Our Way of Life

Abstract

Pharmacist Dick Raney wore many hats in Lawrence, a town he had called home since he left Osborne, Kansas, in 1945 to enroll at the University of Kansas. The owner of several drugstores in Lawrence, in the early 1960s Raney and his father built the Hillcrest shopping center on the western edge of town, a venture that foreshadowed the town’s growth in that direction. A moderate Republican, Raney was elected to the city commission, was mayor for four years, and served on the board of directors of Headquarters (a drug counseling center), the Ballard Center (a black-oriented community center in north Lawrence), and other community organizations. The coffee shop in his south Massachusetts Street pharmacy was like an informal town meeting, where people of different backgrounds and perspectives met to discuss politics, problems confronting the city, or the latest scientific discoveries. As a pharmacist, Raney had a broad range of customers, but he knew little about them and their problems, especially his black customers. Raney recalled that he had been aware of some protests over racial exclusion in Lawrence, but he and other whites who frequented the coffee shop believed “those were isolated events.” He noted that he and other Lawrencians “were not well enough acquainted with the black perspective” in the early 1960s to fully comprehend matters of race. In time, however, as a civic leader Raney was forced to examine racial issues in his community.1