How a McDonald’s in Kansas City got pulled into the Black community’s fight for justice

Published July 21, 2023 at 10:26 AM CDT

Ways To Subscribe

Apple
Spotify
Pandora
NPR
Pocket Casts
RSS

Protesters on the steps of Kansas City Hall on April 4, 1968, on the day of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s funeral. A few years later, some of those same protesters brought their demands for liberation to McDonald's.

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.

Read more about the Golden Arches in Kansas City from KCUR's Mackenzie Martin.

History

How a McDonald’s in Kansas City got pulled into the Black community’s fight for justice

Mackenzie Martin

This episode of A People's History of Kansas City was reported, produced and mixed by Mackenzie Martin with editing by Gabe Rosenberg and host Suzanne Hogan.