black economy

Brian Roberts is opening Good Karma Coffee inside the Black Pantry's new storefront on Gillham Road. He hopes that the promise of coffee will bring more people in to discover Black brands.

In the last few decades, urban schools in Kansas City have not kept up with other schools in their ability to offer high-level courses in computer science and coding. The nonprofit WeCode/KC has been providing primarily minority students access to education in a variety of tech areas for five years, in an effort to address this aspect of the digital divide.

The Kansas City Defender organized the celebration from Oct. 1-14 to bring awareness to Black-owned restaurants, with the hope of helping their long-term sustainability. “We are in a crisis for Black restaurants right now," says founder Ryan Sorrell.

Cori Smith opened BLK + BRWN on 39th Street in 2021, with a focus on authors of color. But she says that rising costs — and the downturn in demand after the pandemic readership surge — have made business tough.

With about 85 members, including individuals with just a single plant as well as those with acres of land, Kansas City Black Urban Growers, or KCBUGS, works to address obstacles faced by Black farmers and improve community health.

Reparation efforts in urban area are gaining national attention, as both Kansas City and St. Louis study what they can do to make amends for harm inflicted on African Americans. But elsewhere in Missouri, rural areas are taking their own steps toward righting historic wrongs on a neighborhood level.

Frustrated by a gap in Kansas City’s retail space, Brian Roberts started curating a mobile pop-up shop of Black-owned and -made goods. After partnering with Made in KC to open a shared storefront in Midtown, The Black Pantry is now expanding nationally with an online store.

Kansas City's Parade Park, one of the country's oldest Black housing cooperatives, has been deteriorating for years. Now it's running out of time before it faces foreclosure. Plus: How one broker is trying to increase Black homeownership in Kansas City's urban core.

With a revolutionary deck of cards and new designs, the Kansas City-raised designer focuses on bringing culture into her passion projects.

G.I.F.T. (Generating Income for Tomorrow) is making good on its goal to invest in Black-owned businesses in the lowest income areas in Kansas City.

Expect the 14th annual Urban Summit of Kansas City to focus on the racial wealth gap and produce a strategy defining its advocacy agenda for 2022.

It's not just what you drive and how well you drive that determine your insurance rate. Factors that have nothing to do with a person's driving record are disproportionately affecting Black and Latinx drivers.