PAGE 8B: YANKTON 150 PRESS & DAKOTAN ■ SATURDAY, AUGUST 6, 2011

BY KATIE GLEICHThe Press & Dakotan

The story of how the civil rights move-ment played out in Yankton may not be aparticularly exciting one. There were noriots, and there were no demonstrations tospeak of. However, one would be amiss inthinking Yankton played no role in the ne-gotiation of equal rights during the 1960s,and even before then.

Numerous articles have been writtenabout how African Americans helped formthe community of Yankton. A March 23,1885, article in the Press and Dakotian re-ported: “There is a considerable exodus ofcolored people from Eufaula, Alabama, anda large proportion of those leaving theirold southern home are coming to Yankton.... These immigrants belong to the most in-dustrious class of colored southerners andmost of them are possessed of means withwhich to establish themselves. ... They area desirable accession to our populationand will contribute their share toward thedevelopment of Dakota’s resources.”

While Yankton was not devoid of in-stances of prejudice, discrimination orracial slurs, as referenced in Mickey L.Dennis’ book “Buffalo Soldiers of the West-ern Frontier,” it has a history of apparentequal rights, at least in the law books—ifnot in social practice.

As the capital of Dakota Territory, Yank-ton first had to establish its view on slav-ery. According to Dennis, William Jayne,the first governor of Dakota Territory, rec-ommended a law banning slavery withinthe territory with his first gubernatorialaddress in 1862. However, the Legislaturetook the governor’s proposal to the ex-treme and proposed a bill completely ban-ning all people of color from residing inthe area. That bill was defeated in theHouse, and people of all color and nation-alities were accepted into the state.

In 1868, under Gov. Andrew JacksonFaulk, the original Organic Act that al-lowed organization of government inDakota was modified to remove the word“white” in reference to which citizenswould have the right to vote and to attendpublic schools. The law then read: “Everyfree male inhabitant of the United States ...shall be entitled to vote at the first elec-tion.” Equally, public schools would be“free and accessible to all children.”

Proof of accessible schooling is foundin an 1889 essay written by Yankton HighSchool student Kate D. Chapman, who wasAfrican American. In her essay, titled “TheYankton Colored People — How They AreProgressing,” Chapman described howpeople of African American descent couldeconomically survive in areas even wherethe black population is small, using the in-habitants of Yankton as examples.

Meanwhile, after the initial Indian scareof 1862, Native Americans and caucasianpopulations also seemed to co-exist fairlypeacefully in the early years of Dakota Ter-ritory. In his boyhood recollections,George H. Miner, a notable early residentof Yankton, recalled working for NativeAmericans and finding his best friends in“half white, half Indian” children. Mineralso wrote how members of the localtribes would participate in Yankton’sFourth of July festivities, particularly thehorse races.

The coming of World War II, decadeslater, brought with it many social changes.In a Feb. 27, 1995, Press and Dakotan arti-cle, editor Milo Dailey wrote: “In the earlydays (of the Dakotas), words may havebeen insensitive, but there was an equalityof opportunity not easily found elsewherein America.

“That began to change in the hardtimes of the 1930s and got even worse dur-ing World War II as ‘old settlers’ with littleprejudice toward black people were re-placed by new generations and Americans

from more prejudiced sections of thecountry.”

In the 1920s and ‘30s, the Ku Klux Klan(KKK) became a presence in South Dakota.Alleged cross burnings in Yankton andSioux Falls prompted the N.A.A.C.P. (Na-tional Association for the Advancement ofColored People) to form chapters in thosecommunities, according to Dennis and aFeb. 20, 1995, Press and Dakotan article byDailey. While the scare tactics of the KKKwere primarily aimed at Catholic and Jew-ish residents in the state, the fear they in-stilled was felt universally, and thequestion of civil rights became more ur-gent in South Dakota.

Yankton’s real contribution to the civilrights movement of the 1960s can be pri-marily traced to one man: Ted Blakey.While other members of the Blakey familywere well-respected members of and im-

portant to the Yankton community, Tedwas certainly the most influential. As amember of nearly every organization Yank-ton had to offer—the Old Time Fiddlers,the Masons, and the Jaycees, just to namea few — Blakey used his public presenceto draw attention to equal rights for blackand Native American peoples alike.

According to an article in the Aug. 28,1981, edition of the Olney, Ill. newspaperDaily Mail, Blakey joined the N.A.A.C.P. inthe early ‘60s and, in 1962, helped to passa law in South Dakota making discrimina-tion in public places illegal. This followedseveral incidences in Rapid City whereblack servicemen from the nearby air basewere denied service in a local cafés andhotels. The incidents drew national atten-tion, and South Dakota, which once prideditself as truly being a “land of the free,”was dubbed “a pocket of northern resist-

ance to legal efforts to erase radical dis-crimination in public places” by the NewYork Times.

Blakey worked hard to change thatimage. In 1963, Gov. Archie Gubbrud tooknotice of Blakey’s work and appointed himEmancipation Proclamation Centennialstate chairman. Blakey and his family trav-eled to Washington, D.C,. for a conferencecommemorating the signing of the docu-ment.

In 1964, he headed up a committee atthe prompting of the N.A.A.C.P. that suc-ceeded in making South Dakota the 38thstate to ratify the 24th Amendment, elimi-nating the poll tax that targeted minoritiesand the poor alike.

Blakey credits his membership in theJaycees for motivating him to push for so-cial change. Dailey quoted Blakey as say-ing: “That was a big turn in my life because(the Jaycees’) motto at that time was,‘Young men can change the world.’

“Little did I know how much young mencould change the world.”

There were certainly things thatneeded changing in Yankton.

The Harlem Globetrotters, the famousbarnstorming basketball team comprisedof African American players, came to puton an exhibition show in Yankton but weredenied a place to stay in local hotels. Themen instead had to sleep in their cars.

In “Buffalo Soldiers,” Blakey states: “Upuntil [the 60s], a black person could notget a haircut in Yankton until after 5 o’-clock. He (the barber) pulled down theshades and then cut your hair. There wasnot a barbershop in Yankton that wouldcut a black man’s hair in 1963.”

Native Americans were also pointedlydiscriminated against. In the book “Yank-ton County History,” Leonard Bruguier, for-mer adviser of the Native Studies programat the University of South Dakota, recalledgrowing up as a Native American child inYankton:

“I was in one of the first graduating

classes of the new Yankton High School,class of 1963. … When I was a boy, I expe-rienced prejudice many times. … Therewas a lot of prejudiced white people inYankton. There were stores that Indiansdidn’t go into. If you did, you never gotwaited on. If it was a restaurant, you’dnever get served. There were places wejust flat didn’t go to because we didn’t feelcomfortable when people were rude tous.”

The book “Yankton County History”also featured an interview with CherylMarie White, a member of the Arikara tribein North Dakota who moved to Yankton asa young woman. “I found very little preju-dice against Indians in North Dakota,”White said. “When I came to South Dakotait was a shock to experience racial dis-crimination.”

However, there were havens of toler-ance in Yankton that actually encouragedinter-racial socialization. School, sportsand church activities were important forbuilding communities comprised of peoplefrom all backgrounds. Bruguier calledsports “the equalizer” of his life, as itdidn’t matter what color a person’s skinwas on the playing field.

Yankton High School and Yankton Col-lege were both well-known for their inte-grated student bodies and athletic teams.For Yankton College specifically, civilrights seemed a given, not something toeventually be incorporated into its doc-trine. African American students attendedthe college as early as 1917, with the col-lege yearbook, “Okihe,” listing Mabel Mor-gan and Julia Smith among the memberspresent.

In the ‘30s, Yankton College was theschool of choice for notable Yankton HighSchool athlete Leonard Smith. In an ex-cerpt from an as-yet unpublished manu-script by Betti Van Epps-Taylor, SouthDakota historian, Smith eliminated the Uni-versity of South Dakota as a college choicedue to “Vermillion’s egregious racism,” in-stead heading to YC.

In an era in which higher educationwas hard to come by for people of anyrace, and in an area of the country inwhich few people even completed highschool, Yankton College not only acceptedstudents from all walks of life but also ac-tively recruited students from differentbackgrounds as well.

In the president’s letter attached to theprogram of the Miss Black South Dakotapageant of 1977, held at Yankton College,then-president Alfred M. Gibbens wrote:“Throughout the history of Yankton Col-lege, minority students have added muchto the educational experience here. ...They have brought varied backgroundsand new points of view to the campus, andthey have enriched and been enriched bystudents from other locations and back-grounds.”

In regards to criticism Yankton Collegemay have received about its recruitinghabits from other South Dakota schoolswith primarily caucasian student bodies,former Yankton College student, coachand administrator Ron Bertsch said in aphone interview with the Press andDakotan that he dismissed such criticism,if he heard it at all.

“We looked at a student’s academic andathletic ability,” Bertsch said. “We didn’tlook beyond that.”

During the late ‘60s and ‘70s, YanktonCollege hosted many notable black civilrights leaders, who lead discussions andforums on campus. James Farmer, JulianBond, Channing Phillips and Dick Gregoryall visited campus— Farmer visited sev-eral times— and gave empowering,thought-provoking lectures on civil rightsand race relations.

Although no protests were staged at

Progress: Civil Rights And Yankton’s Life

P&D ARCHIVE PHOTOABOVE: A photo of an AME church picnic. Yankton welcomed African Americans early on, though there were pockets of prej-udice. Discrimination became more prevalent as others from more racially-divided parts of the country emigrated to SouthDakota. BELOW: This Dakota Territorial Museum photo shows the home place of Red Owl. The site was located about 2 1/2miles south of Yankton. The date the photo was taken is unknown.

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