New faces, new stories: KC Black History book returns with second edition
Human rights activist Alvin Sykes, who championed the re-opening of police investigations in the murders of Emmitt Till and Leon Jordan, is one of the new profiles in the expanded second edition of Kansas City Black History.
Raised in Kansas City’s east side, Alvin Sykes would find power in libraries to rise up as a human rights icon, redressing wrongs in the U.S. justice system, championing new investigations into the murders of Emmitt Till and Leon Jordan.
His story is one of eight new biographies that highlight the second edition of the national award-winning publication, Kansas City Black History.
Download the book and link to other companion Black history stories, audio recordings, videos and lesson plans for classrooms at KCBlackHistory.org.
The 48-page book now features 84 biographies of Black men and women from the Kansas City area who changed the world in education, science, industry, entertainment, arts and sports.
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The 2nd Edition is available now
Pick up printed copies at KC Public Library locations
Download a digital copy at KCBlackHistory.org
Order a printed copy by clicking here
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The new edition features essays from U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II — “Black History is American History” — and civil rights activist Alvin Brooks — “Dismantling the American Racist System.”
Visit kclinc.org/blackhistorystories to learn more about the individuals featured in prior years of the Black History Project.
The book collects more than a dozen years of work in collaboration by LINC, the Kansas City Public Library and the Black Archives of Mid-America to chronicle Kansas City’s deep Black history through the stories of the people who helped shape the nation, some of them well-known and others whose great impact was newly brought to light.
The essays by Cleaver and Brooks add to commentary from Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, Black Archives of Mid-America Executive Director Carmaletta M. Williams, Negro Leagues Baseball Museum President Bob Kendrick, social justice advocate Justice T. Horn and poet Glenn North.
North, in his poem, “I Sing Their Names,” finds comfort on the shoulders of our local icons, reciting names that are “legion” . . .
“Langston and Parker,
Ms. Bluford and Mary Lou.
Old Buck, Leon Jordan,
Horace and Bruce.
Sarah Rector, Junius Groves,
Tom Bass, and Anna Jones.
Count Basie, Chester Franklin,
Bernard Powell and D. A. Holmes.
“I chant their names,” North writes, “almost as if holy.”
The second edition of Kansas City Black History expands the book that won a national Award of Excellence from the American Association for State and Local History, was honored statewide by the Missouri Library Association with its Excellence in Genealogy and Local History Award, and received the Jackson County Historical Society’s award for Historic Publication.
More local Black history is available online at KCBlackHistory.org, where the stories and essays gathered in the book are combined with other archival materials, including audio recordings, videos and lesson plans for classrooms.