 There were a total of 17,108 African Americans in Kansas in 1870, with 43,107 in 1880, and 52,003 by 1900.Most lived in urban areas.Following months of assaults on young white women in late 1900, in which witnesses had identified a "large white man" and a "slight black man" as having been seen in the vicinity of the attacks, Fred Alexander, a 22-year-old black veteran of the Spanish–American War, was arrested on circumstantial evidence for the attacks.