Kansas district named after KKK leader to discuss new name

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) – Leaders of a Kansas school district that is named for an early 20th century Ku Klux Klan leader are meeting Monday to discuss whether to ditch the name.

WIBW reports that the discussions come after student journalists at Seaman High School found information confirming that the district’s namesake, Fred Seaman, had a racist past.

The student paper, The Clipper, reported last fall that Seaman had been an “exalted cyclops,” or chief officer, in the Topeka KKK.

Rumors of Seaman’s ties to the KKK had circulated for years in the Topeka district before the student newspaper confirmed it through newspaper clippings from the 1920s.

A group of students plans to protest before the school board meeting.