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Lead plaintiff Oliver Brown's name rings loudest from the 1954 Brown v. Board desegregation case, but 12 women fought alongside him in Topeka. Kansas Historical Society curator Donna Rae Pearson's "Women of Brown" exhibit helps tell their story.
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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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Would the Chiefs and Royals really leave Kansas City if the sales tax vote fails? History says maybeRepresentatives of the Chiefs and Royals have suggested they would consider other “options” if Jackson County voters don't approve a sales tax to help fund a downtown ballpark and upgrade Arrowhead. It's not inconceivable that a professional sports team would leave Kansas City — because it's happened before.
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If Jackson County voters feel conflicted about the April 2 stadium sales tax vote to help finance a new downtown ballpark for the Royals and Arrowhead Stadium improvements for the Chiefs, they can be confident in this: political fights over stadiums is a local tradition that goes back at least 93 years.
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Missouri, which earned the infamous nickname of "meth capital of America," played a key role in the drug's spread across the country. A new podcast tells that story.
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Up until a few weeks ago, Lynette Woodard from the University of Kansas had scored more points in college basketball than any woman ever. But she was never recognized by the NCAA as a scoring champion.
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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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Martin Luther King, Jr. would start 1968 — one of the most tumultuous years in American history — with an event at Kansas State University. Just months before his assassination, the speech was his last on a college campus.
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This weekend's playoff matchup is reigniting memories of a 1971 divisional game that included two overtimes and more than 22 minutes of extra time.
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On Jan. 11, also known as Missouri Emancipation Day, the Missouri History Museum is bringing new attention to an antebellum insurrection plot that was secretly devised by free Black Americans in St. Louis — and how an insubordinate war hero ticked off Lincoln with his antics to free enslaved Missourians during the Civil War.
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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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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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Missouri is home to more black walnut trees than any other place in the world. Its wild nature and distinct flavor means the black walnut often gets passed over for more popular European varieties — the kinds you normally see in grocery stores and restaurants. But these Missourians are making sure that the state’s native nut, and its importance to the culture of this region, gets its day in the sun.
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Is there any other regional pizza in the country that elicits as much debate and shame as St. Louis-style? A square-cut, thin-crust pie topped with ooey, gooey Provel cheese, this unconventional pizza is the result of decades of St. Louis ingenuity — and yet, even many locals apologize for their unique creation.
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Medicine’s Hall of Fame & Museum in Shawnee, Kansas, is closed, and its thousands of items are up for auction.
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Don Henry was a 1930s college kid from Dodge City, Kansas, who left everything he knew to join the fight against fascism. His life moved one music professor to put the story down in song.
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Some of Kansas City's historic cemeteries — including Hill Park and Elmwood — and are reported to be haunted, with rumors of glowing figures appearing in the dark or following visitors through the grounds.
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If you love a haunted house and learning our region's history, this list of Kansas City ghost tours and paranormal investigations is for you.
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More than three decades after Congress enacted the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, the University of Kansas announced that it still has American Indian ancestral remains, funerary and other sacred objects in its museum collections.
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Cemeteries used to serve as parks. Can Kansas City's historic Elmwood Cemetery revive the tradition?Members of the Elmwood Cemetery Society hope the 150-year-old graveyard can once again be a place for family picnics and walks.
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Sept. 21 marked the anniversary of when the Otoe-Missouria tribe was forced out of their lands, which would later become the city of Lincoln, Nebraska, and moved to a reservation in Oklahoma. Now the tribe hopes the day will serve as an annual reminder of reconciliation.
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Central United Methodist Church will become a satellite for the Leawood-based Church of the Resurrection. Its history says much about Kansas City's, and it's own, past ties to slavery.