In Honor of MLK: East to West is Best

By | July 9, 2018
This is 63rd Street facing West at the corner of 63rd and Tracey one block east of Troost in Kansas City. MO.

I won’t presume to know why, 50 years after his death, we haven’t named a street after Martin Luther King Jr. in Kansas City, Missouri. Despite its broad support across ethnic lines, former Mayors Ilus Davis, Charles Wheeler, Dick Berkley, Emanuel Cleaver, Kay Barnes and Mark Funkhouser haven’t been able to do it. Recently, the…

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A Look Back at the Deadly ‘68 Riots

By | March 23, 2018 |

Fifty years ago this April, Kansas City experienced deadly riots that put the national spotlight on our city. They left six people dead, hundreds arrested and multiple blocks of the city in flames. Frustrated with the slow pace of civil rights reforms and outraged at the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., protesters in Kansas…

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Making Principles of Peace Part of the Curriculum in Raytown

By | January 17, 2017 |
A man and woman read essays.

For nearly two decades, Queen Mother Maxine McFarlane closed Raytown’s Martin Luther King Jr. celebration with the hymn, “Pass It On.” Though she recently moved to Florida, the legacy she created to honor the slain civil rights leader remains alive and well in the city — and its schools. For the past five years, Raytown…

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