| RACC | |
Richard Allen Cultural Center | |
| Established | July 19, 1992 |
|---|---|
| Location | 412 Kiowa Street, Leavenworth, Kansas |
| Coordinates | 39°19′31″N94°54′57″W / 39.3254°N 94.9158°W Coordinates: 39°19′31″N94°54′57″W / 39.3254°N 94.9158°W |
| Director | Edna Wagner (Executive) Phyllis Bass (Emeritus) |
| Website | Official website |
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. [1] One artifact is a news article discussing the public lynching of an African-American citizen of Leavenworth, Fred Alexander. [2] The Richard Allen Cultural Center seeks to preserve these pieces of Leavenworth, Kansas history so that they are not forgotten.
Leavenworth is the county seat and largest city of Leavenworth County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 35,251. Located on the west bank of the Missouri River. The site of Fort Leavenworth, built in 1827, the city became known in American history for its role as a key supply base in the settlement of the American West. It is important in nineteenth-century African-American history. During the American Civil War, many volunteers joined the Union Army from Leavenworth. It was the destination of numerous African-American refugee slaves who escaped from Missouri and other slave states. The city has been notable as the location of several prisons, particularly the United States Disciplinary Barracks and United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth.
Buffalo Soldiers originally were members of the 10th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army, formed on September 21, 1866, at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. This nickname was given to the Black Cavalry by Native American tribes who fought in the Indian Wars. The term eventually became synonymous with all of the African American regiments formed in 1866:
World War I, also known as the First World War or the Great War, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. Contemporaneously described as "the war to end all wars", it led to the mobilisation of more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, making it one of the largest wars in history. It is also one of the deadliest conflicts in history, with an estimated nine million combatants and seven million civilian deaths as a direct result of the war, while resulting genocides and the 1918 influenza pandemic caused another 50 to 100 million deaths worldwide.
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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. [3]
Cathay Williams was an American soldier who enlisted in the United States Army under the pseudonym William Cathay. She was the first African-American woman to enlist, and the only documented to serve in the United States Army posing as a man.
