Speaking to more than 700 people at the Pride Breakfast on the campus of the University of Missouri-Kansas City Thursday morning, Nico Leone, general manager at KCUR, announced the station will be bringing the national storytelling project StoryCorps to Kansas City.
In partnership with the Gay and Lesbian Archive of Mid-America (GLAMA) at UMKC, KCUR and StoryCorps will capture the stories of the LGBTQ community in the Kansas City metro this June.
StoryCorps OutLoud is a multi-year initiative dedicated to recording and preserving LGBTQ stories across America. OutLoud will honor the stories of those who lived before the 1969 Stonewall uprisings, celebrate the lives of LGBTQ youth, and amplify the voices of those most often excluded from the historical record. The end result will be a diverse collection of stories that will enrich our national and local history.
In addition to the StoryCorps initiative, Leone announced KCUR will launch a reporting project called Beyond Marriage Equality.
On-air, online, and in community meetings, KCUR will use the upcoming Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage as a point of departure to explore issues of concern to the LGBTQ community in Kansas City.
Stories will be aired locally on KCUR, archived at GLAMA and the Library of Congress, and some may be aired nationally on NPR.
If you want to help us understand issues of concern to the LGBTQ community, connect us to potential sources for our reporting or share your story through StoryCorps OutLoud June 10-13, click here.