Do I have your attention? Yes, it was bloody. But, we did enter the Union as a free state. We had several names - Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas, Border War state - all names that represented the fact that we were anti-slavery ------ John Brown against Quantrill's Raiders. SO MUCH HISTORY! SO MUCH HISTORY! (One of the new high schools in Lawrence, KS is named Lawrence Free State.)
Why is all this so amazing today? Our Gov. Brownback couldn't wait to take the lead in making sure Kansas was at the top of the heap - first in line - leading the parade of states that would suppress the vote of those citizens most likely to vote Democratic. Voter suppression for an exact few along with several other groups, the young and elderly, who voted the wrong way in the last election.
Oddly enough, Kansas, the reddest of the red states does not really need to suppress it's voters. It could have kept it's proud history of joining the union a free state. It could have said, "Look at us. We have a high school named Lawrence Free State." Well, Gov. Brownback, just where do you place THIS in our state's history?
