Community pushes to rename school district named after KKK leader
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Topeka, Kansas (KMBC ) — For decades in Topeka, rumors about Seaman School District’s namesake Fred A. Seaman, have been floating around the community.
“The first time I heard about it, I was like ‘woah, why isn’t this a bigger deal?'” said Rene Cabrera, a Seaman High School student.
But it wasn’t until a report by two journalism students at Seaman High School, that proved those rumors to be true. That Fred A. Seaman was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
“Finding out all this information at once was really shocking,” said Madeline Gearhart, who co-wrote the story.
The students’ reporting showed Seaman’s involvement with the Klan throughout the 1920s —including him being a top KKK leader.
“It was definitely shocking, there have been rumors but it was easy to dismiss because the school was integrated,” said Tristan Fangman, co-writer.
Dr. Shawn Alexander, professor and chair of African-American Studies at University of Kansas says the KKK in the 1920s focused on labor issues in the state but says they were still equally racist and violent.
“The Klan had a major presence in Kansas. They were violent towards people–around labor more than race issues. They still have the ideas of white supremacy but it’s still very much a nativist position in the ’20s; anti-Catholic, anti-Black, anti-Jewish. Things you think about with the Klan,” said Alexander.
Students and people in the community are now calling on school officials to no longer keep the Seaman name.
“We have made excuses and excuses for decades, and nobody had cared to do anything about it,” said Forrest Brungardt, who with Rene Cabrera and others have been leading the push to rename the school.
“We think a good first step would be distancing ourselves by renaming our school,” said Brungardt.
Students have started a petition to rename it, and have been planning protests throughout the Topeka community.
As of Monday Night, more than 33,000 people have signed the petition to rename the school.
“If we don’t confront history, we don’t know what we have to overcome,” said Alexander.
We reached out to the Seaman School District for comment about its namesake and the push to rename it.
They sent us a statement from their School Board President James Adams saying, “The board has been receiving feedback on this topic since October and we continue to welcome those who want to reach out to us. I believe it is the board’s role to facilitate this community discussion and process. Obviously, this is new ground for us that we are trying to navigate while in the midst of a pandemic but I look forward to working with our community as we develop a process for feedback and a resolution.”
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