Martin Luther King Jr.

Artist Kahlil Robert Irving is a Missouri native with two solo exhibitions in museums right now. His exhibition at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art in Overland Park grapples with how tools and technology challenge perceptions of what we see and how we understand information.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a day off for many people in Kansas City. But for leaders in Black communities, it's a chance to connect to something bigger and encourage better support for African Americans.

Today marks 95 years since Martin Luther King Jr. was born. In Kansas City, King’s death set off a chain reaction that went all the way to McDonald's. Plus: A group of Kansas musicians formed one of the first all-women mariachi groups in the country.

Martin Luther King, Jr. would start 1968 — one of the most tumultuous years in American history — with an event at Kansas State University. Just months before his assassination, the speech was his last on a college campus.

Alvin Brooks has served as a bridge in Kansas City for decades — as one of the city’s first Black police officers, an educator, a civil rights leader, a founder of Ad Hoc Group Against Crime, and almost a Kansas City mayor. Today he’s still on call 24/7 for whenever anyone needs help. As he asks everyone to mark their calendars for his 100th birthday in 2032, he looks back to his earliest days in Kansas City.

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.

How is the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. living on in Kansas City? We hear from two Kansas City activists about their experiences living through the Civil Rights Movement and how they think the country and this city are doing in the long struggle for justice.

Musician Danny Cox faced discrimination while touring in Missouri in the 1960s, while public servant Al Brooks marched across the city during the 1968 riots. They've seen firsthand the long arc of the Civil Rights Movement, and how the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is still ongoing in Kansas City.

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas says that millions of dollars in revenue could be generated if voters in April approve taxes on recreational marijuana and short-term rentals. But how would that money be used?

Critics of the current Black history curriculum taught in K-12 public schools say it's often limited and focuses on a Eurocentric point of view.

In his latest book, Randal Maurice Jelks offers thoughts on 'democracy in Black America' in the form of letters to the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

As Democrats in the U.S. Senate get set to debate the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act, young activists compare today's fight for ballot access to the efforts in the time of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.