Black women

Black people are reported missing in higher numbers than white people relative to their population, according to recent data. Some families believe the newly reinstated Missing Persons Unit of the Kansas City Police Department isn’t doing enough to address that. Plus: How the University of Missouri is handling reports of immigration enforcement authorities picking up college students.

Author Frances Levine tells the stories of a mix of women, each with different and very personal reasons for taking America’s first great international commercial highway to the West, in her book "Crossings: Women on the Santa Fe Trail."

The exhibit includes 135 handmade antique dolls — some that were made by enslaved people — and about 60 period photographs showing dolls, children and adults posing for the camera. But not everyone involved in the Kansas City showing is completely comfortable with it.

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.

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.

In "My Black Country: A Journey Through Country Music's Black Past, Present, and Future," author Alice Randall pairs her deep knowledge of the genre with her personal experience in the industry to document the often-untold stories of country's Black founders.

Black women hoping to conceive using donor sperm often have to choose a donor from a different race or put their fertility journey on hold because of a shortage of Black sperm donors. One woman tells us her story. Plus: Parts of Missouri, Kansas and other Midwest states are still in drought, despite recent rains.

Black women hoping to conceive using donor sperm often have to choose a donor from a different race or put their fertility journey on hold because of a shortage of Black sperm donors. Researchers at the University of Kansas Medical Center are trying to find out why.

A year after the Kansas City Police Department reinstated its missing persons unit, in response to criticism that officers weren't taken cases of missing Black people seriously, community members are still frustrated by a complicated reporting process.

The first ever Black Comedy Festival KC will take place from April 25-28, mainly in Kansas City’s historic 18th & Vine district. Festival organizers say it’s the first festival to highlight black comics in the region, as well as the first to feature several different forms of comedy.

Representatives from Illinois, Kansas and Missouri are part of the caucus behind a package of bills that would promote healthy outcomes for Black mothers, who die from pregnancy-related causes at far higher rates than women of other races.