He saw Ariz. schools undivided by racial prejudice of the time

e was an enlightened man in Arizona's dark ages.

Because Arizonans have faced tough obstacles for a long time, it's worth remembering our history of conquering problems. One man faced issues years ago and stood up for his beliefs.

Joseph H. Kibbey came to the Salt River Valley from Indiana, when Phoenix was still a remote settlement of dirt roads and deep ruts and the powerful musk of livestock reminded everyone this was very much a cow town.

The young lawyer had come to Territorial Arizona, specifically to Florence, to be a legal adviser to an irrigation firm, historian Jay J. Wagoner recounts. But very soon after, he would climb his career ladder to Arizona's highest rung.

If there was work of great import, Kibbey was the man to do it. He served as city attorney of Phoenix, territorial attorney general, territorial governor and county and state chairman of the Republican Party.

He is best known for so skillfully crafting Articles of Incorporation for the Salt River Valley Water Users' Association that they became a model of organization for many of America's later reclamation projects, according to the Salt River Project's history "The Taming of the Salt."

But his most extraordinary act was one of defiance: a defense of the public-school system and the few Black children it served.

The Arizona Territory in 1909 was very much a creature of its time, both reflexively and institutionally intolerant.

The Territorial Legislature passed a measure that year giving school districts the option to segregate their Black students from students of other races. The popular will was being expressed, and Kibbey, then territorial governor, would have none of it.

It is one thing to stand against racism in an enlightened age when there is broad agreement that such laws are despicable. It is radicalism to do it when virtually all of polite society, all of government, all of your friends and neighbors stand against you.

To his eternal credit, none of that deterred Gov. Kibbey. He leaned into those headwinds and eagerly vetoed the bill, historian Brad Luckingham writes.

"It would be unfair that pupils of the African race should be given accommodations and facilities for a common school education, less effective, less complete, less convenient or less pleasant … than those accorded pupils of the White race," Kibbey wrote.

Unmoved, the Territorial Legislature promptly overrode Kibbey's veto.

A year later, the Phoenix School Board began to segregate its schools.

Kibbey by then was no longer governor and back in private practice. Phoenix Blacks hired him to seek an injunction against the school board. A lawsuit was filed on behalf of Black leader Samuel F. Bayless to address the hardship created:

"Bayless had two daughters, six and 10 years old, who prior to segregation had walked five blocks to school. After Douglass School (for Blacks) opened, the girls were forced to walk two miles and to cross the tracks of both the Southern Pacific and the SFP&P, an act that imperiled life and limb," Luckingham writes.

The courts ultimately ruled against Kibbey and his Black clients. It would take another generation to right this wrong. Another generation before history's gavel would fall.

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