6 Kansas City places with surprising ties to the civil rights movement

By | January 21, 2019 |
A map of the archaeological areas at the Quindaro site. (Brad Austin | Flatland)

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…

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Kansas’ Important Place in Black History

By | April 20, 2018 |
University of Washington Professor Quintard Taylor delivers lecture

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…

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Resurrecting Quindaro

By | February 5, 2018 |
overgrown site

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…

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