The little-known story of a major catastrophe in a 1960s African American community: A “commendable, if unsettling, account.” —Richard Kluger, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Simple Justice On the cold Saturday morning of January 16, 1965, a U.S. Air Force KC-135 tanker carrying thirty-one thousand gallons of jet fuel crashed into a congested African American neighborhood in Wichita, Kansas. When the fire and destruction finally subsided, forty-seven people—mostly African American children—were dead or injured, homes were completely destroyed and numerous families were splintered. As shocking as it may sound, the event was seemingly omitted from the historical record for nearly fifty years. Now, historian D. W. Carter examines the myths and realities of the crash while providing new insights about the horrific four-minute flight that forever changed the history of Kansas. Includes photographs

The African American community of Wichita is as old as the city itself, dating back to early pioneers, cowboys, and business figures. Once relatively integrated, Wichita became more segregated as the 20th century unfolded. In response, African Americans developed a lively neighborhood downtown with its own businesses, churches, schools, and organizations. World War II brought new populations to work in the aircraft industry and set the stage for profound changes. In the 1950s, a younger generation of leaders challenged racism and discrimination, unleashing a period of change that was both hopeful and painful. In recent years, the African American community has become more complex, with generations of established families joined by recent transplants, emigrants from Africa, and children of mixed marriages. While challenges remain, African Americans are more visible than ever before in local life, evident in politics, business, sports, and education.

Drawing on rich qualitative data, as well as theoretical and conceptual frameworks, this text explores how institutions of higher education in the US can effectively remember incidents of campus crisis through physical memorials and commemoration. Recognizing memorialization as a process of group and individual recovery, the book foregrounds the performative functions of physical memorials, and highlights their utility for the extended campus community. Profiling existing campus memorials in the US, and offering insights from students, faculty, community members, and the loved ones of those memorialized, the text illustrates how institutional decisions and long-term strategy can serve to effectively navigate the politics of memorialization, helping communities move beyond incidents of collective trauma. This text will benefit researchers, academics, and educators with an interest in emergency management, student affairs practice and higher education administration, and commemorative literature more broadly. Those specifically interested in heritage studies, public history, and American history will also benefit from this book.

"I left three years ago to do my part in putting down this unholy rebellion." By 1861, Charles Adam Wetherbee had officially traded his comfortable life as a college student for one that included drafty Sibley tents, long marches in weather and wilderness of all kinds, and bloodshed. A Union infantryman with the Thirty-Fourth Illinois Volunteer Regiment, he survived the battles of Shiloh, Stones River, Liberty Gap, Atlanta, and others. One hundred years later, long after Wetherbee had died, a tattered and faded diary was found at a home in Lawrence, Kansas. The homeowner opened its pages and was astonished to discover that Wetherbee had penned every detail of his daily life during the Civil War. Wetherbee's diary presents a realistic view of what a soldier's life entailed, as the reader is thrust into the firsthand drama of the Civil War as it was endured by enlisted participants. Get a true sense of what the Civil War was like from someone who was there to witness an Unholy Rebellion.

"On the cold Saturday morning of January 16, 1965, a U.S. Air Force KC-135 tanker carrying thirty-one thousand gallons of jet fuel crashedinto a congested African American neighborhood in Wichita, Kansas. When the fire and destruction finally subsided, forty-seven people--mostly African American children--were dead or injured, homes were completely destroyed and numerous families were splintered. As shocking as it may sound, the event was seemingly omitted from the historical record for nearly fifty years. Now, historian D. W. Carter examines the myths and realities of the crash while providing new insights about the horrific four-minute flight that forever changed the history of Kansas. "--

Kansas played an outsized role in the Cold War, when civilization's survival hung in the balance. Forbes Air Force Base operated nine Atlas E intercontinental ballistic missile launch sites. Schilling Air Force Base was the hub for twelve Atlas F ICBMs. McConnell Air Force Base operated eighteen Titan II ICBMs. A Kansas State University engineering professor converted a discarded Union Pacific Railroad water tank into his family's backyard fallout shelter. A United States president from Kansas faced several nuclear war scares as the Cold War moved into the thermonuclear age. Landry Brewer tells the fascinating story of highest-level national strategy and how everyday Kansans lived with threats to their way of life.

Former USAF pilot Christopher Hoctor examines the history and safety record of the Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft.

This is my true story about how a young man turned his emotional and learning disabilities that cast him as a failure in society into natural advantages. He overcame one challenge after another in his quest to fulfill his dream to fly. At the age of 17 he earned his Private Pilots Certificate, at 18 his Commercial and at 19 he becomes one of the Army’s youngest helicopter aircraft commanders in Vietnam. He endures the horrors of war and returns home, now much older than his 20 years. He continues his love of flight as a civilian. After years of flight, his past comes back to haunt him. He now must face his greatest challenges yet: Cancer brought on by Agent Orange and PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). The FAA grounds him. Is there one more fight left in him, “for the love of flight?"