WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) – Like most communities across the country, Wichita had a once-thriving Black business community.
The Special Collections at Wichita State University now holds a piece of that history with The Wichita African American Business History Project.
In 2014, Dr. Robert E. Weems Jr., Willard W. Garvey Distinguished Professor of Business History at Wichita State documented the history of the African American businesses in Wichita. He set out to uncover the successes and struggles of local Black business ownership, interviewing 32 people about their journey.
“Most of the people that I interviewed, you know, talked about their experiences from say the mid-20th century up into the early 21st century, and in the end, I was able to really come up with a nice overview of African American entrepreneurship pretty much from the late 19th century to the early 21st century,” said Weems.
AUDIO: The Wichita African American Business Project
One of the first people Weems interviewed for the project was renowned architect and Wichita native, Charles McAfee.
“I got so much national publicity about housing that I had jobs from Maine to Texas. From then on, I was on an airplane every week going somewhere,” said McAfee. “While I’m doing work every place else, I got nothing in Wichita.”
McAfee said the road to business ownership in Wichita hasn’t been easy. He said he built his architectural firm here, and by the late 20th century, and it had gained worldwide fame. But McAfee said he continued to struggle in his hometown.
“My oldest daughter decides she wants to be an architect. Went to K-State. Graduated with honors. Went to Harvard, did the same thing,” McAfee recalls. “Finally came back, was working here in Wichita. I was in an interview in Atlanta, I came back to Wichita and I walked in the office and I said, ‘Baby, we got the Olympics.’ Cheryl went down, I named her the prime architect for all 32 venues for the Olympics.”
AUDIO: The Wichita African American Business Project (cont.)
Some of McAfee’s local structures include Calvary Baptist Church in northeast Wichita and McAfee pool, located in the historic McAdams Park. That pool was renamed for McAfee in 2020. But despite his family’s success, he said Black business owners in Wichita have always had to fight harder to succeed.
“We have never had access to the money in this town,” said McAfee. “All this stuff is unnecessary. If we had just done what we could’ve done years ago, all this would be different. We have exported so much talent that we didn’t have to export.”
Weems hopes McAfee’s story and his other interviews may help young Black professionals well into the future.
“A young African American that might be thinking about going into business for him or herself, these stories might in fact serve as a source of inspiration to these individuals,” Weems said.
AUDIO: The Wichita African American Business Project (cont.)
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