Teenager Mary White, of Emporia, worked a century ago to help the needy and campaign for Black students and white students at her school to be treated equally.
This week's History Guy video at CJOnline focuses on Mary, the daughter of nationally known Emporia Gazette editor William Allen White.
Mary was the subject of a widely read eulogy written by her father after her death 100 years ago next week on May 13, 1921, one month shy of her 17th birthday and three days after her head accidentally struck a low-hanging tree limb as she rode a horse.
When Mary was born in 1904 in Emporia, about 50 miles southwest of Topeka, her father had already spent nine years as editor of the Gazette and become widely known as an unofficial spokesman for Middle America.