Pfc. Willy F. James Jr. was among seven African American troops unjustly denied the country’s highest military award for valor during World War II. Veterans and service members at James' memorial shared their thoughts on his legacy.

Conservative legislators nationwide, including in Kansas, have introduced bills to restrict or criminalize certain drag performances. But drag queens haven’t stopped performing.

Since Kansas City was established, drag in various forms has evolved from entertainment for power and control into a liberating art. Attempts to regulate the practice have also persisted.

St. Louis County restored the only known remaining African American school in the county. During the 1900s, African Schoolhouse No. 4 held about 20 Black children each school year before it closed in 1950.

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.

During a span of 71 years, most of the mounds in St. Louis left by Indigenous people from centuries earlier — some of which contained the remains of ancestors — were destroyed to make way for urban development. The ones that remain are left beneath bridges and inside parking garages.

Spread across two coffee shops and a bookstore, the “Black/Queer Kansas City” exhibit will showcase forgotten figures of local LGBTQ history — and hopefully encourage more Kansas Citians to share their own stories.

After they first began arriving in Missouri in the 1830s, German immigrants helped shape the state's culture in myriad ways, as detailed in the book “Explore Missouri's German Heritage” and the documentary it inspired.

A historical marker in Clayton, Missouri, declared that St. Louis County was “first visited by white colonists” in the early 1700s. The sign was taken down this past November, but a professor says it was a missed opportunity for change.

On Jan. 21, Washington Chapel C.M.E. Church was broken into and a piece of a memorial stained glass window removed. The church was built in 1907 by formerly enslaved families in Parkville, Missouri.

The Neck neighborhood was in the center of historic Independence and housed the biggest Black community in the city. When the Harry S. Truman Library was built to honor the president, urban renewal policies he put in place destroyed the neighborhood.

The Great War depleted the states’ National Guard troops, sending them overseas. Missouri was one of the states that backfilled the domestic duties with unpaid volunteers.