More than 500 loud and energetic protestors lined 47th Street, Broadway Blvd., and snaked around the Mill Creek Fountain Park up Main Street, bobbing placards and signs reading “Save Democracy,” “End Gerrymandering,” and “Hands Off Our Districts.” The gathering mirrored large protests nationwide designed to amplify the voices of workers this Labor Day and object to the perceived disenfranchisement of Democrats by Republican efforts to redraw the lines around blue districts.
Redistricting has become a priority for the Trump administration as well as Missouri Republicans. Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe announced Friday that he will convene a special session starting September 3 for Missouri lawmakers to redraw the state’s congressional map ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Linda Scott, originally from Chicago, carried a sign showing President Donald Trump as puppet master.
“I'm here because denying the voice of 40% of Missourians who are Democratic, especially here in Kansas City, taking our voices away is pretty low, and it's wrong,” Scott said.
Scott said she’s been discouraged by divisive political discourse.
“It's never mattered whether where I lived was blue or red before, and now that's all that matters,” Scott said. “It's because of mean-spirited, hateful rhetoric that keeps everybody hating somebody else.
Shaun Givens, a member of the American Federation of Government Employees, Local 85, a federal worker, and veteran, works as a veteran services technician for the Veterans Administration in Leavenworth, Kansas. Givens says federal workers are under attack.
“At the VA right now, it's just a very disillusioned time,” Givens said. “We're all just waiting. It feels like death row. We don't know from day to day if we're going to work there or not.”
Retired Kansas City, Missouri, school teacher Susan Palmer taught history for 25 years. She wore a “Back to School” T-shirt and held a sign that read “Our Vote, Our Voice, No Redistricting’” in front of the Mill Creek Park Fountain in Kansas City.
“I feel like our government, our legislatures in particular, are missing in action, and I think if people don’t show up and protest this, we are going to slide past the point of no return," Palmer said.
U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II, who has angrily voice his opinions to the redistricting mandate on just about every media outlet in the area, including KCUR, stopped by the rally on his way back to Washington D.C. Cleaver currently represents the targeted 5th Congressional District and is likely to face a serious challenge in the 2026 midterm election.
“It is amazing when you consider this is Labor Day,” Cleaver told a crowd that had gathered around him. “People want to be in the backyard barbecue on the last barbecue of the summer, but I think people feel so threatened by what's going on, that they gave up the opportunity to be leisurely around their homes to come out and say, 'we don't like it,' and, 'this is enough.' We're not going any further.”
Missouri has eight congressional seats, and just two of them are held by Democrats. Rep. Cleaver’s 5th District covers Kansas City’s urban area as well as eastern Jackson and parts of Cass County. He’s won the seat handily for 11 terms.
The other is the St. Louis area’s 1st District, held by Rep. Wesley Bell. Cleaver and Bell are also the state's only Black representatives.
“I think that's very important for people in Washington to know that the people here are not in favor of what's going on,” Cleaver said. “And the worst thing about it, this was not done in Jefferson City, this map was drawn in White House.”
