By Johnny Szlauderbach
Join the Kansas City Monuments Coalition for Routes of Resistance: Black & Indigenous Histories of Kansas City Bus Tours.
The Kansas City Monuments Coalition has partnered with the National Humanities Center and the Being Human Festival to sponsor two free bus tours of historic sites in the Kansas City metro area.
The first tour option focuses on Black education in Kansas City. Guests will visit the Garrison School in Liberty, the Banneker School in Parkville, and the site of Western University near the Quindaro townsite to learn about how these institutions shaped Black education in the region. In this tour, we will center Black schools as locations of resistance to structural racism and marginalization in the United States and explore the legacies of desegregation.
The second tour option explores Indigenous history in the area. The bus will visit the Alexander Majors house and meet with presenters from Fort Osage, visit the Nerman Museum at Johnson County Community College to view the “Trespassers Beware!” Exhibit, and finally visit the Wyandot Burying Ground for a presentation by Chief Judith Manthe of the Wyandot Nation of Kansas. We will explore the themes of settler colonialism, resistance, and belonging through these sites.
Both tours will start at the Black Archives of Mid-America and end at the Mutual Musicians Foundation in the historic 18th and Vine District for live jazz music and refreshments.
Lunch will be provided for both bus tours.
If you would like to join, please sign up each attendee below.
Freedom’s Frontier National Heritage Area (FFNHA) builds awareness of struggles for freedom in western Missouri and eastern Kansas. Established by Congress in 2006, FFNHA covers a unique physical and cultural landscape across 41 counties and 31,000 square miles. It promotes three diverse, interwoven, and nationally significant stories: frontier settlement, the Missouri-Kansas Border War and Civil War, and enduring civil rights disputes. FFNHA inspires respect for multiple perspectives and empowers area residents to preserve and share these stories, achieving its goals through interpretation, preservation, conservation, and education for all residents and visitors. It is one of 62 federally recognized national heritage areas across the United States.