A People's History of Kansas City

After the U.S. Department of Agriculture admitted that its programs had routinely discriminated against Black farmers, tens of thousands sued for compensation. A judge ultimately ruled in favor of the farmers, but decades later, some families are still waiting for their money. Shirlette Ammons traveled to Nicodemus, Kansas, to speak to the family of farmer Bernard Bates, who lost his farm to foreclosure. (This episode comes to us from the podcast Tending)

A massive flood 75 years ago ravaged Kansas City’s central industrial district and surrounding neighborhoods. The worst natural disaster in city history, the Flood of 1951 caused $12 billion in damages and displaced 750,000 people. KCUR’s Frank Morris and Suzanne Hogan reflect on the devastation and how community recovery efforts transformed the city’s identity.

A break-in at a Kansas farmhouse unearthed a trove of artifacts from Maud Wagner, one of the country’s first known female commercial tattoo artists. Wagner was born in Emporia and ran off to join the circus until a fateful meeting pushed her to pursue carnival stardom, inked from head to toe. KCUR’s Julie Denesha and Mackenzie Martin explore Wagner’s journey and the permanent mark she left on the world.

Invented in Kansas City in 1955, the Bomb Pop is the ultimate shorthand for nostalgic Americana — a throwback to the simple days of ice cream trucks, July 4th fireworks, and humid summer nights. But Mackenzie Martin reports that during the Cold War, some parents revolted over the symbolism of selling a red-white-and-blue frozen weapon of war to children.

Kansas City’s efforts to host the World Cup go back all the way to 1988. Now the tournament is finally here, after four years of preparations that not only reshaped the metro’s infrastructure, but also solidified its identity as a true soccer city. How did we land such a big event, and are we ready?Suzanne Hogan brings us the fourth installment of our mini-series on Kansas City’s soccer history.

Bluffs up to 120 feet tall once hugged the Missouri River by Kansas City — making it difficult to traverse the landscape and expand the growing town. So in the mid-1800s, a Catholic priest named Father Bernard Donnelly recruited hundreds of Irish immigrants for a dangerous but critical task: sculpting the city's streets from mountains of rock and mud. KCUR's Jacob Smollen reports.

With the Current’s trailblazing stadium, women’s soccer staked its claim as a vital part of Kansas City’s local identity. The women’s game is a central reason why this city will host the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and why the United States gets taken seriously in soccer at all. But after more than a century of prejudice, unequal funding and outright bans, fans don't take this dominance for granted. KCUR’s Suzanne Hogan brings us the third installment of our mini-series on Kansas City’s soccer history.

Kansas City, Missouri, became the first major city in the country to repeal its anti-jaywalking ordinance, after research found that tickets were being disproportionately issued to Black men. It’s a full-circle moment, because Kansas City was also the first city to criminalize jaywalking more than a century earlier. Mackenzie Martin reports in the second of our two-part series.

Kansas City was not only the birthplace of the term “jaywalking,” it also became the first city in the U.S. to arrest people for such a crime. Fueled by auto industry propaganda, this decision set off a nationwide trend to redesign our roads for the car — at the expense of everyone else. Mackenzie Martin reports in the first of our two-part series.

Since 1956, Leila Cohoon had amassed the world’s largest collection of hair art and jewelry — intricate works made of human hair. Her museum in Independence, Missouri, was the only one of its kind. But when Cohoon died last year, the future of this Kansas City institution — and the unusual tradition it preserved — was suddenly an open question. Suzanne Hogan speaks to KCUR’s Julie Denesha to find the answer.