jan 1, 1923 - John Alfred Hodge

Description:

John Alfred Hodge was the first Dean of the African-American (colored) Sumner Branch of the Kansas City Kansas Junior College in 1923. The Sumner branch classes were held in Sumner High School (mostly in the annex) across the street from the white branch of the junior college. Hodge was Dean of the Sumner Branch from 1923 until 1951 when both schools were integrated. It is important to understand that KCKJC ran on two tracks: HB890 known as the “Segregation Bill” was passed by the Kansas State Legislature in 1905 and related to the government of schools in KCK to allow for the segregation of colored and whites in the school district which included the extension junior college until 1951.

The rare history here is that the KCK school district was desegregated in 1951 four years before Brown V. Board in 1955. There were fourteen students at the White Branch of KCKJC in the first semester of 1923 and 21 students by the second semester at the Sumner Branch. Hodge’s M.A. was from the University of Indiana. He came to KCK in 1910 as a math and German teacher at Sumner High School. By contract teachers at the Sumner Branch of KCKJC had to also teach at Sumner High School. Records of students at the Sumner Branch are hard to find because very little space was allowed to the Junior College in the Sumner High School newspaper called the Courier and The Sumnerian yearbook. The main activity separate from the high school was with the basketball team, which played against other colored colleges in the two state area.

Added to timeline:

Date: