Chester I. Lewis Reflection Park

This park is the first publicly funded art project in downtown Wichita depicting an African American.

In a letter to the editor of The Wichita Beacon on February 22, 1957, Chester I. Lewis, Jr. wrote:

“Here in Wichita Negroes are denied the right to find employmentsuitable for their abilities, to own homes in desired locations, and to enter many places of amusement and public accommodation. This is our land... We helped to build it. We have defended it from Boston Common to Iwo Jima. We have made it a better land through our songs, our laughter, our expansion and clarification of its Constitution and its Bill of Rights, through our talents and skills, all the way from Benjamin Banneker, who helped lay out the city of Washington, D.C., to Ralph Bunche, who made the work of peace a reality in 1949. We are Americans, and in the American way, with American weapons and with American determination to be free, we intend to slug it out, to fight right here on this home front if it takes forty or more years until victory is ours.”

Chester I. Lewis, Jr. (1928-1990), a Hutchinson, Kansas native, became a Wichita-based attorney and leader in the modern Civil Rights Movement. He won hundreds of court cases that provided opportunities for African Americans to gain more access to housing, jobs, swimming pools, restaurants, and schools in Wichita.

By his early 20s, he had served in the U.S. Army, earned a law degree from the University of Kansas, and won his first Civil Rights case.

As President of the Wichita Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), he supported the first successful youth-led sit-in in the United States. Mr. Lewis worked on a city-wide campaign to end racial discrimination in renting and purchasing homes. His formal complaint regarding the ongoing separation by race of children in Wichita Public Schools led to the first federal investigation of school segregation in the Midwest. He represented Wichitans who lost family and homes in the 1965 Piatt Street plane crash.

Mr. Lewis led a national effort to expand the focus of the national NAACP beyond civil rights to include economic rights.

Mr. Lewis challenged Wichita’s largest employers to hire, train, and promote people of color. In his final court case, he won millions of dollars for train porters who had been underpaid from the 1920s-1970s.

The artwork for the Chester I. Lewis Reflection Park is two distinct approaches that co-exist in the same space, BEYOND by Matthew Mazzotta and WINDOWS, WALLS, AND WINGS by Ellamonique Baccus.

Matthew Mazzotta

American, born 1977

BEYOND, 2022

Galvanized steel, paint

City of Wichita Public Art Collection

BEYOND is a site-specific artwork for Chester I. Lewis Reflection Park. It is composed of a series of vertical structures called Echos that are distributed across the park and progressively shift from the shape of a house into a park open for all. The concept of a house opening its roof and walls as it expands across the park symbolizes inclusion. It references the housing policy that Mr. Lewis redefined in his lifetime and the continued impact of his work in breaking the barriers of segregation and oppression in all areas of daily life.

The Echos sequentially opening to the sky signals another concept: amplification. Mr. Lewis was a prominent orator on both the local and national levels, and he fought to overcome many injustices. The design of the Echos radiating outward from the central house and stage area—makes his words visible as they are continually broadcast to the larger world.

Ellamonique Baccus

African American, born 1979

WINDOWS, WALLS, AND WINGS, 2023

Glass, aluminum, steel, ceramic tile

City of Wichita Public Art Collection

WINDOWS AND WALLS is composed of oil paintings by Ellamonique translated to monolithic glass. The work is meant to be an opportunity to understand and connect on a human level to the tests and triumphs of Chester I. Lewis as his life and work transformed the African American experience in Wichita. WALLS references the barriers yet to be overcome.

The WINGS atop Mazzotta’s house structure and the benches represent the Principles of Ma’at, which are truth, justice and harmony. This is the foundation upon which the legal system is built and the values upheld by Attorney Chester I. Lewis. The mosaic beneath the house structure depicts the REDLINING MAP of WICHITA, a color-coded map that was used to restrict homeownership in 63% of Wichita.

The works are accompanied with poetry by Ellamonique Baccus and a virtual audio tour written and narrated by Carla Eckels and Dr. Gretchen Eick.

A special thank you to Collins Bus and the University of Kansas Kenneth Spencer Research Library.

As you visit each art installation, use a phone or smart device to access a guided audio tour on the life of Chester I. Lewis. Notice Chester I. Lewis’ words in the description of each panel. Read and ponder his words. How do they connect with your life and the lives of people around you today?

For more information, visit the Wichita Public Library's page on Chester I. Lewis.