KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Born into slavery in Kentucky in 1859 and emancipated by the Civil War, Junius Groves around 1880 walked 500 miles to Kansas with other freed slaves as part of what became known as the Exodus of Blacks from the South. He arrived carrying 90 cents and later became known as the "Potato King of the World."
Decades later, Joe Louis became the heavyweight boxing king of the world, defending his title 25 times and striking a momentous symbolic blow against Nazi propaganda by swamping Germany's Max Schmeling in their 1938 rematch.
Thomas Hunton Swope was a local real estate mogul and philanthropist who died under suspicious circumstances in 1909.
And then there were Kansas Citians Reuben Benton, George Johnson, Leroy Doty and Sylvester "Pat" Johnson, who would become entwined in local history as "The Foursome" with their vital but perhaps underappreciated action in 1950.
On the surface, anyway, there's no obvious connection among these distant and disparate forces.
But they're all fundamental parts of a vast and fascinating tapestry of the history of Black golf and Kansas City and American culture, the subject of a documentary being orchestrated by the Black Archives of Mid-America and to be produced by W. Stinson McClendon and Rodney Thompson of Reel Images.
"We want to talk about the good, the bad, the happy and the sad," said James Watts, ombudsman for the Black Archives. "That's what life is."
In this case, as a view through the lens of sports often provides, Watts believes the production will both mirror and illuminate broader truths of the ongoing impact of repression, bigotry, access denied and systemic issues that are "no different than any other story in the pursuit of happiness by Black folks."
As such, he hopes it can help reshape and develop relationships in our community and beyond when it comes to a game in which Black participation remains resoundingly low (only 3% of recreational golfers are Black, according to a 2019 NBC report citing the National Golf Foundation) despite efforts to create diversity around the nation and locally.
"If you change the way you look at things," Watts said, "the things you look at will change."
'Give life and breath to those times and those people'
The project is in its early stages yet, with a segment of filming to begin next week at Creekmore Golf Club, for a 2022 release target.
But Watts called it to the attention of The Kansas City Star now because he is seeking community assistance, from related personal experiences and pictures to relevant artifacts and articles to donations to help fund it.
The documentary also represents another way, Black Archives executive director Carmaletta M. Williams said, to continue "that struggle to tear down those walls" — walls that in this case existed not merely to deny recreational opportunities to which anyone should be entitled (bad enough) but also to obstruct much more far-ranging hopes and ambitions.
"If decisions about you and your family and your life and your economics and your education are made on golf courses, and you're excluded from golf courses, then that is system racism," Williams said.
Noting that understanding the past is part of reconciling the future, she added that it's imperative to "give life and breath to those times and those people."
The production remains to be fully shaped, and Watts also is seeking to preserve a certain mystique in the lead-up.
But his initial vision of it seems inclined to track the barrier-breakers along the way — through what he describes as parts of history both known and revelatory and fused together in what he believes will be a unique context.
And at least tentatively, it will stress what Williams and Watts consider a striking chronicle right here of bold action in the face of a prevailing racist status quo.
Before the lunch counters and bus boycotts
One hundred years ago in Edwardsville, Kan., Watts' research and historical documentation suggests, one of the few places Blacks in the region could play golf was on a course Groves had built near the Pleasant Hill Baptist Church that he'd founded.
The course was considered one of, if not the, first golf course in the United States built to serve African Americans.
The men who played there formed the Heart of America Golf Club, which would later include such notable Kansas Citians as City Councilman Bruce Watkins, baseball icon Buck O'Neil and Ollie Gates, the restaurant owner and parks commissioner.
By the late 1930s, they were able to play at the 1,344-acre park donated in 1896 by Swope. But it was only one or two days a week (various historical reports differ) ... on course No. 2, part of what became known as Watermelon Hill.
"It wasn't a forward-thinking mindset," Watts said, "when you have to describe something that's No. 1 and No. 2."
Even gaining that ground had been a struggle, Watts said, that came only after a lawsuit filed by the Heart of America club against Kansas City in 1938, as also documented in George B. Kirsch's book, "Golf In America."
The cause, Watts added, was bolstered by the support of Roy Wilkins — the former Kansas City Call editor and reporter who would later become executive director of the NAACP.
"That's before the lunch counters and Brown vs. (Board of Education of) Topeka; that's before the bus boycotts," Watts said.
While it couldn't be immediately independently confirmed, Watts said part of what paved the way was that a little-known element of Swope's will said the park should not be segregated.
"He was trying to move the city forward," said Watts, who said he's in possession of audio from the planning meeting that created the relative breakthrough at Swope.
But the winds of more meaningful change were fleeting, if not halting, both here and around the nation.
As he became more enamored of pursuing a future in the sport, Louis sponsored the Joe Louis Open in 1941 in his hometown of Detroit. But after he returned from World War II, Louis became increasingly cognizant of the contradiction of having served in the U.S. Army and being denied equality ... including being unable to play competitive golf wherever he wanted instead of just under the umbrella of the United Golfers Association founded for Black golfers in 1925.
With the "Caucasian-only" membership clause embedded in the PGA bylaws, Louis kept seeking opportunities and working on his game. He hired Teddy Rhodes, one of the great Black golfers of the time, to be his coach and befriended Bill Spiller — who became a crucial catalyst for change he'd cruelly never get to enjoy himself.
In 1948, a year after Jackie Robinson integrated baseball, Spiller, Rhodes and Madison Gunther were denied entry in that year's Richmond (Calif.) Open and filed a lawsuit against the PGA.
In Spiller's case, that was despite qualifying at the L.A. Open, where he had been tied for second place with the legendary Ben Hogan with a 68 on the first day before finishing 34th there.
A few days before the court date, according to ESPN, the parties agreed to drop the lawsuit when the PGA said it would no longer discriminate.
"The suit was dropped, but the plaintiffs were snookered," ESPN wrote. "The PGA suggested the sponsors begin calling their tournaments 'Open Invitationals,' invitational being the operative word. The deceit had virtually total participation. No blacks got invitations."
'Go ahead ... arrest us'
While change was bubbling but stalled, Reuben Benton, George Johnson, Leroy Doty and Sylvester "Pat" Johnson went to Swope Park on March 24, 1950, with a mind to do the unthinkable: They were determined to play course No. 1 despite being told they couldn't because they were "colored."
As they made their way to the first tee, the superintendent said he'd call the police.
"'Go ahead,' the men said, 'arrest us,'" the men said, as J. Brady McCollough wrote in The Star in 2005. "They would not raise their fists or their voices, practicing Martin Luther King Jr.'s theory of civil disobedience years before it became a popular mantra."
As it happened, the police didn't come that day.
But a different sort of struggle ensued in the months to come: Black men who set out to play the course were likely to deal with a harsh reception and vandalism such as having their car tires slashed or windows broken.
Of course, there's so much more to that story.
Just like there is to the tales of Louis and Spiller, Watts noted, among many others pivotal to the narrative that the documentary will highlight.
Louis became the first person of color to compete in a PGA-sanctioned event in 1952 at the San Diego Open — where Spiller was again denied but made a reverberating statement of protest by sitting and standing at the first tee to delay the tournament.
That became another element of Spiller's instrumental contributions toward the PGA at last removing the Caucasian-only clause in 1961 and Charlie Sifford becoming the first African-American to earn a full-time PGA Tour card.
It's all part of the good, the bad, the happy and the sad of how we got here now. And with this documentary, Watts and Williams believe, it's part of how knowing the past might inform a more enlightened future.
———
The phone number for the Black Archives is 816 221-1600, and the website is https://blackarchives.org/.
Donations and artifacts can be sent in care of Watts to 1722 East 17th. Terrace, Kansas City, Mo., 64108. Watts also can be emailed at jameswatts@blackarchives.org.
