Black History Month Highlights
This Black History Month let's celebrate by learning about local black leaders, buying, reading, and sharing books by black authors, amplifying black voices in the community, and supporting black owned businesses! Let's also get one step closer to understanding the people around us in the present by reflecting on their impact on the past!
Compiled by Prof. Jeanne Klein, University of Kansas
Edward S. Harvey (1870-1953), a highly respected and prosperous African American farmer, initiated the Douglas County Extension and Farm Bureau in 1917 as President and former twenty-year Secretary of the Douglas County Farmers’ Institute. His parents, David (1826-1893) and Rebecca (1830-1918) Harvey, born in human bondage, reunited near Lawrence in 1863 and rented land from Douglas County Sheriff Stephen A. Ogden in 1864. After five years of hard work, they purchased fifteen acres in section 21 west of Blue Mound which expanded to 153 acres (1909), 400 acres (1917), and 578 acres (1938) before down-sizing to 290 acres around 1946. Three surviving sons attended KU, earned letters in athletics, and promoted civil rights by contributing to civic, literary, school, church, and political associations. After teaching at Lincoln school, serving as District Court Clerk, and leading the all-black 23rd Kansas Infantry in Cuba (1898), Captain Sherman A. Harvey (1864-1934) practiced law and operated a tobacco business for nearly twenty years in the Philippines. After earning his medical degree in Nashville, Dr. F. D. Grant Harvey (1866-1923) later established his medical practice in Lawrence in 1900. As an 1894 KU graduate, Edward clerked for US Congressman J. D. Bowersock (1900-01) and then returned home to operate his family’s farm and raise livestock. In 1919, these three sons established the David and Rebecca Harvey Memorial Scholarship for African American KU students.i
Beginning in 1902, Edward actively cultivated his agricultural education by serving the Douglas County Farmers’ Institute, introducing Zimmerman soft wheat from K-State’s Experimental Station (1910), and frequently advising farmers on “scientific farming.” In 1912, he married Maud Henrie (1889-1970) and added electricity to his residence, barn, and granary two years later. They raised five children--David E. Harvey (1914-1999), Allen H. Harvey (1916-1978), Joyce M. Washington (1917-2000), Helen Woody, Jr. (1920-1974), and Dean O. Harvey (1922-1999). Mrs. Dorothy Harvey (Dean’s wife) survives at age 95, along with Ed’s great-grandchildren, Dwight L. Byers, Jr., Craig Byers, and John O. Green, among others. The Harvey family currently owns 560 combined acres.ii
As the first President of the Douglas County Farm Bureau in 1917, Ed stated, “I try to live an honorable life and do my part as well as I am able, and that is my advice to other negroes. Live in such a way that your white neighbors will have to respect you and when you have gained their respect they will be disposed to treat you fairly and justly.”iii
