When the exodusters first came to the community, many of the white settlers resented them, sure that they were a threat to the community's economy. in the beginning, the African-Americans were forced to attend different schools, have their own churches and cemetery and some businesses wouldn't even let them come through the doors. However, segregation in Dunlap subsided long before it did in the rest of the country. By the 1930's, the whites and blacks were attending the same schools and churches, eating at the same tables and drinking from the same fountains.

During the Great Depression, the town began to decline and its bank failed. Afterwards, numerous people began to leave the community searching for jobs in the larger cities. The African-Americans who had long celebrated Emancipation Day, did so for the last time in 1931. By this time, the community was called home to less than 100 African-Americans and that number continued to decline over the next several decades.

The last black resident in Dunlap, London A. Harness, died on April 27, 1993 and he was the last person to be buried in Dunlap Black cemetery. Today, Dunlap's black history exists only in a few places -- in the cemetery and the dilapidated old Baptist Church. The rest of Dunlap has not fared much better. Called home to just about 80 area residents, the community is a near ghost town with numerous abandoned buildings, including a large gymnasium, paint-peeling houses, a concrete foundations testifying to more prosperous times. The Dunlap United Methodist Church is the only open business.

Dunlap is located about nine miles southeast of Council Grove

Compiled and edited by Kathy Weiser/Legends of Kansas, updated April, 2010.