The younger people who weren't
23
involved with this, you know, took on that, which
24
is very good.
25
MR. ARNOLD:
Right.
�33
1
MRS. SAPP:
I'm glad people are taking it on
2
because I think that's very important, too, and I
3
don't know -- well, I think the city and county
4
need to have a fund.
5
DR. SAPP:
6
Well, there seems to be some
activity in that area, so --
7
(10:31:25)
8
MR. ARNOLD:
9
Right.
And it's actually
interesting, a thought that crossed my mind when
10
that woman brought it up at that program we
11
attended, that there is a lack of affordable
12
housing for older people and someone who is
13
disabled like her, but I can actually recall in
14
reading some of the history of the work being done
15
towards fair housing there were at least some
16
voices at that time, and I'm not sure anything
17
really got traction to work on it, but who
18
expressed concern about affordable housing,
19
particularly for older retired people and lower
20
incomes being a problem, so clearly that's been on
21
people's agendas for a very long time.
22
MRS. SAPP:
Oh, so many things came in.
23
know, the nursery schools for children or
24
prekindergarten education came up also in the
25
early '60s.
You
�34
1
Now, Jesse Milan, have you heard about --
2
MR. ARNOLD:
3
4
We interviewed Jesse last
Friday.
MRS. SAPP:
Oh, wonderful.
He was just a, he
5
and his wife are terrific people, and Alversa was
6
very much involved with getting the first nursery
7
school for, what, low income, The Children's Hour,
8
it's called, and a number of us worked on it.
9
Hilda Enoch was one of the people who helped get
10
that started, and Alversa Milan, and the ideas
11
came, and the need was certainly there, so some of
12
us got to work.
13
families for --
14
DR. SAPP:
I remember interviewing people,
Jesse Milan ran for the City
15
Commission more than once.
16
strongly, tried all ways to get him on.
17
preliminary, primary voting he was always first
18
and -- but then in the general election he was
19
always fourth out of the three to be chosen.
20
MR. ARNOLD:
21
MRS. SAPP:
We supported him
In the
Right.
It was very discouraging for them
22
and for us, for, I mean, all kinds, the people who
23
wanted him, and they eventually moved back to
24
Kansas City.
25
this.
I'm sure he told you about all of
�35
1
(10:33:46)
2
MR. ARNOLD:
Right.
Jesse's role in Lawrence
3
is really fascinating, I mean, not only being the
4
first African-American teacher but then I guess he
5
became I think the assistant director of youth
6
programs for the city's park and recreation system
7
and really fought for a lot of causes but took a
8
lot of heat from people who didn't like the
9
leadership role he was playing and the kind of
10
changes he was trying to bring about and he says,
11
"I probably wouldn't have lasted as long as I did
12
in this town except for some of the students I had
13
taught and their parents, white students and white
14
parents, who kind of helped protect me," but a lot
15
of other people were very much against him.
16
MRS. SAPP:
Well, he did so much good for
17
children who had problems, physical problems.
18
would work with them.
19
kids loved him.
20
you know, he was just so good with them, so good
21
with people, such a good -- they were a wonderful
22
family and terrible that they weren't accepted.
23
mean, nowadays they would just be part of
24
everything.
25
MR. ARNOLD:
He
Well, and all kids, the
He was there with our kids and,
Yes, and they were actually
I
�36
1
themselves victims of housing discrimination when
2
they tried to move up to larger houses.
3
MRS. SAPP:
Yes, sure they were.
It's -- but
4
they helped bring about change by being who they
5
are.
6
I brought up that about the nursery schools
7
because that tied in with then, with getting into
8
housing, too.
9
MR. ARNOLD:
10
MRS. SAPP:
11
Right.
The whole thing, the education
part.
12
(10:35:21)
13
MR. ARNOLD:
There were certainly arguments
14
made at the time, and I think you can still make
15
very good arguments and I think Robert Casad's
16
article that was published in February of '67 made
17
the argument that to a significant extent housing
18
is the root, if you segregate everybody into one
19
area that means they all go to the same what
20
generally turn out to be substandard schools,
21
their employment opportunities tend to be limited
22
because there may not be as many jobs available in
23
that area so often integrating housing opens up
24
opportunities and so that's sometimes the best
25
place to start.
�37
1
MRS. SAPP:
That's another thing with lower
2
cost housing because of job opportunities and one
3
of the reasons that we got the bus system started,
4
and I don't think I worked on that, but to have a
5
bus system so people could get from where they do
6
live to where the jobs are, one of the most
7
important parts of having the bus system, and
8
certainly in those days that would be a, would
9
have been a problem.
10
(10:36:21)
11
MR. ARNOLD:
Sure.
Well, up to now we have
12
kind of talked about background so let's jump into
13
focusing a bit more on the process for bringing
14
the Fair Housing Ordinance to the Human Relations
15
Commission and then getting it passed.
16
Do you recall, again, I think we talked about
17
this a little bit earlier, but what sort of drove
18
the timing?
19
1966, Reverend Dulin signed out a letter to
20
whoever was the mayor of Lawrence at the time
21
saying, you know, I'm representing the Fair
22
Housing Coordinating Commission, we intend to
23
bring a proposal for a Fair Housing Ordinance to
24
the Human Relations Commission, and then at their
25
first meeting in early January, in fact I think
And I think actually in December,
�38
1
probably was a record attendance, 60 some of you
2
attended that Human Relations Commission meeting
3
in which the idea for the ordinance was proposed.
4
Do you remember what drove the particular timing
5
of it in late '66 or early '67?
6
MRS. SAPP:
Well, the state ordinance was --
7
DR. SAPP:
The failure of the state ordinance
8
certainly turned up the heat.
9
MR. ARNOLD:
10
MRS. SAPP:
11
DR. SAPP:
12
Okay.
I think that's --
I don't know how long it took from
--
13
MRS. SAPP:
14
DR. SAPP:
Not long.
But it wasn't very long.
We sat
15
in the Fair Housing Coordinating Committee talking
16
about this and I finally said let's go to the City
17
Commission and try to get them to do something.
18
19
MRS. SAPP:
--
20
DR. SAPP:
21
MRS. SAPP:
22
23
Get something local, we can't get
six months?
Yes, yes.
And it went fast.
What, it took
July they passed the ordinance?
MR. ARNOLD:
Right.
Yes, from the 4th of
24
January it was presented to the Human Relations
25
Commission and passed in the middle of July, so
�39
1
2
that was pretty impressive.
MRS. SAPP:
And the people on the HRC, like
3
Fred [Six] and others, you know, got the
4
information and got the thing written in record
5
time I would say.
6
(10:38:11)
7
MR. ARNOLD:
And was your impression that the
8
Human Relations Commission was quite receptive to
9
the idea and --
10
MRS. SAPP:
11
MR. ARNOLD:
12
you move it forward?
13
MRS. SAPP:
14
MR. ARNOLD:
15
DR. SAPP:
Oh yes.
-- very interested in helping
Yes, yes.
Good.
I have a quote from that time
16
nobody else seems to remember but I do very
17
clearly.
18
younger Raney, commented when the ideas were
19
presented, he said, "You know, I've never
20
understood why realtors have any right to tell us
21
where we can live."
22
MRS. SAPP:
23
24
25
The mayor at that time, Dick Raney, the
That was at the meeting where it
was passed.
DR. SAPP:
So when he was there at the recent
meeting I reminded him about that.
He didn't
�40
1
remember it.
2
(10:39:03)
3
MR. ARNOLD:
Right, yes.
It's interesting
4
how some things stand out in your mind and you
5
recall and for somebody else --
6
7
MRS. SAPP:
It impressed us because he was a
businessman.
8
MR. ARNOLD:
9
MRS. SAPP:
Right.
His father was a businessman, and
10
he was -- well, Jim Owens is another businessman
11
who was involved with all this.
12
shop and --
13
MR. ARNOLD:
He had the floral
Yep, and he was on the human
14
relations, had been on the City Commission but by
15
then was on the Human Relations Commission.
16
MRS. SAPP:
17
(10:39:22)
18
MR. ARNOLD:
Right.
So it comes up to the Human
19
Relations Commission in January.
20
receptive and start, obviously, researching --
21
MRS. SAPP:
22
MR. ARNOLD:
They're very
Right.
-- and drafting.
And who do you
23
recall kind of played the main role in pulling it
24
together?
25
MRS. SAPP:
Well, I'm not sure, except Fred
�41
1
was so involved, but I'm sure --
2
MR. ARNOLD:
3
MRS. SAPP:
Fred Six?
Fred Six, but I'm sure, I think
4
they virtually all worked on it and I'm not sure
5
how much the coordinating committee did from then
6
on.
7
DR. SAPP:
8
MRS. SAPP:
I don't think -- I think --
9
DR. SAPP:
It seemed almost like it just
10
I don't --
needed somebody to say let's move ahead.
11
(10:40:05)
12
MR. ARNOLD:
13
DR. SAPP:
14
MR. ARNOLD:
Yes, I think --
Let's do it.
-- Professor Casad was involved
15
and I think he had been involved with the Fair
16
Housing Coordinating Committee, --
17
MRS. SAPP:
18
MR. ARNOLD:
Yes.
-- although when I interviewed
19
him he didn't remember being heavily involved, he
20
sort of had the impression he was kind of brought
21
in for his expertise.
22
MRS. SAPP:
I think he was, I think he came
23
in for expertise, yes.
24
MR. ARNOLD:
25
MRS. SAPP:
Right.
Now, a --
I think he had the right, you
�42
1
know, he would, he could have been involved but
2
not everybody could be active.
3
MR. ARNOLD:
Right.
As the Human Relations
4
Commission was working on the ordinance a couple
5
other things were going on on the side that the
6
Fair Housing Coordinating Committee seemed to have
7
been orchestrating.
8
that were published in the Journal-World in
9
February.
10
DR. SAPP:
11
MR. ARNOLD:
12
DR. SAPP:
13
One was the seven articles
That was my idea.
Was it?
Tell me about that.
Typical university professor, get
some experts to tell about things.
14
(10:40:58)
15
MR. ARNOLD:
What was your intended audience
16
or who were you hoping to influence by those
17
articles?
18
DR. SAPP:
Anybody with a reasonable mind.
19
MR. ARNOLD:
20
MRS. SAPP:
21
MR. ARNOLD:
Right.
Were you hoping --
The thinking public.
Yes, this was hoping that kind
22
of the general public would therefore be convinced
23
that they shouldn't oppose this or was it targeted
24
at the City Commission to try and get them
25
pressure?
�43
1
DR. SAPP:
No, it was general.
2
MR. ARNOLD:
3
DR. SAPP:
General public?
Okay.
The last article, the one by the
4
sociologist, Jack Barr, I remember he said, "Well,
5
said it would be good if we could progress past
6
these discriminations, but," he says, "but it will
7
take a long time with human people being what they
8
are."
9
MR. ARNOLD:
10
MRS. SAPP:
11
MR. ARNOLD:
Right, yes.
Yes.
And sadly we're still seeing
12
some truth to that.
13
DR. SAPP:
14
MRS. SAPP:
15
16
Yes.
I remember your contacting
people.
DR. SAPP:
Yes, some of the first people I
17
thought of contacting, you know, said, well, I
18
kind of, I'd like to, I have some ideas in this
19
area, but I don't think I can stick my neck out at
20
this time.
21
(10:42:02)
22
MR. ARNOLD:
That's interesting.
So you
23
actually reached out to people you thought would
24
be good candidates to author these articles and
25
some were more receptive than others?
�44
1
2
DR. SAPP:
Well, as I say, they were just,
felt like they were subject to pressures.
3
MR. ARNOLD:
4
MRS. SAPP:
Right.
But enough people did, although
5
when I go back and read them I think those are
6
learned articles, very well written, but I wonder
7
if the man on the street or the woman on the
8
street, so to speak, paid a lot of attention to
9
it.
10
MR. ARNOLD:
11
MRS. SAPP:
Right.
Because they were just written in
12
a, what would I say, a more professorial or just
13
for an audience that -- but we needed to get the
14
people who were thinking people who would say,
15
well yes, this is right, and if so and so, if, you
16
know, if enough other people are doing it I'll
17
join in.
18
MR. ARNOLD:
19
MRS. SAPP:
Right.
You know, I won't, we won't feel
20
the pressure if there are ten of us instead of one
21
or a hundred instead of ten or whatever.
22
DR. SAPP:
23
MRS. SAPP:
24
DR. SAPP:
25
And I think the -I think the --- list of authors also
illustrates the importance of the religious and
�45
1
2
educational communities within Lawrence.
MRS. SAPP:
You know, the university has had
3
such a big impact on Lawrence because say when we
4
came Lawrence was something like 27,000,
5
university had 12,000 students.
6
(10:43:31)
7
MR. ARNOLD:
8
9
Yes, Lawrence really was a small
town.
MRS. SAPP:
You know, the university has
10
always been a really important part of Lawrence in
11
all kinds of ways, providing employment for not
12
only people who are teaching there but all these
13
people who help in one way or another, and so it
14
has a big influence really.
15
MR. ARNOLD:
16
MRS. SAPP:
Right.
And some people view it
17
negatively, I've run into that.
18
don't anymore.
19
(10:44:02)
20
MR. ARNOLD:
I used to; I
Yes, Fred Six, when I
21
interviewed him he said that he did not think that
22
that kind of change could have been brought about
23
at the time if Lawrence wasn't a university town
24
and the diversity and more, freer thinking that
25
university people brought to challenge things that
�46
1
2
they thought were wrong.
DR. SAPP:
I remember when Leonard Clark and
3
his then fiancée, later wife, came to the first
4
meeting and told about their problems trying to
5
rent an apartment where the apartments were
6
advertised in the paper but when he went he was
7
told they were all taken but the advertisement
8
continued in the paper and I said to him, I said,
9
"Leonard, you are in a position to embarrass this
10
town."
11
(10:45:02)
12
MR. ARNOLD:
And another university couple
13
that we've been told also suffered discrimination,
14
unfortunately we've been trying to track them down
15
to interview them, but did you know Bob and Gladys
16
Sanders?
17
DR. SAPP:
18
MRS. SAPP:
Oh yes.
Yes, yes, yes.
19
their information.
20
DR. SAPP:
21
MR. ARNOLD:
22
DR. SAPP:
23
MR. ARNOLD:
24
MRS. SAPP:
25
phone number?
I can get you
They moved back to Carolina -North Carolina.
-- fairly recently.
Right.
We've been trying to --
Do you have their address and
�47
1
2
MR. ARNOLD:
The city does and the city has
--
3
MRS. SAPP:
4
MR. ARNOLD:
Okay.
Well, if you have their phone
5
number that will be great.
6
them at their new --
7
MRS. SAPP:
8
MR. ARNOLD:
The city has mailed
I know who does.
-- address and e-mailed them but
9
has not heard back.
10
MRS. SAPP:
11
MR. ARNOLD:
I know who does.
Okay.
Shirley does.
If you could get that for
12
us that would be great because I'm actually, as I
13
said, I'm hoping to go back and interview Reverend
14
Dulin.
15
MRS. SAPP:
They came, they came after fair
16
housing.
They came in the '70s, didn't they?
17
the Physics Department had two black professors
18
come.
19
MR. ARNOLD:
20
MRS. SAPP:
And
Okay.
One was a graduate, I guess he
21
was a graduate but he'd been teaching, he wasn't a
22
real young person, and they were great, you know,
23
really good people and all, and one of the black
24
families who lived on our street was Marilyn, I
25
can't say her last name, she was in --
�48
1
DR. SAPP:
Law.
2
MRS. SAPP:
3
MR. ARNOLD:
4
MRS. SAPP:
A law professor.
Okay.
And these people didn't stay too
5
long and you know why, because they were offered
6
more money at other places --
7
MR. ARNOLD:
8
MRS. SAPP:
Sure.
-- because there were not that
9
many minority professors or people qualified to
10
teach and all the universities and colleges were
11
trying to diversify their faculties, --
12
MR. ARNOLD:
13
MRS. SAPP:
14
DR. SAPP:
Right, right.
-- were under pressure to, so --
Our physics (10:46:34) black
15
professor was quickly lured away by the federal
16
government for some sort of black education
17
project, paid him a lot more than what --
18
19
MRS. SAPP:
the people either.
20
MR. ARNOLD:
21
MRS. SAPP:
22
Yes, the pay, and you can't blame
Sure.
But the Sanders, yes, they did
stay here and Bob taught in some form of biology.
23
MR. ARNOLD:
24
MRS. SAPP:
25
MR. ARNOLD:
Could be microbiology?
Microbiology.
Something in the biosciences.
�49
1
DR. SAPP:
2
MRS. SAPP:
3
DR. SAPP:
4
MRS. SAPP:
5
And the -Well, Gladys -Taught math.
Well, she taught math at the high
school.
6
DR. SAPP:
7
MRS. SAPP:
Yes.
Yes, or junior high, high school,
8
but not at first.
They came and they lived in the
9
Sunflower duplexes, which was where we had lived
10
for several years when we first came here, and
11
they had two children, Sylvia and William.
12
think they had Sylvia when they came but William
13
was born after they came here.
14
well for a number of years and then kind of -- the
15
university grew so much we, and a lot of other
16
people, you kind of ended up in more your area,
17
like the physics, astronomy, --
18
MR. ARNOLD:
19
MRS. SAPP:
I
We knew them quite
Right.
-- chemistry people and just
20
because it was so big you didn't see the other
21
people.
22
at K.U. now, the Endacott Society, and one of the
23
wonderful things about it is getting reacquainted
24
with people from all areas of the university.
25
We're very active with the retirees group
But anyway, --
�50
1
DR. SAPP:
2
own department now.
3
MRS. SAPP:
4
I don't even know everybody in my
-- Gladys would, Gladys is very
forthright, and she's a very good artist, too.
5
MR. ARNOLD:
6
MRS. SAPP:
7
MR. ARNOLD:
Okay.
She, yes, she's -Okay.
I hope we can get ahold
8
of them and see if they'd be willing, because
9
while I'm back in North Carolina interviewing the
10
11
Dulins I would love to do them as well.
MRS. SAPP:
That would be great.
I think
12
they would, I really do, and I will get the phone
13
number.
14
(10:48:36)
15
MR. ARNOLD:
And even if they ended up, if
16
they came a little bit later it would still be
17
interesting to see what their experience was post
18
Fair Housing Ordinance as compared to pre Fair
19
Housing Ordinance.
20
21
22
23
24
25
MRS. SAPP:
I'm not sure when, I thought it
was -MR. ARNOLD:
Yes, I'd have to go back and
look.
MRS. SAPP:
a minute.
-- after '70, but it -- no, wait
I'm trying to think --
�51
1
DR. SAPP:
2
MRS. SAPP:
I thought they'd come in the --- of from the ages of our
3
children.
It must have been in the later '60s,
4
because our kids were born in '61 and '63 and they
5
were still fairly young.
6
we went to Berkeley or after?
7
got a sabbatical and we spent a semester out
8
there, and that, talk about integration, they had
9
integrated the schools by busing, I mean really
10
integrated them.
11
MR. ARNOLD:
12
MRS. SAPP:
13
It was -- was it before
That was a, Dick
Okay.
Our children were in the minority
as whites, --
14
MR. ARNOLD:
15
MRS. SAPP:
Right.
-- which was I thought excellent,
16
and they had very good teachers at the whole
17
school, which isn't very good or hasn't been very
18
good for quite awhile but was excellent in 1970.
19
They were really working to bring all children
20
up --
21
MR. ARNOLD:
22
MRS. SAPP:
23
(10:49:45)
24
MR. ARNOLD:
25
Right.
-- to standards, so --
Yes, my own children went to a
-- I was a career naval officer and spent my tour
�52
1
before coming to Lawrence, we spent quite a bit of
2
time at a big U.S. Navy base we have out in Japan
3
and we have DOD school system there and the DOD
4
high school, my children were minority in that
5
high school and they had a wonderful experience
6
and I thought there wasn't any better way for them
7
to really learn other cultures and be exposed to
8
--
9
MRS. SAPP:
10
MR. ARNOLD:
11
Wow.
Which is why we --
-- that kind of diversity, which
I think is important for everybody.
12
MRS. SAPP:
Yes, why we need it.
13
MR. ARNOLD:
14
DR. SAPP:
Yes, absolutely.
They've got to be carefully taught
15
one way or the other.
16
MRS. SAPP:
This whole schools, getting the
17
schools integrated, which Lawrence did to some
18
extent by busing, our children went to Hillcrest
19
school and a lot of the kids from Stouffer Place
20
from graduate students from other countries went
21
there, too, so that was I thought very good.
22
MR. ARNOLD:
23
MRS. SAPP:
Good.
But, oh, kids are, you know, if
24
they're not told that they shouldn't accept people
25
they just accept them so well.
�53
1
(10:50:59)
2
MR. ARNOLD:
3
Let me take you back again to those articles
Right.
Yep, absolutely.
4
we were talking about.
Was there any negative
5
reaction?
6
response to any of them, that you recall?
Was there letters to the editor in
7
DR. SAPP:
No reaction that I remember.
8
MR. ARNOLD:
9
DR. SAPP:
Okay.
But the realtors did have their
10
turn.
They had a big ad in the Journal-World
11
about forced housing and that was rebutted by the
12
local chapter of the NAACP.
13
MR. ARNOLD:
14
MRS. SAPP:
15
MR. ARNOLD:
Okay.
Have you seen that ad?
I've seen an ad that was
16
actually run at the time the state was considering
17
it in which, is this the one in which the realtors
18
basically called fair housing kind of a
19
Marxist-socialist doctrine?
20
MRS. SAPP:
21
MR. ARNOLD:
22
MRS. SAPP:
23
MR. ARNOLD:
24
25
'65.
That was probably the one.
Is the one I've seen, -Yes, that's the one.
-- and I think this was run when
the state was first considering -MRS. SAPP:
Yes.
�54
1
DR. SAPP:
Now locally --
2
MR. ARNOLD:
-- and describes a philosophy of
3
curbing the property-owning class is a
4
Marxist-socialist doctrine, so they took their
5
position pretty strongly.
6
DR. SAPP:
Now locally a lawyer, Don Hults,
7
who had been a former state senator, appeared to
8
testify against the Lawrence ordinance --
9
10
MR. ARNOLD:
DR. SAPP:
Right.
-- on behalf of the Lawrence
11
realtors board.
12
MRS. SAPP:
13
(10:52:39)
14
MR. ARNOLD:
Yes.
Yes, do you kind of recall the
15
nature of their arguments against it?
16
Fred Six gave us a very good description.
17
18
19
DR. SAPP:
Although
I think I had a copy of the
newspaper article that quoted him.
MR. ARNOLD:
Right.
Yes, Fred went into a
20
great deal of legal detail about what their legal
21
positions were, which he just thought were not
22
worth very much.
23
DR. SAPP:
Yes, right.
24
(10:53:05)
25
MR. ARNOLD:
The other thing I wanted to ask
�55
1
you about is the other part of the campaign that
2
the Fair Housing Coordinating Committee kind of
3
had going in parallel to the Human Relations
4
Commission working on the ordinance in addition to
5
those articles was a signature campaign in which
6
they published the signatures of, --
7
MRS. SAPP:
Oh, right.
8
MR. ARNOLD:
-- in two different times, I
9
think there was like 900 in one full page ad that
10
they published and then three or 400 more, so well
11
over a thousand signatures of people, and not only
12
did they have the people's names but also their
13
addresses, and the city mapping people have
14
actually mapped where all those people live and
15
found it was a pretty widespread group of people
16
who lived all over town, and were you surprised,
17
do you remember, at that widespread level of
18
support or do you feel like Lawrence, there was a
19
fairly broad-based group of people who were ready
20
for this kind of change?
21
MRS. SAPP:
22
DR. SAPP:
I felt they were ready, yes.
Yes.
I was heartened.
I don't
23
remember being personally involved in that idea
24
even but, so the list just appeared in the paper
25
and I thought, gee, this is great for Lawrence.
�56
1
MRS. SAPP:
2
knew about it.
3
DR. SAPP:
4
MRS. SAPP:
5
Well, I think we signed it and
Yes.
But no, we didn't -- we weren't
among the people who got it going.
6
(10:54:34)
7
MR. ARNOLD:
8
Right.
And it's interesting
that even --
9
MRS. SAPP:
I don't think --
10
MR. ARNOLD:
-- I think about three years
11
before the United Church Women of Lawrence did a
12
similar campaign which they worked through the
13
churches and got about 845 signatures, so there
14
clearly was, again, Lawrence was a pretty small
15
town so if you get over a thousand signatures was
16
not insignificant at the time.
17
MRS. SAPP:
Yes.
18
DR. SAPP:
Right.
19
MR. ARNOLD:
20
21
So it does show that there was a
fair amount of support out there.
MRS. SAPP:
I think the realtors were finding
22
themselves kind of in the minority and I think
23
once the ordinance was passed, which was, what, on
24
a six month, it was really just, I don't remember
25
any problems that like people said I'm not gonna
�57
1
follow this or that kind of -- they may have said
2
it but you didn't read about it in the paper or
3
hear about it.
4
(10:55:24)
5
MR. ARNOLD:
Right.
And there didn't appear
6
to be a big backlash in terms of letters to the
7
editor.
8
very many that objected to the ordinance.
9
There were a couple of voices but not
When the ordinance, in April, I don't know
10
whether you were at the meeting at the City
11
Commission, but Fred Six presented the ordinance
12
to the commission.
13
MRS. SAPP:
Uh-huh.
14
MR. ARNOLD:
Yes, we were there.
And everything that I can tell,
15
the commission seemed fairly receptive, at least
16
the majority of them.
17
that there wasn't a whole lot of pushback?
18
mean, Dick Raney even was quoted in the paper
19
after it was presented praising it as a great
20
piece of work, so were you confident in the time,
21
at that time that you thought it was going to pass
22
the City Commission?
23
DR. SAPP:
Was that your impression,
I
Did you feel like --
Yes, there was just one, one guy
24
who was very conservative businessman downtown who
25
-- and the farthest he could go was to say, "Well,
�58
1
I don't know, I have to think about this," you
2
know.
3
MRS. SAPP:
I probably, I was a whole lot
4
younger then, but I was sure it would pass.
5
wasn't surprised that it passed.
6
MR. ARNOLD:
7
MRS. SAPP:
8
people worked on it.
9
time.
10
MR. ARNOLD:
11
MRS. SAPP:
12
I
Good.
I mean, we worked, all -- so many
No, I think it was, it was
Right.
I think people realized it was
time.
13
(10:56:41)
14
MR. ARNOLD:
And Fred Six kind of pointed out
15
that really the members of the Human Relations
16
Commission at that time he felt was a pretty broad
17
and prominent cross section of the community and
18
their influence on, not that most of the city
19
commission wasn't receptive anyway but that just
20
gave a little extra weight to it with those kind
21
of people behind it.
22
MRS. SAPP:
Well, yes, and I think people in
23
the community said, oh, accepted having a Human
24
Relations Committee, --
25
MR. ARNOLD:
Right.
�59
1
MRS. SAPP:
-- accepted that we needed --
2
(10:57:12)
3
MR. ARNOLD:
A couple other things that were
4
sent up to the City Commission at the time they
5
were considering the ordinance was a letter from
6
Vice Chancellor Surface which said the university
7
is fully supportive of this, it's in accordance
8
with the university's housing policy, which had
9
already, the university some years earlier had
10
gone through its own process of finally getting
11
around to integrated housing policy, so the
12
university administration was behind it, and then
13
also there was a letter, I don't know if you
14
recall, from Ted Owens, the basketball coach.
15
MRS. SAPP:
Yes.
16
MR. ARNOLD:
And he said, you know, I go
17
around the country recruiting athletes to come to
18
K.U., I tell their parents that they're coming to
19
a wonderful town where they'll be treated fairly
20
and we need this, an ordinance like this to back
21
that up.
22
expressions of support were influential in helping
23
to push it through?
24
MRS. SAPP:
25
DR. SAPP:
Do you think that those types of
Oh, I think so.
I think so, yes, yes.
�60
1
MRS. SAPP:
Yes.
It's, again, having, being
2
in a university town that helped but certainly
3
people have always been very enamored of K.U.
4
basketball so if they thought, people thought, you
5
know, you might not get a recruit because of this
6
I'm sure they would --
7
MR. ARNOLD:
8
MRS. SAPP:
-- pretty much say, "well."
9
DR. SAPP:
You know, housing for students
Right.
Every little bit helps.
10
really underwent a great change just since we came
11
here.
12
students still lived in private --
When we came in '57 most of the men
13
MRS. SAPP:
Rooming houses.
14
DR. SAPP:
-- rooming houses.
15
16
There were no
Daisy Field dorms at all.
MRS. SAPP:
But it was integrated through --
17
wasn't the stadium housing integrated, their
18
housing below the, underneath the stadium?
19
think the housing was integrated.
20
(10:59:07)
21
MR. ARNOLD:
22
MRS. SAPP:
23
MR. ARNOLD:
I
It wasn't initially but -No, I mean by then --- it was one of the first
24
things, it became integrated, then the big fight
25
was whether the university would continue to allow
�61
1
private landlords to advertise housing on
2
campus --
3
MRS. SAPP:
That's right, that's right.
4
MR. ARNOLD:
-- that would not allow
5
African-Americans into that housing and the
6
university finally, under some pressure, finally
7
took a position that yes, we're not going to allow
8
those landlords to advertise on campus.
9
10
MRS. SAPP:
Yes, I do remember, now that you
remind me.
11
(10:59:35)
12
MR. ARNOLD:
I think that was kind of the
13
last fight, and Gale Sayers was actually involved
14
in the protests related to making that change, so
15
the athletes at K.U. definitely played a role in
16
--
17
MRS. SAPP:
18
MR. ARNOLD:
19
Definitely.
-- helping to bring about
change?
20
DR. SAPP:
Yes.
21
(10:59:48)
22
MR. ARNOLD:
One thing I noted in reading the
23
meeting minutes of all the human relations council
24
meetings, and I, or Human Relations Commission
25
meetings and then also I think the City Commission
�62
1
meetings on this issue were that the two of you
2
were present at every one of them.
3
because of your involvement with this particular
4
issue or did the two of you normally attend those
5
on just general issues?
6
MRS. SAPP:
7
MR. ARNOLD:
8
MRS. SAPP:
9
DR. SAPP:
10
Was that just
No, we didn't normally.
Okay.
It was because of this.
We were very committed to this
issue.
11
MR. ARNOLD:
12
MRS. SAPP:
Right.
I would say we were interested in
13
others and we did go to some other meetings but we
14
didn't go regularly.
15
(11:00:23)
16
MR. ARNOLD:
Right.
Now, when the City
17
Commission held, during two different sessions,
18
one the proponents of the ordinance presented
19
their case and then later Don Hults and I think
20
one other realtor were the only people who showed
21
up speaking against it at a separate session, but
22
do you recall in the session of the proponents
23
people, as I recall, spoke in favor of it, like
24
Jesse Milan, Homer Floyd, who was the director
25
then of the Kansas Civil Rights Commission, do you
�63
1
think voices like theirs, voices of people who had
2
been discriminated against, played an important
3
role in swaying the commission that this was the
4
right thing to do?
5
MRS. SAPP:
I think so, yes, and the -- do
6
you want to say something about the Kansas
7
Advisory Commission, or Committee for Civil Rights
8
with -- Dick was a member of this.
9
10
DR. SAPP:
local level and I got involved at the national, --
11
MRS. SAPP:
12
DR. SAPP:
13
We kind of progressed from the
At the state.
-- I'm sorry, at the state level,
too.
14
(11:01:27)
15
MR. ARNOLD:
16
17
Yes, I'd like to hear about that
as well.
MRS. SAPP:
Yes, I was not on the one that
18
went to that, but first let me say, Ruth Shechter
19
in Kansas City was director or head of that Kansas
20
Advisory Council for Civil Rights and I found a
21
copy of a letter she sent saying thank you for
22
sending a copy of the Lawrence ordinance and
23
congratulations and we got, at least we got
24
something through after losing at the state level.
25
MR. ARNOLD:
Right.
�64
1
MRS. SAPP:
She was very pleased with that.
2
She was a very good person to have directing this
3
and just spent all kinds of time involved.
4
think she had come through from the Jewish, what,
5
I don't know what organization but I think she'd
6
started out in that way, but, yes, you can go
7
ahead.
8
Kansas Advisory Council and we both attended a
9
number of the meetings when Dick was on it.
We've got oodles of material from the
10
(11:02:33)
11
MR. ARNOLD:
12
I
Yes, describe that organization
and how you were involved with that.
13
DR. SAPP:
I didn't know whether you -- I
14
think we both went.
15
were very social minded, involved in things, told
16
us about a meeting in Topeka where they were going
17
to talk about fair housing and so we were coming
18
right off of this hot topic in our minds so we
19
wanted to go to this meeting, and they had a
20
realtor from someplace in Colorado as the
21
principal speaker, spoke about they had gotten
22
fair housing ordinance in Colorado and what was
23
involved, but he seemed amazed that they had been
24
able to do that.
25
be done until it got done out there, so he was
George and Mandy Caldwell
He didn't realize that it could
�65
1
kind of there to encourage us, but the executive
2
director of the Kansas --
3
MRS. SAPP:
4
DR. SAPP:
5
MRS. SAPP:
6
DR. SAPP:
Carl Glatt.
Carl Glatt.
Glatt.
Kansas Civil Rights Commission, he
7
was a white man and with I would say a very
8
abrasive approach to things and he was under
9
considerable fire and so at this meeting then we
10
heard black people testifying against Carl Glatt.
11
They didn't like Carl Glatt, they wanted to get
12
rid of him, and so this was kind of a new
13
phenomenon to me, so after the meeting we went to
14
talk to their spokesman, who had presented their
15
objections to Carl Glatt, and we just said, you
16
know, we're just getting into this, we don't know
17
much about it, but what if you get rid of Carl
18
Glatt?
19
we have a man in mind who I think can do a very
20
good job in that position.
21
So that's when --
22
MRS. SAPP:
23
DR. SAPP:
24
25
What are you wanting?
And he said, well,
Homer Floyd.
-- Homer Floyd came on the scene
there.
MR. ARNOLD:
Okay, that's very good.
�66
1
MRS. SAPP:
Here is a -- oh, there were
2
things about was this constitutional, too, that,
3
you know, fair housing.
4
(11:05:24)
5
MR. ARNOLD:
Fair Housing Ordinances.
And
6
that was probably resolved the next year when the
7
federal fair housing law was passed.
8
9
Now, I had seen a letter that I think the two
of you signed to the U.S. Senator from Kansas --
10
MRS. SAPP:
Yes.
11
MR. ARNOLD:
-- in support of fair housing
12
nationally, so you all were obviously looking much
13
bigger picture than just --
14
DR. SAPP:
By then, yes.
15
MR. ARNOLD:
16
MRS. SAPP:
Right.
Yes, here's one, Kansas Advisory
17
Council on Civil Rights.
18
from the Kansas City Star on November 2, '66,
19
realtors help write Colorado housing law.
20
MR. ARNOLD:
21
MRS. SAPP:
22
(11:06)
23
MR. ARNOLD:
It's an article then
Okay.
That's kind of interesting.
And I know there was some
24
effort, people like Glenn Kappelman, and even
25
Homer Floyd went and talked at one point to the
�67
1
Lawrence realtors to try and bring them on board
2
and get them involved in the process, like it
3
sounds like happened in Colorado, but they tended
4
to be resistant.
5
DR. SAPP:
Still licking their wounds.
6
MR. ARNOLD:
7
MRS. SAPP:
8
DR. SAPP:
Right.
They just --
On that trip to Topeka I got
9
acquainted with the woman that Fred mentioned as
10
the chair of their local civil rights commission
11
here in Lawrence, Mayzelma Wallace.
12
MR. ARNOLD:
13
DR. SAPP:
Right.
And I got acquainted with her on
14
that and she was really a remarkable individual.
15
I was very impressed with her.
16
MR. ARNOLD:
Yes.
Fred said he got to know
17
her very well and was thoroughly impressed with
18
her.
19
MRS. SAPP:
I did go to those meetings, I'm
20
just not listed as a member of the committee and
21
it's all kind of fuzzy to me, but I know Dick took
22
an active part and I know I went to meetings in
23
Topeka with that, and Georgella Lyles was another,
24
a black woman in Lawrence who did quite a bit with
25
this kind of thing.
I remember Georgella well,
�68
1
2
who was a good person, really good person.
Yes, Fred was really very involved with the
3
whole thing at a time when he was establishing his
4
own career and such, too.
5
(11:07:49)
6
MR. ARNOLD:
Right.
I'm sure he --
Earlier in the
7
conversation we talked about, I asked you about
8
kind of if you could name some people who played
9
kind of a prominent role in general in Lawrence in
10
bringing about change.
How about specific to the
11
Fair Housing Ordinance?
Can you name any other
12
key individuals who you think played an important,
13
particularly important role in making it happen
14
and getting the ordinance up before the City
15
Commission and getting it passed?
16
MRS. SAPP:
17
MR. ARNOLD:
18
a group effort?
19
MRS. SAPP:
I would say -Or was it pretty much a kind of
Well, I think that's true but I
20
think like Glenn Kappelman, who was not on the
21
Human Relations Commission, --
22
MR. ARNOLD:
23
MRS. SAPP:
24
MR. ARNOLD:
25
become a member.
He actually was.
Oh, was he?
He was.
In 1967 he actually had
�69
1
MRS. SAPP:
Okay, I didn't realize, I didn't
2
remember that.
3
Human Relations Commission, Jim Owens and --
4
5
6
7
8
DR. SAPP:
I would say all the people on the
I can't think of anybody you
haven't already mentioned.
MR. ARNOLD:
Okay.
Just wanted to make sure
we didn't leave anybody out.
MRS. SAPP:
You know, the thing, it just
9
seemed to go through this, it was such a fight on
10
the state and defeated but locally it just seemed,
11
you know, I think maybe partly because the state
12
one was defeated, that people, that enough people
13
were rather indignant about that, too, and just
14
said we'll go, because the City Commission just
15
came along.
16
MR. ARNOLD:
17
MRS. SAPP:
18
Right.
Course, they'd heard from people
about it.
19
(11:09:20)
20
MR. ARNOLD:
And after it passed do you
21
recall any particular grumbling among the local
22
public or -- I've read somewhere that some people
23
said, well, maybe this should have gone to a
24
referendum, that there should have been a --
25
MRS. SAPP:
Oh, well, that's always said.
�70
1
MR. ARNOLD:
But do you recall there was any
2
significant pressure at all against it or was it
3
pretty well accepted, to the best of your
4
recollection?
5
DR. SAPP:
I don't think I have a clipping
6
but somehow I remember a report of a woman who
7
owned and operated an apartment complex and she
8
objected to this on the basis, you know, private
9
property, I can choose to associate with whoever I
10
want or not, and she pretty much expressed that
11
forced housing point of view that the realtors
12
were putting.
13
MR. ARNOLD:
14
MRS. SAPP:
15
16
DR. SAPP:
professor, too.
18
MRS. SAPP:
20
21
DR. SAPP:
Did she write an article?
How
That's what I can't remember now.
I didn't find a clipping in our collection.
MRS. SAPP:
23
there about it.
25
She's the wife of a university
did you hear about it, do you remember?
22
24
Did she write a, do you remember
--
17
19
Right.
DR. SAPP:
Well, I didn't see anything in
I don't really remember that.
I don't remember her name so I
can't name names.
�71
1
(11:10:53)
2
MR. ARNOLD:
Well, the reason I bring that up
3
is we had looked earlier at that letter to the
4
editor that the two of you signed some weeks after
5
it passed and I was wondering, do you think that
6
was a response because there were some other
7
negative letters about it and you were just trying
8
to lay out the positive argument or did you just
9
feel like at that point the City Commission
10
deserved an "attaboy" for having gotten this done?
11
MRS. SAPP:
12
DR. SAPP:
13
MRS. SAPP:
14
Probably both.
Some relief.
I don't really remember but I
don't think we would have heard too much about it.
15
(11:11:26)
16
MR. ARNOLD:
Yes, because you really, your
17
letter to the editor both praised the fact that it
18
passed, couple of paragraphs you kind of
19
summarized here's what's in the ordinance, just to
20
make people aware, and --
21
22
MRS. SAPP:
was another thing.
23
MR. ARNOLD:
24
MRS. SAPP:
25
Publicity, I think that was, that
Right.
Make sure people -- some people
read letters to the editors and they don't read
�72
1
other things.
2
MR. ARNOLD:
3
MRS. SAPP:
Right.
But, you know, that there's
4
support for this.
5
grumbled about it and I'm sure there were people
6
who owned, you know, a couple duplexes and don't
7
want this done, but there were some exceptions for
8
duplexes.
9
MR. ARNOLD:
10
MRS. SAPP:
I'm sure there were people who
Right.
And I don't know, I think for a
11
lot of people the whole idea of selling your house
12
to people, to, well, in this case, of course, to
13
black people was losing money and that that comes
14
with the redlining and somebody going in and
15
saying your property values are going to drop and
16
that kind of thing.
17
18
Financial, in other words, because a lot of
people really couldn't afford to lose money.
19
MR. ARNOLD:
20
MRS. SAPP:
Right.
If you had enough money you could
21
take a stand on that way, so there again, having a
22
law meant that --
23
24
25
MR. ARNOLD:
Everybody was on an equal
playing field.
MRS. SAPP:
Yes.
That's a help.
�73
1
DR. SAPP:
I have one other experience.
2
About that time, after it passed, we had next door
3
neighbors who at some point got separating and
4
divorcing and so they were going to sell their
5
house and so I saw the woman in the driveway one
6
day and I walked over and I said, "I just want you
7
to know that as far as we're concerned we'd be
8
happy if you sold your house to negroes or whites
9
but we, don't think that we wouldn't like that,
10
discrimination like that," and the woman, her jaw
11
dropped.
12
anything ever to me again.
She just stared at me.
13
(11:13:59)
14
MR. ARNOLD:
Interesting.
She never said
But you commented
15
before we started the interview that in fact your
16
neighborhood did become integrated,
17
African-American families moved in after the
18
ordinance had passed?
19
MRS. SAPP:
20
They just didn't
stay long because they were university.
21
MR. ARNOLD:
22
MRS. SAPP:
23
Yes, a couple.
Right.
We lived right near the
university, just down the hill, so it's --
24
(11:14:16)
25
MR. ARNOLD:
And you all were on Avalon, is
�74
1
that --
2
MRS. SAPP:
Avalon, and it's a very -- well,
3
there are a number of people who aren't associated
4
with the university but it's, at least it used to
5
be mostly university people because they wanted to
6
live right close to campus, which is what we've
7
always liked.
8
(11:14:34)
9
MR. ARNOLD:
10
Right.
So you all can say that
you actually saw some actual change come about --
11
MRS. SAPP:
12
MR. ARNOLD:
13
MRS. SAPP:
14
(11:14:41)
15
MR. ARNOLD:
Yes, right.
-- as a result of the ordinance?
Right.
And would you say that the
16
neighborhood accepted these families without any
17
issues?
18
19
MRS. SAPP:
I never heard any problem about
it.
20
MR. ARNOLD:
21
MRS. SAPP:
Good.
I'm quite sure it would be
22
accepted by the people who lived there.
We have,
23
well, we have gay people, we have, I don't --
24
we've had people from other countries or of other
25
nationalities, we -- I don't believe there's a
�75
1
black couple there now.
2
feeling for who all lives there.
3
-- we've been there longer than anybody but I
4
would say people are neighborly but don't have
5
time to really neighbor.
6
of, you know, get-togethers that we once did.
7
(11:15:30)
8
MR. ARNOLD:
9
MRS. SAPP:
I don't have as good a
As we've gotten
We don't have the kind
Right, right.
And also there are not many
10
children right now in the neighborhood and when
11
there are children that's how you get out.
12
(11:15:38)
13
MR. ARNOLD:
Right.
This may not be a fair
14
question to ask because it asks you to kind of
15
give me a general impression, but would you say
16
that what happened in your neighborhood, did you
17
have any observations that that was starting to
18
happen more broadly in Lawrence after the
19
ordinance passed, that --
20
MRS. SAPP:
21
MR. ARNOLD:
22
I think so.
-- neighborhoods were starting
to integrate?
23
MRS. SAPP:
24
(11:15:56)
25
MR. ARNOLD:
Yes, I think so.
So you all can say based on your
�76
1
observation and impressions that the ordinance did
2
make a difference?
3
MRS. SAPP:
Oh yes, I think it made a
4
difference in attitudes.
I think there were a lot
5
of people -- this is my impression, I don't have
6
any facts or, you know, really to base -- that
7
there were people probably just waiting for
8
something like this that were relieved or found,
9
at least, as they went on, and people found --
10
well, we did have friends, again, associated with
11
the university who lived not many blocks from us,
12
toward downtown, I think on Alabama, and they were
13
in, I'm not sure whether they owned or rented the
14
house, I remember Thelma telling me -- and she was
15
at the high school as a counselor or something,
16
but across the street the woman wasn't too happy.
17
Now, Thelma was very low key and she said, I just,
18
essentially she overcame this with kindness.
19
was very friendly, she would take things over to
20
the woman and such and came around, so some of
21
that is getting to know people.
22
MR. ARNOLD:
Absolutely.
23
MRS. SAPP:
A lot of it.
24
(11:17:13)
25
MR. ARNOLD:
That's one of the biggest,
She
�77
1
biggest arguments for integration is when you get
2
to know the people you didn't think you liked
3
before but then you find out they're just people
4
just like you your attitude changes.
5
MRS. SAPP:
Yes.
Well, we find that
6
underneath everybody is pretty much, everybody
7
wants the best for their family, they want a home,
8
you know, they want employment.
9
(11:17:37)
10
MR. ARNOLD:
Right.
Let's shift away from
11
fair housing for just a second and we had brought
12
up earlier the swimming pool.
13
the city finally in a public vote passed a bond
14
issue to build the public swimming pool after it
15
had failed a couple time previous, times
16
previously.
17
MRS. SAPP:
18
MR. ARNOLD:
In November of '67
Yes.
What do you think finally
19
convinced -- and I understand it didn't pass by
20
much, but it passed.
21
convinced a majority of the public that the time
22
had come to build an integrated swimming pool and
23
passed that bond issue?
24
25
MRS. SAPP:
What do you think finally
Well, I think people were worn
down and I think the children had a lot to do with
�78
1
it, I suspect, insisting they wanted a swimming
2
pool, and not only the white -- white children
3
wanted a bigger swimming pool, a good swimming
4
pool.
5
23rd was not very big, and we took our kids to
6
that.
7
knew that we wouldn't, that they wouldn't, unless
8
there was a public one, and eventually we did join
9
one out near the West Junior High because that's
10
where they went and their friends were there and
11
they could ride their bikes there.
The little one they opened down south at
We would not join a private pool, and they
12
MR. ARNOLD:
13
MRS. SAPP:
Right.
But that was after we had the
14
downtown public pool open, and they did go to the
15
one downtown, too.
16
17
So, okay, so why it passed then.
think people, it's this issue is not going away.
18
MR. ARNOLD:
19
MRS. SAPP:
20
Well, I
Right.
There are enough people pushing
for it.
21
(11:19:20)
22
MR. ARNOLD:
And obviously the fact, as you
23
point out, there didn't seem to be much pushback
24
to the fair housing issue so maybe attitudes were
25
just starting to change.
�79
1
MRS. SAPP:
2
DR. SAPP:
3
MRS. SAPP:
Yes.
I can't think it was --
Yes.
I think, I think coming up with
4
the money for it.
5
many people who were against it.
6
enough -- there were other swimming pool things.
7
If you didn't want your kids swimming with
8
children of other races or nationalities you could
9
join a private one.
10
MR. ARNOLD:
11
MRS. SAPP:
12
I'm not sure there were too
There were
Right.
But you needed, but we needed one
that was available to all children.
13
(11:19:52)
14
MR. ARNOLD:
Somebody told me, it might have
15
been Professor Casad, that he thought that both
16
Baldwin and Eudora had integrated public pools
17
before Lawrence did.
18
sense of pressure in Lawrence that other
19
communities --
Do you think there was any
20
MRS. SAPP:
Oh, I don't remember that but --
21
MR. ARNOLD:
-- had integrated pools and you
22
23
24
25
were behind?
MRS. SAPP:
so, yes.
(11:20:15)
Yes, I think so.
I would think
�80
1
MR. ARNOLD:
Another thing I wanted to ask
2
you is obviously there was a lot going on
3
nationally in that time frame, racial tensions and
4
of course action at the national level.
5
Rights Act had passed, the Voting Rights Act.
6
you think that national events put pressure on
7
people here locally that they needed to recognize
8
that change is coming, let's start adopting it
9
locally because it's the right thing to do?
10
MRS. SAPP:
11
MR. ARNOLD:
12
MRS. SAPP:
13
MR. ARNOLD:
14
Did you have that feeling that
people were --
16
MR. ARNOLD:
-- more and more, yes.
-- cognizant of what was
happening around the country and feeling like --
18
MRS. SAPP:
19
MR. ARNOLD:
Yes.
-- it's time for us to change
here, too?
21
DR. SAPP:
22
MRS. SAPP:
23
(11:20:56)
24
MR. ARNOLD:
25
Right.
I think people --
MRS. SAPP:
20
Do
And it's going to come.
15
17
The Civil
I think so.
I certainly think so.
And certainly a university town,
again, you would have had people who were very
�81
1
well read and aware of what was going on and --
2
MRS. SAPP:
And coming from other places.
3
MR. ARNOLD:
4
MRS. SAPP:
Right, exactly.
And, you know, the library, I was
5
thinking about this, we had too small a library,
6
it was outdated, and wanted a library and pushing
7
for a bond issue for that, which happened, as I
8
remember, in 1970, the bond issue passed.
9
of goes along.
10
It kind
It's, again, something our
children need a better library facility.
11
MR. ARNOLD:
12
MRS. SAPP:
Right.
We all need a better library
13
facility.
On, there's fair housing, there's the
14
swimming pool.
15
because the library had been open to, of course,
16
everyone, but just the idea of having a better,
17
bigger, for the children, as well as for other
18
people.
19
that wanted things for its children, --
The library is a little different
I think Lawrence was very much a town
20
MR. ARNOLD:
21
MRS. SAPP:
22
MR. ARNOLD:
23
MRS. SAPP:
24
(11:22:05)
25
MR. ARNOLD:
Good.
-- were aware of this.
Right.
I think it always has been, so --
Now, unfortunately, even as this
�82
1
progress was happening in '69 and '70 Lawrence
2
erupted in some violence, --
3
MRS. SAPP:
4
MR. ARNOLD:
5
Yes.
-- some of it related to the
Vietnam War --
6
MRS. SAPP:
Yes.
7
MR. ARNOLD:
-- and some of it also related
8
to racial issues.
9
of, when that happened or did you sort of have a
10
sense that there was kind of a lid on a boiling
11
pot and that something was going to happen at some
12
point?
13
DR. SAPP:
Were you surprised when kind
We were on my sabbatical out at
14
Berkeley for six months, in the first six months
15
of 1970, --
16
MRS. SAPP:
17
DR. SAPP:
When the Union burned.
-- and that was just the end of
18
the violence in Berkeley, the city park bust had
19
happened the previous fall and things were
20
beginning to quiet down there, so I picked up the
21
San Francisco Chronicle and on the front page was
22
a picture of Lawrence police macing black students
23
at Lawrence High.
24
MR. ARNOLD:
25
DR. SAPP:
Wow.
And people said, "Ooh, what's
�83
1
2
going on in Lawrence, in Kansas?"
MRS. SAPP:
Gee whiz.
We, of course, heard from some of
3
the people here, and, Dick, but they were still
4
using tear gas on campus.
5
DR. SAPP:
6
MRS. SAPP:
Out there, yes.
Out there.
7
over.
8
the west coast.
9
(11:23:28)
10
MR. ARNOLD:
It wasn't completely
Oh, it was a very interesting time to be on
Did it surprise you when it
11
happened in Lawrence or did you have a sense
12
before you left that maybe things were kind of
13
build-, that that tension was building?
14
15
16
DR. SAPP:
I had not imagined that kind of
thing happening.
MRS. SAPP:
It was a shock to me.
I don't know.
It's -- I wasn't
17
too surprised.
I wasn't anticipating it but I
18
wasn't too surprised because just, again, you're
19
aware in a university town, the high school
20
students, the younger students are aware of so
21
many things because of that.
22
(11:24:04)
23
MR. ARNOLD:
Right.
Actually that's been
24
brought up to me by a couple of people is that it
25
wasn't just the university but the high school
�84
1
also was kind of a focal point of some racial
2
tensions.
3
MRS. SAPP:
4
MR. ARNOLD:
5
that time frame?
6
high school?
7
8
MRS. SAPP:
Yes, yes.
How old were your children in
They were still younger than
In, well, let's see, in '69 they
would have been eight and six or so.
9
MR. ARNOLD:
10
MRS. SAPP:
11
MR. ARNOLD:
12
personal experience --
13
MRS. SAPP:
Okay.
Yes, they were well below that.
So you wouldn't have had
And out in Berkeley they were in
14
grade school and they got excellent education and
15
a very diverse, among, in a diverse setting.
16
Teachers were diverse as well.
17
MR. ARNOLD:
18
MRS. SAPP:
Right, right.
And of course exposed to a lot
19
of, a lot of other things around there, so --
20
which we thought was very good for them, and, you
21
know, children just accept these things.
22
suppose if their parents have taught them
23
otherwise, but the friends our children, the kids
24
they went to school with, that they chose to
25
become closer to, there was no bearing on race,
I
�85
1
you know, it was just various races and whatever
2
and nobody seemed to be paying attention to what
3
color your skin was, what your eyes looked like
4
or, you know, I just never heard anything about
5
that, and I volunteered in the art classroom once
6
a week and so I was around the children some and
7
such, because I was very involved in our workshops
8
and activities out there.
9
time.
10
You could just participate in all kinds of
things without any formal basis really.
11
MR. ARNOLD:
12
DR. SAPP:
13
MRS. SAPP:
14
DR. SAPP:
15
It was so, such an open
Right.
They also had a good anti-drug -Oh yes.
-- education program at Berkeley
and that was very good.
16
MRS. SAPP:
17
(11:26:05)
18
MR. ARNOLD:
Starting, you know, first grade.
Interesting.
Well, I'm coming
19
close to the end of my questions, you'll be glad
20
to know, but I want to give you the opportunity to
21
blow your own horns a little bit.
22
two of you most proud of of the contributions you
23
made to these groups and to these accomplishments
24
back in that time frame?
25
MRS. SAPP:
What are the
Well, getting other, working with
�86
1
other people, getting other people involved,
2
promoting the fact that we needed fair housing
3
law, promoting integration of things, I would say,
4
for me.
5
Fact that you stuck your neck out, but you
6
got -- well, did you have tenure?
7
you had tenure.
8
DR. SAPP:
9
MRS. SAPP:
Yes, by then
Yes, right.
It took me quite awhile, I think,
10
to realize that, the pressure that could be on
11
people about their livelihood and such things.
12
MR. ARNOLD:
13
MRS. SAPP:
14
Right.
You know, because we -- I just
didn't worry about that.
15
(11:27:19)
16
MR. ARNOLD:
Dick, do you have any thoughts
17
on what you are most proud of of your involvement
18
at that time?
19
DR. SAPP:
I was just resisting the concept
20
of personal pride.
21
satisfaction out of doing the things that we did
22
in connection with this.
23
worked out.
24
(11:27:46)
25
MR. ARNOLD:
I just got a lot of
Right.
I'm so glad it all
The final question, in
�87
1
reflecting back on how you were able to accomplish
2
these things back then, if you were to talk to a
3
group of young people today who wanted to know how
4
they could bring about positive change what would
5
you tell them based on your experiences back then?
6
What lessons would you pass along?
7
8
9
MRS. SAPP:
Go ahead.
You dealt with young
people for more years than I did.
DR. SAPP:
Well, I just, I guess I would try
10
to modestly say this is one way to go about it,
11
but some people don't have the temperament to do
12
it that way, they've got to storm the Bastille and
13
sometimes that accomplishes things, too, so -- but
14
that's not the way I like to work.
15
this whole fair housing thing I felt like I was
16
kind of working behind the scenes somewhat.
17
surface here and there, but like arranging those
18
newspaper articles, my name does not appear
19
anywhere in any of the newspapers that carried
20
those articles.
21
MRS. SAPP:
In fact, in
I did
And not because you were afraid
22
to put it in but because you didn't feel it was
23
necessary.
24
DR. SAPP:
25
MRS. SAPP:
It wasn't -You didn't have the standing in
�88
1
the community --
2
DR. SAPP:
3
MRS. SAPP:
4
5
I didn't have --- or known in the community in
the way these others -DR. SAPP:
As a physicist I had no expertise,
6
that I've entirely an avocation to meddle in civil
7
rights affairs.
8
MRS. SAPP:
Yes, I don't call it pride but
9
just feeling good that we were active in it, I was
10
active in it, and tell people to go ahead and act
11
on your beliefs as much as you can, but think
12
about it, not just go out --
13
DR. SAPP:
The other thing I'd say is it can
14
be quite exhausting and I can't personally imagine
15
myself involving myself in a series of issues like
16
that over and over again, doing all this pushing
17
through to -- I kind of exhausted my energy for
18
that kind of effort.
19
(11:30:15)
20
MR. ARNOLD:
Yes, did the two of you get
21
involved in anything along those same lines later
22
on or was that --
23
MRS. SAPP:
Not, not to that extent.
24
DR. SAPP:
25
MR. ARNOLD:
No.
Okay.
�89
1
MRS. SAPP:
Not to that extent.
Yes, I think
2
we were doing that while having small, but not,
3
not infants but small children.
4
where you were working on research and --
5
DR. SAPP:
6
MRS. SAPP:
You were still
Still building my career, yes.
Yes, working on career and the
7
teaching, which can take, as you know, as much
8
time as you put in on it, and --
9
10
11
DR. SAPP:
We went from advocacy to just
being supportive of positive -MRS. SAPP:
I, you know, I'd say I was still
12
involved with the establishing the nursery schools
13
and things like that, but working with that
14
somewhat, with the, whatever the league was
15
working with at -- well, for the library, we
16
worked for getting that bond issue passed.
17
not to that extent.
18
MR. ARNOLD:
19
end of my questions.
20
opportunity.
21
touched on or any other memories you had which you
22
really were hoping to have the chance to share,
23
that this is your opportunity to do that, or have
24
we covered everything you can think of?
25
Okay.
No,
Well, I have come to the
I want to give you one last
Is there anything that I haven't
MRS. SAPP:
I think we've covered it.
�90
1
DR. SAPP:
Covered it.
2
MR. ARNOLD:
Great.
Well, thank you so much
3
for your time.
4
Lawrence Fair Housing Ordinance is a real
5
testament to how a group of concerned citizens can
6
come together kind of at the grassroots level and
7
push for change and make it happen, so I think
8
your involvement in that is something both of you
9
can be very proud of.
10
DR. SAPP:
I think the passage of the
Yes, this is all preliminary.
11
Next year will be the actual observance of the
12
50th anniversary.
13
MR. ARNOLD:
14
MRS. SAPP:
Right.
But you've done good -- I thought
15
Fred gave a very good talk.
16
mic?
17
MR. ARNOLD:
We are still on the
Yes, but I can turn it off since
18
I think we've wrapped up the formal interview.
19
*****
20
21
22
23
24
25
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
City of Lawrence Fair Housing Ordinance 50th Anniversary Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Discrimination in housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence -- History
African Americans -- Segregation -- Kansas -- Lawrence -- History
Lawrence (Kan.) -- Race relations -- History
Description
An account of the resource
<p>On July 18, 1967, Lawrence mayor Richard Raney signed into law Ordinance 3749, which provided fair housing protections to the citizens of Lawrence and predated the passage of the federal fair housing ordinance by almost a year. The purpose of this oral history project, sponsored by the City of Lawrence to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the ordinance, is to document and capture the memories, roles and issues surrounding the passage of Ordinance 3749.</p>
<p>In May 1961 the Lawrence City Commission established an interracial Lawrence Human Relations Commission (LHRC) to “further amicable [race] relations” and “investigate…practices of discrimination” within the city. Separately, in 1964 various community organizations, including the NAACP and church groups, formed the Lawrence Fair Housing Coordinating Committee (LFHCC). Working together, the LHRC and the LFHCC submitted a proposed fair housing ordinance to the Lawrence City Commission in April 1967 seeking to address discriminatory practices in the sale and rental of homes in the city that effectively perpetuated patterns of racial segregation. Although strongly opposed by the Lawrence Real Estate Board representing local agents, the Fair Housing Ordinance passed the city commission on July 18, 1967. As its stated purpose the ordinance aimed “to provide for the general welfare of the citizens of Lawrence by declaring discriminatory practices in the rental, leasing, sale, financing or showing and advertising of dwelling units, commercial units or real property to be against public policy, and to provide for enforcement thereof.”</p>
<p>Approval of Lawrence’s Fair Housing Ordinance predated the signing of the Federal Fair Housing Act by nine months and preceded passage of the Kansas Fair Housing Act by nearly three years. This landmark piece of civic legislation, promoted by a diverse group of concerned residents of a university town that viewed itself as an example of American values to outsiders, including foreign students, and aspired to embody the ideals of its Free-State legacy, addressed discriminatory practices in housing, providing means for victims to seek redress and imposing penalties on violators. The origins, development and importance of this citizen-inspired movement warrants examination and interpretation as the city approaches the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Fair Housing Ordinance of 1967. <br /><br />Interviews for this project were conducted by Thomas Arnold in the summer and fall of 2016.</p>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
City of Lawrence (Lawrence, Kan.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016
Relation
A related resource
<p>Click <a href="https://soundcloud.com/lawrenceksaudio/sets/50-years-of-fair-housing-in">here</a> to access the audio recordings of the interviews in this collection.</p>
<p>A selection of the interviews were also recorded on video. Click <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzt8e_efB6wWS-BHMpGWKW46fyHPtfKPZ">here</a> to access the video recordings of the interviews in this collection.</p>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Arnold, Tom
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Sapp, Richard
Sapp, Phyllis
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
1:38:35
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview of Richard and Phyllis Sapp
Subject
The topic of the resource
Discrimination in housing -- Kansas -- Lawrence -- History
Segregation -- Kansas -- Lawrence -- History
Lawrence (Kan.) -- Race relations -- History
Ordinance 3749 (Lawrence, Kan.)
Jayhawk Plunge (Lawrence, Kan.)
League of Women Voters (Lawrence, Kan.)
Description
An account of the resource
Oral history interview with Richard and Phyllis Sapp; Richard was a faculty member at the University of Kansas, and Phyllis was involved with community organizations such as the League of Women Voters at the time that Lawrence's fair housing ordinance was passed in July 1967. This interview was conducted by Tom Arnold on October 28, 2016, as part of the Lawrence Fair Housing Ordinance 50th Anniversary Oral History Project.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Sapp, Richard
Sapp, Phyllis
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Lawrence Fair Housing Ordinance 50th Anniversary Oral History Project
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
City of Lawrence, Human Relations Division (Lawrence, Kan.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
10/28/2016
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Arnold, Tom
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. The public may freely copy, modify, and share this Item for noncommercial purposes if they include the original source information. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Relation
A related resource
<p>Click <a href="https://soundcloud.com/lawrenceksaudio/richard-and-phyllis-sapp-hi?in=lawrenceksaudio/sets/50-years-of-fair-housing-in">here</a> to listen to the audio recording of this interview.</p>
<p>The Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas is the official repository for this collection of oral histories.</p>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
PDF
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SappInterview102816.pdf (transcript)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lawrence (Kan.)
1957 - 1967