You may have seen the new Wichita Monrovians alternate jersey for the Wichita Wind Surge as part of the MiLB community outreach initiative ‘The Nine’ (aptly named after the number Jackie Robinson wore in his sole season in the minors).
But that got me thinking… how many people have actually heard the story of the Wichita Monrovians?
So here we are. Buckle up because this is a story every Wichitan should know.
Who were the Wichita Monrovians?
Island Park hosted the game. Source: Wichita State University |
The TLDR (Too Long Didn’t Read) version of the story:
The Wichita Monrovians were an All-Black baseball team that beat the KKK in June 1925.
I want to provide a little more context into their history as well as that storied game.
The Monrovians baseball team was owned by the Monrovian Park Association which also happened to own Monrovian Park / Monrovian Amusement Park (Monrovia is also the capital of Liberia, a country in West Africa).
Modern Day 12th and Mosley |
This ballpark was located at 12th and Mosley. Monrovian Park opened on June 3, 1922 according to Brian Carroll and the team “appeared to have become one of the leading social forces of Wichita’s small black community” as noted by Jason Pendleton.
They weren’t always known as the Monrovians though. They were called the Black Wonders leading up to the team joining the Western League of Professional Baseball Teams in 1922. This league which consisted of teams from Kansas and surrounding states started that year, but fizzled out after just a season.
The league didn’t last long, but the name stuck. The Monrovians went about their barnstorm tour of Kansas and beat the local KKK baseball club “Number 6 team” in 1925.
It was immortalized in the song The Monrovians vs. the Klan:
The Big Game
98 years ago on a hot, 100-degree June day, the all-Black baseball team put it to the local Ku Klux Klan 10-8 in a game that was back and forth for the first 5 innings.
Keep in mind, this was a full 22 years before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in the MLB.
According to WSU history professor John Dreifort, “So it puts even more emphasis on the fact that Wichita could play a game, maybe for reasons that were not all that altruistic on the part of the KKK, but Wichita could play it and play it cleanly.”
The Wichita Beacon advertised the game (not the current day Beacon) which said:
“Strangle holds, razors, horsewhips, and other violent implements of argument will be barred at the baseball game at Island Park this afternoon when the baseball club of Wichita Klan Number 6 goes up against the Wichita Monrovians, Wichita’s crack colored team.”
People were urged to leave their weapons and violence at home to let the game be played. The ballpark on the former Ackerman Island in the Arkansas River was packed with fans.
Wichita’s Island Park baseball Stadium – Credit: Wichita Public Library |
In 1925, there were roughly the same amount of KKK members in Wichita as African Americans (~5000 of Wichita’s 70000 population). Still, the Monrovians had put out a standing challenge that they would play anybody in baseball and play anybody they did.
The money raised at the Monrovian games was donated to various social causes including the Phyllis Wheatly Children’s Home.
Some players ended up playing in the Negro leagues for the KC Monarchs.
The Fall of the Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan was already on a downward slope at this point.
The Governor of Kansas was anti-KKK and in favor of them leaving.
William Allen White (the legendary newspaper publisher of the Emporia Gazette) had published a series of editorials denouncing the Klan and even describing them as a “self-constituted body of moral idiots” and a “profitable hate factory and bigotorium.” White ran for governor himself in 1924 as an independent and although he wasn’t elected, he definitely helped change the public opinion in Kansas when it came to the Klan.
Some historians considered this baseball game against the Monrovians was a last-ditch attempt to show that “whites were superior” and improve the Klan’s image.
The Monrovians put one of the final nails in the coffin of the KKK in Kansas with this win. The Klan was officially out of Kansas by 1927.
Ron Bolton of BaseballHistoryComesAlive.com wrote that the Monrovians saw the game as “an opportunity to stick it to the bigots.” Bolton also summed up this whole game in a succinct one liner:
“Victory was theirs and hate had lost the day.”
Don’t feel like reading all that? Travel with a Wiseguy put together a great summary:
