Dare to dream about city's tourism possibilities

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, May 25, 2002 by Roger Aeschliman Capital-Journal

By Roger Aeschliman

Special to The Capital-Journal

I have a dream.

I have a dream that Topeka is a tourist Mecca --- an attraction so powerful that 5,000 tourists a day flock here from all across the country, or the world for that matter.

I have a dream that in addition to the daily crowds, once a year our city is overflowing with humanity as 200,000 Americans walk through town in a week-long celebration of culture and history that rivals the Kentucky Derby and the Indy 500 as a national icon.

I have a dream that school children will demand that their parents take them to Topeka when the parents ask about summer vacation plans.

I have a dream that for the civic investment of a few thousand dollars in signage, printing and promotion, Americans will be drawn to walk in the footsteps of little Linda Brown as she trudged from home to school --- 13 long blocks --- 13 long blocks that will take them from the site of the Brown home, past Sumner Elementary School, past the Longren Aircraft Works, past the original constitutional hall and across the street to the post office with its famous court chambers, past the historic Jayhawk Theater, right downtown past a hundred retail outlets and food purveyors, past the Ritchie House, and down the street to the restored Monroe School and National Monument.

I see them entering the currently non-existent Sumner School museum, and A. K. Longren's famous factory; deciding to stay an extra day in order to attend "In His Steps" at the restored and fabulous Jayhawk Theater; deciding to stay an extra weekend to attend the Topeka Jazz Festival; and leaving, happy they came to Topeka, and wearing T-shirts that proudly proclaim, "THE GREAT TOPEKA FREEDOM WALK!"

If we build it they will come.

They will come from Selma, to see the real birthplace of civil rights. They will come from Montgomery to see where Rosa Parks and others got their inspiration. They will come from crowded New York City and Los Angeles in order to see how a brave girl and a brave family in a sleepy Midwestern town dared to say the system was broken and to demand changes.

Within time, Americans will feel a compulsion to experience the freedom walk, to walk "in her steps," to understand how Americans of African descent got where they are today.

They will gaze from the curb where Linda Brown stood and think about walking 13 blocks through the fall heat wave or the winter snow storm. They will gird themselves to the task and they will walk, in all kinds of weather. Along the way they will pay to enjoy the historic and architectural sights at the Sumner School Museum and Children's Museum. They will touch the bullet holes in the post office and sit in the benches at the court chambers listening to the docents talk about the great Thurgood Marshall and his magnificent handling of the Brown vs. Board of Education case. They will buy treats and drinks from sidewalk vendors in the summer and sit down for a hot lunch on a winter day at the "segregated" lunch counter that some visionary entrepreneur will build in some vacant, window- shattered building on Kansas Avenue. And they will admire John Ritchie and his anti-slavery work as they visit the old limestone house that was such a vital spike on the underground railroad. And when they finish the all-day walk at the Monroe School and finish the tour there, they will return them to their airconditioned hotels and relax and reflect.

And once a year, perhaps on the anniversary of the Brown decision, in the springtime when the trees and shrubs are blooming, the daily Great Topeka Freedom Walk becomes the annual Great American Freedom March --- drawing enormous crowds for a full week of entertainment and history. Hotels from Salina to Kansas City, Holton to Emporia will be full. Cars will be backed up on the turnpike to Lawrence. And people will gladly pay for parking.

And for one magnificent moment --- a moment of city-wide prayer perhaps, when 100,000 residents and 200,000 guests pause to give thanks for the greatness of this freedom-loving and peaceful nation - -- for that one moment, Topeka will be on the map, in the news, and in the heart.

If the Chamber of Commerce, the Topeka Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Kansas Department of Travel and Tourism, the mayor and the governor, the city council and county commission, the Rotary Club, Kiwanis, Optimists and Masons, the school children and their teachers, the NAACP and any affiliated group or individual, the National Park Service, and the business community and labor unions would all simply meet for an hour and work out the details, oh how easy it would be.

I have a dream that one day when the teacher asks, "What did you do on your summer vacation?" a little girl from Florida will say, "I went to Topeka." And the rest of the class will say, "Aw...I only got to do to Disneyworld."

Roger Aeschliman lives in Topeka.