Have You Seen My Spirit?

Feisty African-American Mai DeKonza (1870-1959) faced discrimination, poverty, and disability with an indomitable spirit. When locals shunned her, she initiated correspondence with her Episcopal bishop, W.E.B. DuBois, and any other powerful person she could think of. She enlisted the help of Henry Ford by sending him samples of her essays, books, poetry. The music she composed was performed at events where she felt unwelcome. As a public speaker at political rallies, she decried the shackles of Jim Crow laws in free-state Kansas. She organized concerts and public events to educate the white public about black issues in the years before the modern Civil Rights era. She accomplished these achievements by wise use of her fifth-grade education. The most painful discrimination came from her church home where she was the only black member. Her ability to articulate and reflect upon the shunning provides us with insight into the black experience in post-Civil War America. Mai's strong spirit mirrored that of her mother, Elizabeth Lawton (1847-1910). When the Civil War began, Elizabeth was a slave in western Missouri. She marched out of enslavement as a teenager with the help of General Jim Lane and settled in Kansas. In less than two years, she found herself in the violence of Quantrill's raid on Lawrence; she sustained a gunshot wound in the raid that left her disabled and unable to support herself for the balance of her life. The perseverance of these two women to find ways of improving their lot in life gives readers a powerful portrait of the human spirit.