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Richard Allen Cultural Center

African-American museums in KansasBuildings and structures in Leavenworth, KansasMuseums in Leavenworth County, Kansas
Richard Allen Cultural Center (front)
Richard Allen Cultural Center (front)

The Richard Allen Cultural Center opened in 1992 to highlight African-American history in Leavenworth, Kansas. In 1992, the museum opened in the former home of U.S. Army Captain William Bly, a Buffalo Soldier during World War I. The home is decorated to look as it would have in the early 1900s. In 2002, an addition was built to the front of the original home to display more items teaching about African-American history in Kansas. One display includes prints of original photographic plate negatives donated to the museum, called the Black Dignity Photos from the Mary Everhard collection. The photographs are African-American pioneers who lived in and around the Leavenworth area from 1870s to 1920s. Other items include military artifacts from African-American soldiers who served on Fort Leavenworth, including Colin Powell. The Richard Allen Cultural Center also contains a Ku Klux Klan costume and photographs depicting KKK activities in Leavenworth. One artifact is a news article discussing the public lynching of an African-American citizen of Leavenworth, Fred Alexander. The Richard Allen Cultural Center seeks to preserve these pieces of Leavenworth, Kansas history so that they are not forgotten. In 2016 a bronze bust of Cathay Williams, featuring information about her and with a small rose garden around it, was unveiled outside the Richard Allen Cultural Center.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Richard Allen Cultural Center (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Richard Allen Cultural Center
Johnson Street, Leavenworth

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N 39.3254 ° E -94.9158 °
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Johnson Street
66048 Leavenworth
Kansas, United States
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Richard Allen Cultural Center (front)
Richard Allen Cultural Center (front)
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Kansas Territory
Kansas Territory

The Territory of Kansas was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 30, 1854, until January 29, 1861, when the eastern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the free state of Kansas. The territory extended from the Missouri border west to the summit of the Rocky Mountains and from the 37th parallel north to the 40th parallel north. Originally part of Missouri Territory, it was unorganized from 1821 to 1854. Much of the eastern region of what is now the State of Colorado was part of Kansas Territory. The Territory of Colorado was created to govern this western region of the former Kansas Territory on February 28, 1861. The question of whether Kansas was to be a free or a slave state was, according to the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas–Nebraska Act, to be decided by popular sovereignty, that is, by vote of the Kansans. The question of which Kansans were eligible to vote led to an armed-conflict period called Bleeding Kansas. Both pro-slavery and free-state partisans encouraged and sometimes financially supported emigration to Kansas, so as to influence the vote. During part of the territorial period there were two territorial legislatures, with two constitutions, meeting in two cities (one capital was burned by partisans of the other capital). Two applications for statehood, one free and one slave, were sent to the U.S. Congress. The departure of Southern legislators in January 1861 facilitated Kansas' entry as a free state, later the same month.