I carried a sign: “The system isn’t broken -- it was built this way.”
We marched. We marched on the ground upon which the system was built.
We gathered at J. C. Nichols Memorial Fountain: a beautiful, bronze memorial to a man who wrote Black men and women out of the city, not allowing them to occupy these homes, this space. Kansas City is not unique in its history and multigenerational effects of racially-biased lending practices and homeowner regulations. Still today, these words remain in many homeowners association rules for J. C. Nichols’ homes:
“None of the said lots shall be conveyed to, used, owned nor occupied by Negroes as owner or tenants.”
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The fountain is only blocks away from Troost Ave, the Troost Wall, where school boundaries were drawn in 1954 in order to help “preserve” the all white schools in the southwest side of the city. This was in response to the United States Supreme Court ruling that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. Mind you, prior to this decision, mandatory racial segregation was the law in all of Missouri.
To this day, Troost Ave remains a stark dividing line of demographics in Kansas City: race, education, income, life expectancy.
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From there we marched north into Westport, the neighborhood itself sharing a name with one of the largest battles this side of the Mississippi, where over 8,000 men showed up ready to die for the right to own another human.
Further into Westport, we turned right before one of the oldest buildings in Kansas City, under which in the cramped, dirt basement, those in chains were held prior to being sold at auction, where families were forever separated.
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This list is far from exhaustive, as it’s only a few things that stood out to me on our short march. TLDR: You don’t have to go far or look hard to find our vile and racist past.
There’s so many more stories I’ve yet to learn about, and a great number of which I’m sure have been erased. Don’t let Black voices and Black stories be erased in your time, too. Go listen to them. Amplify them. Protect them.
Black lives matter.
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