Black History
6 Kansas City places with surprising ties to the civil rights movement
Today is a chance to reflect not just on the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and the history of civil rights in the United States but also the sometimes-forgotten role played by important places right here in Kansas City. Below are a few places to consider checking out to commemorate how far we’ve come…
Kansas’ Important Place in Black History
Today, Kansas is known as a deeply conservative state, but a historian reminded a Kansas City audience that the state actually has a long history of racial progressivism dating back even before its statehood. “There is no other state beyond Kansas whose history is so intertwined with the idea of African-American freedom, African-American liberation,” said…
A Healthy Bond
Throughout history, marches and protests have allowed women to change the world with their feet. Perhaps no one contributed to that legacy more than Harriet Tubman. She trekked out of Maryland as a fugitive slave in 1849, and then she walked to and from the South 19 times to help hundreds more escapees reach freedom…
An Exchange of a Lifetime
By Debbie Coleman-Topi Amid the riots unleashed following the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., a spark of hope quietly ignited in the center of the country. That flicker was right here, in Kansas City, where Catholic leaders launched an experiment that confronted race head-on by bringing black and white students literally face to…
Resurrecting Quindaro
As Americans north and south of the Mason-Dixon Line debated slavery, a boomtown that sprouted from the scrub along the Missouri River emerged as one of the most unlikely bellwethers of the national mood in the run-up to the Civil War. That community was Quindaro, Kansas, and virtually overnight it became something of a prototype…
The Rise and Fall of a Boomtown
Get a deeper history of the port town of Quindaro and hear from a local woman who used our curiousKC initiative to ask why excavations had not been finished for the important site.
‘Tar Baby’: A Folk Tale About Food Rights, Rooted In The Inequalities Of Slavery
The tar baby story in which Bre’r Rabbit outwits Bre’r Fox is a classic trickster folk tale. But like all fables, it is a double-barreled affair, with entertainment firing in tandem with a serious message. The question the story addresses is a fundamental one: Who controls access to food and water? Or, more crucially, who…
The Power of Play
To make a paper doll you need paper, utensils used for drawing and/or coloring, an imagination, and illustrated clothing for the doll. Now, go back 150 years and make that paper doll black. To the previous list of materials, add a hidden agenda, hatred and cruelty toward a certain people, and a narrow definition of…
Game Changer
Jackie Robinson’s push for racial equality spanned a lifetime where he used his athleticism as a conduit to challenge our country’s segregated system and demand change. Now, a new two-part film on his life airs next week on KCPT. (Flatland is KCPT’s digital magazine.) Through a collection of old photos, film, and interviews, the project delves…
Back Into the ‘Underground’
During dress rehearsal Wednesday night, co-choreographer Tobin James of Storling Dance Theater’s “Underground” at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts struggled to speak. Sick, exhausted, her voice shot, she breathed deep as she watched the final rehearsal from a dark corner offstage. Twenty rows back in the sixteen hundred seat auditorium, co-choreographer Mona Enna…