Luke X. Martin
Culture EditorAs culture editor, I oversee KCUR’s coverage of race, culture, the arts, food and sports. I work with reporters to make sure our stories reflect the fullest view of the place we call home, so listeners and readers feel primed to explore the places, projects and people who make up a vibrant Kansas City.
I was born in Manhattan, Kansas, and raised in Wichita where I fell in love with public radio listening to member station KMUW. I got my start pulling early morning DJ shifts at the student-run radio station KJHK while studying English at the University of Kansas.
I was previously an intern for KCUR's Up To Date, and joined the staff as associate producer in 2016. I have reported on government and politics in the Chicago metro area, and national security and defense in Washington. My work has appeared online at UPI.com, The Daily Caller, Politics Daily and The Pitch.
I have a master’s of journalism from the Medill School of Journalism, Media and Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University. If you see me along a running trail or track in Kansas City, please offer me some water or a high five.
My email is luke@kcur.org.
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World War I was cast as an effort to make the world safe for democracy. A photography exhibit at Kansas City's World War I Memorial and Museum shows that was a complicated prospect for the African Americans who served.
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Enslaved people risked everything to escape Missouri for Kansas — even walking across a frozen riverSlavery in Missouri is rarely discussed, but unique geography in its western region helped create a treacherous set of circumstances for the enslaved.
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For the first time, several key positions in Wyandotte County’s Unified Government are filled by African Americans. But can new leaders in Kansas' most diverse county turn around a long history of coverup and corruption?
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Martin Luther King Jr. spent years before his assassination working to expand access to the ballot box. Today, advocates and lawmakers say they are fighting many of the same fights.
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More suburban school districts are talking about diversity and inclusion, but their Black students say they continue to face racism and discrimination.
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Few foods have such devoted followings as tamales, especially among Latinos. For families all around Kansas City, making them is a chance to embrace their culture and pass down a tradition.
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Fulk Farms has been owned by the same family since 1889, and has sold Christmas trees since the early 1990s. In the last two years, this farm and others in the region have faced new holiday challenges.
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The attorney general's job is to seek justice, not to defend prior convictions, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker told KCUR. "They exploited these victims again," Peters Baker said of Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt's office.
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"The Court's confidence in Strickland's conviction is so undermined that it cannot stand," the judge wrote. Strickland's wrongful imprisonment for nearly 43 years is among the country's longest.
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After 43 years in a Missouri prison, Kevin Strickland's braided hair could be the key to his freedomThe Kansas City man has spent 43 years behind bars for a crime prosecutors now say he didn’t commit. A judge is considering whether to set him free, and Strickland’s exoneration, at least partially, depends on his hair.