Carl Wilkes, the first Black mayor of a Johnson County city, has died.
According to his obituary, he died Thursday, March 28, at the age of 80.
Wilkes served two terms as the mayor of Merriam, from 2001 to 2009.
Born on May 18, 1942 in Haskell, Okla., Wilkes moved to Olathe and then to Merriam, according to his obituary.
He and his wife of 61 years, Wanda, lived in Merriam for nearly six decades, according to a statement from the city of Merriam published last week upon news of Wilkes’ death.
He is succeeded by his wife, two daughters, two sons, 14 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren.
‘Instrumental’ in Merriam’s growth
In 2004, the city council approved the redevelopment of what is now Merriam Village, a retail area located near Johnson Drive and Interstate 35 that now includes the IKEA store visible from the highway.
“Former Mayor Carl Wilkes was instrumental in approving the concept of Merriam Village, which eventually became the successful area with IKEA, QuikTrip and Hobby Lobby,” said Jenna Gant, Merriam’s city communications and public engagement manager.
In 2006, then-U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore entered Wilkes’ name in the Congressional Record as part of a list of Black Johnson County “trailblazers.”
In his entry, Moore noted that Wilkes won his first term as Merriam’s mayor by just two votes and also played a key role in establishing Johnson County’s first-ever public transportation program for the elderly called “Dial-A-Ride.”
Merriam’s connections to black history
The city’s South Park area began as a community of Black freed enslaved persons and their descendants in the 1890s and early 1900s, according to Johnson County History.
Roughly half a century later, Merriam was involved in a legal case that helped pave the way for the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision desegregating public schools.
The Webb v. School District case was filed in 1949 on behalf of 39 Black families whose children had been rejected from the whites-only South Park Elementary, according to the city of Merriam’s history page.
Councilmember Chris Evans Hands sat on the dais with Wilkes for her first four years as a councilmember, from 2005 to 2009.
Hands told the Post in an interview this week that she recalls Wilkes being soft spoken and respectful as he led the city “through some really tough kinds of times.”
She said during these years, there was discomfort among various business owners about some initial downtown Merriam improvements.
“I would think that most of us felt like he was a good representative of the city,” Hands said. “We were all very proud that he was the first Black mayor in the county and that he represented us so well.”
This story was originally published on the Shawnee Mission Post.
