Season 2, Episode 4: Hutchinson’s Fight for Justice: How Community Advocacy Revived a Civil Rights Office

Podcast

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April 29, 2025

Featured Image Description: Darrell Pope, former leader of the Hutchinson chapter of the NAACP, has partnered with Hutch in Harmony on civil rights initiatives aimed at promoting community equity and justice. (Photograph by Sandra J. Milburn/Hutchinson News)

How many of my friends and kids with similar stories to mine fall through the cracks? I mean, that keeps me up at night. It puts this fire in my belly to try to address the systems that we live in. – David Sotelo, Hutchinson County resident

When community members refuse to accept injustice, change becomes possible. In this episode we hear from Hutch in Harmony, a grassroots organization in Hutchinson, Kansas, that has fought to revive local civil rights protections after years of neglect.

Following the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Miriam Khan-Kitson and Rebecca Yoder-Shetler founded Hutchinson Harmony to push back against racism and discrimination in their town. They joined forces with longtime NAACP leader, Darrell Pope, and other advocates to demand accountability from City Hall, calling for the restoration of Hutchinson’s Human Relations Commission—a civil rights office left unfilled for over a decade. Their persistence led to the reinstatement of a Human Relations Officer, now led by former immigrant rights advocate Dave Sotelo.

Despite setbacks, Hutchinson’s advocates continue their fight to protect marginalized communities and challenge systemic racism in employment, housing, and policing. Their story is one of persistence, hope, and the power of collective action.

This podcast series serves as a final grant report for Convergence Partnership’s most recent grantee cohort. Through the voices of our grantees and their partners, we explore how civic narrative, mutual aid, and economic power shape the fight for racial justice and health equity.

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Amanda M. Navarro: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Convergence Partnership Podcast. Today our grantees will share their stories on how they are working to improve community health and promote racial justice. The Convergence Partnership is a collaborative of local, statewide, and national funders working to transform policies, practices, and systems to advance racial justice and health equity.

Strong democracies require truth and transparency, which relies on having diverse narratives in the public sphere. Important to this is bringing forth often unheard voices and promoting narratives that champion equity, justice, and democracy. In this series, our grantees and their community partners bring us such stories from across the United States. This podcast introduces you to people and organizations who are building civic, narrative and economic power to advance racial [00:01:00] justice and health equity. This series acts as a final report for our most recent grantee cohort.

Miriam Khan-Kitson: We started making phone calls and telling people, Hey, did you know that this used to be a thing? And it wasn’t. And we started showing up to city council meetings and, um, asking to meet the city counselor here and there to ask about why isn’t this position filled?

Amanda M. Navarro: I’m your host, Amanda Navarro, and today we’re hearing from Convergence Partnership grantee Hutch in Harmony, whose work is igniting a renewed social justice movement in Hutchinson, Kansas. What happens when community members refuse to let injustice go unchallenged? In Hutchinson, Kansas, Hutch in Harmony has used advocacy to confront racism and discrimination head on from organizing vigils to demanding accountability from City Hall. This story is one of persistence, hope, and the ongoing fight for meaningful change. We’ll hear from the advocates [00:02:00] leading that charge and the impact they’re making in their town. This episode is produced and hosted by Esmeralda Tovar-Mora.

Esmeralda Tovar-Mora: When Hutch in Harmony got started in 2017, it revived and strengthened the movement for social justice in Hutchinson, Kansas.

Miriam Khan-Kitson: About four months after my child was born, Charlottesville happened. I felt so desperately powerless. I wanted to do something. I wanted to be making an impact somewhere.

Esmeralda Tovar-Mora: Miriam Khan-Kitson is the co-founder of Hutch in Harmony. It’s a nonprofit focused on advancing social justice work in Hutchinson. Miriam says it all got started following the violent white supremacist rally that tore through Charlottesville, Virginia and left one protestor dead.

Miriam Khan-Kitson: Kind of hustled together to put on an event, it was called Hutch Against Hate. We lined up speakers and [00:03:00] music and got donations for candles, um, from a local church. We’re running around handing out itineraries and we’re like, what if no one shows up? What if it’s just like us seven people that are already here? I think the number was around 400 that showed up.

Esmeralda Tovar-Mora: From there, they started getting more calls to host, more events to address racism and discrimination in Hutchinson.

Miriam Khan-Kitson: We just kept getting phone call after phone call saying, oh, you guys help with this, will you help with this? And we just kept showing up.

Esmeralda Tovar-Mora: Communities of color in Hutchinson were regularly facing discrimination and abuse from the police, their employers and housing providers.

Miriam Khan-Kitson: Immigrants who were undocumented, who maybe got pulled over for speeding, a taillight out, when it was discovered they were undocumented given a choice between being beaten to a pulp or being arrested and ICE being alerted. We [00:04:00] heard stories of people not being able to get promotions at work or the right positions because of the color of their skin, name calling, threatening.

Esmeralda Tovar-Mora: Racism and discrimination aren’t new to Hutchinson.

Darrell Pope: My name is Darrell Pope and I was born and raised in Hutchinson and lived here most all of my life. You know, uh, I can kinda give you a personal experience. I can remember growing up and life was pretty simple, you know, and everything seemed to go pretty good and no worries, no problems or anything like that. But then when I started, uh, kindergarten, well, I, uh, was in for a rude awakening because everything seemed to change because you start being experiencing different kinds of things, like some of the names the kids would call or, or some of the, we had some very insensitive teachers back in those days.

Esmeralda Tovar-Mora: Darrell Pope is a longtime leader of the towns NAACP chapter, which his father was the president of when he was a kid. [00:05:00] He has fought for justice in Hutchinson for more than 60 years.

Darrell Pope: All of those experiences growing up taught me that you know, that you just, you just couldn’t sit idly by and be content to be treated differently for no reason other than the fact of the color of your skin.

I was there during the time that Martin Luther King was assassinated, and I was there during the, you know, when they passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act. I remember the activity around that time of the ‘65 Voting Rights Act, ‘68 Fair Housing Act, and all those kind of things. In the meantime, we were doing things on the local level.

Esmeralda Tovar-Mora: In addition to all their other work, Darrell and the NAACP helped put in place Hutchinson’s Human Relations Committee.

Darrell Pope: We were behind the formation of the uh, Hutchinson Human Relations Commission, which was an agency put in place to investigate complaints of discrimination and racism.

Esmeralda Tovar-Mora: But in 2017, no one was employed in the position. In fact, it had been unfilled for [00:06:00] about 10 years. So the city couldn’t do much for people experiencing discrimination.

Miriam Khan-Kitson: There was really very little that they had power to do. They could not help anyone who came to them for discrimination found in the city. They could not, um, investigate any cases. They could not help mediate.

Esmeralda Tovar-Mora: So Hutchinson residents experiencing discrimination were discouraged from reporting instances of abuse by the police, their employers, and other institutions to the city.

Meanwhile, Darrell continued to hear from black and brown residents who were experiencing discrimination.

Darrell Pope: Employment complaints, uh, housing complaints, you know, people trying to get a house. They said, well, it’s already rented when it actually, it wasn’t rented. You know, they wouldn’t tell you you couldn’t rent it.

They just said it’s already been rented. Same way with jobs, you know. Had job opening, employment opening. Someone would go down there and fill out an application. They say, well, you know, it’s already been filled.

Esmeralda Tovar-Mora: Miriam and Hutch in Harmony, the NAACP and other residents in Hutchinson started [00:07:00] showing up to city council meetings to rally for change.

Miriam Khan-Kitson: We started making phone calls and telling people, hey, did you know that this used to be a thing? And it wasn’t. And we started showing up to city council meetings and, um, asking to meet the city counselor here and there to ask about why isn’t this position filled? A lot of people had felt really hopeless about it, and I don’t know if they felt like maybe they could make one more push, or maybe we were enough to tip the scale.

Esmeralda Tovar-Mora: And eventually they succeeded. Someone was temporarily appointed to the role as a trial run, but the city terminated them from their position for reasons that seemed suspicious to people of color who were just starting to come to the city to file reports.

Dave Sotelo: So it created a lot of tension between, you know, folks of color and specifically the black community, uh, and Hutchinson. And a lot of distrust towards City Hall. Um, and at the same time we were a little bit [00:08:00] afraid of what the future of this role was.

Esmeralda Tovar-Mora: Dave Sotelo has lived in Hutchinson since he was 12. He moved there from Mexico with his family, and at the time was undocumented.

Dave Sotelo: And so those were some tough years, but years that taught me really what it’s like to not belong. To not have systems that are designed to help you thrive.

Esmeralda Tovar-Mora: Now that he’s older and has citizenship, Dave has advocated for more resources for black and brown communities in Hutchinson.

Dave Sotelo: How many of my friends and kids with similar stories to mine fall through the cracks? I mean, that keeps me up at night. And, and so it really gives me a sense of, of what’s going on in Hutchinson and what might be going on in people’s lives. And it puts this fire in my belly to try to address the systems that we live in.

Esmeralda Tovar-Mora: He was the chair of the Human Relations Commission, [00:09:00] and since the former Human Resource Coordinator felt unsafe returning to the position, Dave took over when it finally became a fully funded full-time role. Dave says he’s able to work full-time as the human relations officer, in part because Hutch in Harmony stayed committed to making sure that the role continued.

Dave Sotelo: Hutch in Harmony was on the phone with me almost every day checking in, uh, to ensure that the, that we could ensure this, this position would stay funded.

Esmeralda Tovar-Mora: Dave says he’s able to work from both ends of the system to address inequity in Hutchinson. He’s able to connect residents from historically marginalized communities with resources. And on the other side of things, he helps educate communities and businesses about social justice issues and the importance of diversity.

Dave Sotelo: That’s not the attitude of businesses to say, you know, we need some folks of color in our leadership team, uh, because that’s gonna [00:10:00] strengthen who we are and it’s gonna connect us to the community we serve. That’s definitely not something that we are hearing. And so over the past few years, Hutch in Harmony and, and the NAACP and the Human Relations Office have put a lot of energy into saying, fine, we’ll take you at your word. Let’s, let’s provide opportunities for you to connect with folks of color. Let’s provide opportunities for you to learn more about the issues that are facing these certain communities.

Esmeralda Tovar-Mora: But don’t get me wrong, Hutch still has miles to go and there’s more work to be done. The Human Resources Coordinator position doesn’t hold as much power as it once did. The coordinator isn’t allowed to locally investigate cases. And Miriam says it still needs more funding. But the reason it came back at all is because of the work of Hutch in Harmony, the NAACP, and other advocates, and people are listening to them despite the resistance or [00:11:00] systemic barriers they might face.

Miriam, Dave and Darrell said they’ll keep fighting for justice in Hutchinson.

Dave Sotelo: There have been so many people who end up at my office, because they don’t know where else to go. That has spread. People of color and disadvantaged groups, minorities deserve an advocate. And we’ve gotta create some accountability for those who want to take advantage of disadvantaged groups. But the folks who will always remain committed to this work are the folks who need it most.

Amanda M. Navarro: You’ve been listening to the Convergence Partnership Podcast, where we hear stories from our grantees across the country who are working to create racial justice and health equity broadcasting from the Gulf Coast of Chicago. To the San Joaquin Valley, to Buffalo and places in between learning how our network is amplifying civic, narrative and economic power toward a healthy and inclusive democracy. To learn more about the Convergence partnership, visit [email protected]. That is www convergence partnership.org. Stay tuned as we continue telling the stories of our work. I’m Amanda Navarro, Executive Director of Convergence Partnership. Thanks for [00:13:00] listening.

This transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors. Please refer to the audio recording for accuracy.

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