[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 95 (Tuesday, June 4, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3949-S3950]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   REMEMBERING COLONEL WILEY M. POPE

 Mr. MARSHALL. Mr. President, I rise today to honor the legacy 
of Colonel Wiley M. Pope, who fought to free his family from slavery 
and secured the first emancipation in the history of Kansas.
  In 1860, Colonel Pope fled from Mississippi to Kansas with his wife 
and 13 children. Because his wife was Black and his children were 
biracial, Mississippi law dictated that they could be seized from him 
and sold as slaves to

[[Page S3950]]

recover debts he owed. He approached Judge Chadwick of Lawrence, KS, to 
plead for protection from any law enforcement or bounty hunters that 
might have tried to capture his wife and children. Moved by Colonel 
Pope's struggle, Judge Chadwick granted the very first emancipation in 
Kansas 3 years before President Lincoln signed the Emancipation 
Proclamation, ending slavery nationwide.
  As free citizens, the Pope family became one of the five original 
families to settle in the town of Quindaro, KS. Before the Emancipation 
Proclamation was signed, the entire community banded together to ensure 
the Pope family was safe from harm and to help other escaped slaves who 
entered Kansas through an Underground Railroad route from Missouri. 
Although the town is no longer inhabited, the ruins of Quindaro still 
stand today as a monument to the abolition of slavery.
  Though he died well over 100 years ago, Colonel Pope's descendants 
continue to carry on his legacy. His fifth granddaughter Lisa King 
serves as president of the Charles E. Pope Foundation, a nonprofit that 
seeks to empower people and businesses to thrive by rediscovering the 
love and bonds that encouraged their ancestors to seek freedom and 
build their community.
  I now ask my colleagues to join me in honoring Colonel Wiley M. Pope, 
a man who overcame countless obstacles in search of freedom for his 
family.

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