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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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Lawrin was owned by Herbert Woolf, the president of Woolf Brothers, one of the most important clothing stores in Kansas City history. Woolf also had an odd connection to political boss Tom Pendergast.
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In his film The League, Sam Pollard tells the story of the Negro National League, which began in Kansas City: "They brought a different kind of style ... a kind of baseball which Major League Baseball is trying to bring back."
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Call it Kansas City's cruel summer. In July 1993, the Kansas River spilled over near 59th Street and Kaw Drive in Wyandotte County, Turkey Creek flooded Southwest Boulevard, and the Missouri River came close to overtopping the levees protecting the downtown airport. Hundreds of families were displaced.
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Each year, a group of young members of the Cherokee Tribes gets on bikes and retraces the Trail of Tears their ancestors traveled when relocated by the U.S. government almost 100 years ago. They hope to bring more understanding and acknowledgement of the tragic event.
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Jack Snelling hit the road with a mission: Visit every historic courthouse in Missouri.
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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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Gov. Laura Kelly shot down a proviso in the state budget bill allocating $250,000 for the Quindaro Ruins Archaeological Park in Kansas City, historically an important stop on the Underground Railroad. One of the site’s top supporters, Kansas City Democrat Rep. Marvin Robinson, broke party lines to help Republicans override Kelly's veto of a transgender athlete ban.
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An independent group at William Jewell revealed the college founders’ deep ties to slavery, including the fact that enslaved people helped build Jewell Hall and that the college's namesake Dr. William Jewell did not free all the people he enslaved, contrary to previous accounts.
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With a small-but-mighty restaurant culture, its own newspaper, and a vision for the future, the neighborhood of Martin City is a cultural hub in South Kansas City.
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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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Ed and Brad Budde both played offensive line for the Chiefs, and were both first round draft picks — a singular achievement in the NFL.
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Kansas City is known as the "City of Fountains," and it's earned the name — with more than any city other than Rome. From opulent displays to more simple spouts, these water features beautify our environment and connect us to the Kansas City of the past.
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Abraham Josephine Riesman’s best-selling book, “Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America,” recounts how the WWE went through an aggressive expansion in the 1980s, including in St. Louis.
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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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A college professor with Kansas City roots is highlighting the city's influence in LGBTQ+ history and the national gay bar scene. Lucas Hilderbrand says the city was a nexus for gay political activity, activism and culture.
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"The Day After" made use of 2,000 local extras alongside well-known actors of the time. The film's emotional impact made it into the pages of a presidential journal, and is widely credited for putting the brakes on the nuclear arms race.
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After a former mayor spent $144,000 of public money on the synthetic saxophone, it became the centerpiece of a Kansas City institution. A reissued recording of the instrument, played by our greatest bebopper, was released last month.
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Some of the very first homes in Kansas were built by members of the Wichita Tribe with cut bundles of native bluestem grass. A new generation of students at Haskell Indian Nations University are learning the skill, and reconnecting with a Great Plains tradition.
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While the Kansas City region is home to robust public library systems, it also boasts specialized libraries that focus on individual subjects. These libraries have extensive collections devoted to arts, natural history, science and storytelling, and also offer events, activities, and exhibits for readers and researchers alike.
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Kansas was years ahead of most of the country in granting women full suffrage. A prank by a few men backfired when Susanna Madora Salter was elected mayor of Argonia, Kansas, in 1887.
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Twenty-two Kansas City-based Latino artists spent close to a year curating an exhibit called “A Layered Presence.” It is the third installment of the KC Art Now initiative to display more local work in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
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To start the Halloween season, The Coterie Theater is bringing Gothic horror performances back to Union Cemetery, the state’s oldest public graveyard and the final resting place of many Kansas City founders.
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These journalists captured life in Independence in the 1980s. Now they’ve returned for a second lookDan White and Brent Schondelmeyer first embarked on a project to document life and history in Independence, Missouri, in 1985. Almost 40 years later, the two are back at work on new words and photographs of people living in the shadow of a president.