Latest stories
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The landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that outlawed racial segregation in public schools may have played out differently if it hadn’t been for a tenacious group of women in Johnson County, Kansas, who led their own integration lawsuit five years earlier. The case centered around a two-room schoolhouse and included a lengthy boycott, big-shot NAACP lawyers, FBI surveillance — and six very brave children.
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Once seen as a musical relic, audio cassettes have survived the eras of CDs and streaming to win over music lovers of a new generation. That’s in large part thanks to the National Audio Company in Springfield, Missouri, the largest cassette manufacturer in the world.
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Oreo is the best-selling cookie in the world today. But few people remember the product that Nabisco blatantly ripped off: Hydrox. A creation of Kansas City’s Loose-Wiles Biscuit Company, Hydrox was billed as the “aristocrat of cookies,” with a novel combo of chocolate and cream filling. So why, more than a century later, is Hydrox still mistaken as a cheap knockoff?
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In the late 1970s, a group of musicians in Topeka, Kansas, formed what became one of the first all-women mariachi bands in the country. Mariachi Estrella broke down barriers in a male-dominated music scene, before a deadly disaster almost ended the group for good. Decades later, the band’s descendants are ensuring their legacy shines on into the future.
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When hip-hop hit Kansas City streets, the effect was immediate. The new sound took over record stores, local high schools and underground dance parties. As the country celebrates 50 years of the art form, Kansas City honors its own contributions to the culture.
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After dying suddenly under mysterious circumstances, Kansas City philanthropist Thomas Swope became the focus of one of the most publicized murder trials of the early 20th century. It’s long been suspected that Swope’s nephew-in-law murdered him and other members of his family as part of a plot to steal their fortune — but the events remain unresolved more than 110 years later.
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Alvin Brooks has served as a bridge in Kansas City for decades — as one of the city’s first Black police officers, an educator, a civil rights leader, a founder of Ad Hoc Group Against Crime, and almost a Kansas City mayor. Today he’s still on call 24/7 for whenever anyone needs help. As he asks everyone to mark their calendars for his 100th birthday in 2032, he looks back to his earliest days in Kansas City.
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At the turn of the 20th century, a self-taught caterer in Columbia gained national acclaim with her sought-after biscuit recipe. Fisher’s famous beaten biscuits made it onto the plates of presidents and Hollywood stars alike — making her one of the wealthiest Black women around. But her story may have been lost if not for a few determined Missouri women.
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With more shoreline than the coast of California, the Lake of the Ozarks in mid-central Missouri is a popular tourist destination for land-locked Midwesterners. For decades, it's provided financial opportunities for locals and outside interests alike — but at what cost? The story of how this man-made body of water came to be involves corruption, jail time, communities torn apart, and displaced families.
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Kansas City’s first Pride parade in 1977 was spearheaded by Lea Hopkins, whose organizing sparked a wider gay rights movement that continues today. But it was only a few weeks after that successful event that Hopkins found herself on the defense again, when a prominent anti-gay activist came on a crusade through town.
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A 1975 protest at a McDonald’s restaurant in Kansas City emerged from years of escalating tension — between Black community members and their city, and between McDonald’s and the neighborhoods it inhabited. But this particular location was also one of the first Black-owned fast-food franchises in the country, an accomplishment born from its own struggle for inclusion.
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The White Castle chain began in 1921 in Wichita, Kansas, where its ingenious small burgers kicked off a national craze and inspired imitators of all shapes and sizes. But over a century later, White Castle has entirely vanished from its home state. And the story of how it introduced America to the hamburger has largely been overshadowed by its fast food rivals.