The infamous Kansas abolitionist John Brown as depicted in a detail of John Steuart Curry’s famous “Tragic Prelude” mural in the Kansas Capitol. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
“When anything is going to happen in this country, it happens first in Kansas,” said William Allen White, Kansas’s most famous resident (barring Paul Rudd and Superman).
Some may roll their eyes at this thought, that Kansas, a state known for being flat and boring and conservative, has been a trailblazer of the country, a hotbed of radical populism. But it’s true: Kansas has historically led the country in political and social insurgency. From the abolition of slavery to the push for prohibition, my beloved Sunflower State is where the will of the people reigns supreme.
If you weren’t privy to this fact, you are not alone.
I am sure the average Kansan wouldn’t know this either. In fact, if you grew up in Kansas, there is no doubt you, like me, took a field trip to the Capitol building, where stunning murals of the Kansas countryside were broken up by images of the occasional violent fanatic or two, eliciting more than a few eyebrow raises from your third-grade class.