“Only baseball is on tap at Island Park.”
That was a headline in the Wichita Beacon on June 21, 1925. The article went on to say that “strangleholds, razors and horsewhips” would not be allowed, because all that fans would be seeing was a simple baseball game between Wichita's Monrovians… and the local Ku Klux Klan. And, just to show there'd be no favoritism, the two teams were hiring Catholics as umpires.
"Well, that would have been perhaps a quarter mile north of us, more or less up where that bridge appears to be," said Wichita baseball historian Bob Rives.
Rives is looking up the Arkansas River from the Douglas Street bridge. The bridge once served as the south entrance to Island Park—the city’s major ballfield, where the game was played, stood on a huge sand bar in the middle of the river.
"It became the predominant ballpark for a good many years. It was used up until the early 1930s."
That’s when the ballpark burned down, and a few years later, the Works Progress Administration removed the sandbar. The Monrovians actually had their own field at 12th and Mosely in midtown Wichita, a sign of their on-field success and community support. They tore through their one season in the Colored Western League, winning something like 85 percent of their games. And the team cycled their financial support back into the Black community, putting money into social projects such as the Phyllis Wheatley Children’s Home. Donna Rae Pearson is with the Kansas Historical Society.
"They had a real affinity for the community that they were entertaining, but the games also provided some economic benefits for everybody involved," Pearson said. "So, they knew when they were sitting down to attend a game, I know I'm paying for the game, but I also know that this money is going to go help the children's home, and if the children's home is doing good, then I'm helping the community."
The Monrovians wouldn’t back down from any challenge, and how often do you get to stick it to the KKK? So that probably explains their end of things. But why would the Klan play this game? Well, they were struggling to stay in Kansas at all—they were fighting a long legal battle with the state, and progressive newspaper owner William Allen White was waging a fierce public relations campaign against them. The Klan was desperately trying to show they provided some kind of positive influence on society, having already given thousands of dollars to Wesley Hospital. And a Christmas photo in the Wichita Eagle showed the Klan in full costume with hundreds of baskets of food and clothing for needy families, which they insisted were for anyone, regardless of race or religious belief. So, play a game against an all-Black team? Sure, if it works!
"And it was kind of one of those last-ditch efforts to say, hey, we're really not so bad. We'll play with them," Pearson said.
It didn’t work: the Klan was kicked out of Kansas a couple years later. But the game between the Monrovians and the KKK did happen that Sunday afternoon at Island Park. The Beacon reported there were no major incidents, other than some pretty good baseball. The Monrovians won the game 10-8 after a pitcher's duel broke open in the fifth inning, and the crowd was described as large and enthusiastic. Beyond that, the game seems to have never been mentioned again, and the Monrovians disappeared from public view as well. We do know that a few of them went on to play for the Kansas City Monarchs, perhaps the most well-known team in the Negro Leagues. But otherwise, like the ballpark they once played in, the Monrovians just faded away.