When properly motivated, when exposed to competent and dedicated teachers, and when prepared as the "whole child" in the "whole school" and supported by the "whole community," Black public school students can outperform any group of students, intellectually and academically. This article explains how this remarkable feat was accomplished, twice, in a Kansas school system in the 1940s.

This modest one-story home at 2401 Morgan Avenue in Parsons, Kansas, was the first launchpad for the children of Levi and Lillian Watkins.