New play reimagines how young Black woman lived as KC millionaire in roaring ‘20s
The Kansas City Star introduced Sarah Rector to the world on Sept. 6, 1913, with an article under the headline “Millions to a Negro Girl.”
The story said the 10-year-old Oklahoma girl living with her family in a two-room cabin had “an income that makes President Wilson’s salary … look like small change,” claiming she made $112,000 a year from oil wells on 160 acres she had been granted as the descendant of a formerly enslaved person owned by the Muskogee (Creek) Nation.
She didn’t have “millions” — that would come a few years later — but the wells on her land did generate $300 a day for young Sarah. Enough to quickly merit a sobriquet calling her the richest Black girl in America.
In any case, her rags-to-riches tale caught the imagination of people around the world.
Shawn Edwards, the longtime movie critic for FOX 4 News, knows Sarah Rector’s history better than almost anyone else. She was his great aunt, and he grew up hearing about the little girl who became one of Kansas City’s leading citizens.
“We like to say that Sarah Rector was one of the first people on the planet to go viral, because her story was in papers all over the world,” Edwards said. “A lot of people knew about this young Black girl who instantly acquired wealth. It was a huge story.”
Edwards, who is also the founder and executive director of the recently opened Black Movie Hall of Fame, has decided to tell that story. He is an executive producer of “An Evening with Sarah Rector: ‘The Untold Story,’” a one-woman show that made its world premiere June 13-July 12 at the historic Boone Theatre in the 18th and Vine District.
These are the first performances in the newly renovated theater, which also houses the Black Movie Hall of Fame. Local visual and performing artist Karen E. Griffin will star in the show, which focuses on a part of Rector’s life that is largely ignored in most accounts — and was totally absent from the recent movie “Sarah’s Oil.”
The movie, which followed Sarah’s unlikely introduction to the oil industry through age 11, has helped generate a flood of events that have pushed Rector into the limelight nearly 60 years after her death.
Kansas City designated the block of Euclid Avenue between 11th and 12th streets as “Sarah Rector Way” in October; the book “A Name Worth Millions: The Story of Sarah Rector and Her Family” by Karen Carter Riffle was released in November; Kansas City PBS premiered the documentary “Aunt Sister: The Legacy of Sarah Rector” in February; Sarah Rector Day was celebrated March 8; and now this stage production is being directed by Damron Armstrong, the Black Repertory Theatre of Kansas City’s founder.
Griffin, a teacher, certified storyteller and Missouri Arts Council Honoree in 2025, said the show will be different every night because there is no script.
“I’m doing a reenactment of her in a storytelling format,” she said. “I’m portraying her life story in the first person.
“It’s all improvisation, because I will never have the true story. Only Sarah has the true story. So when I prepare for a show, I always ask her, invite her in to give me the guidance and direction I need to bring her to life.”
Griffin, who will be accompanied onstage by upright bass player Tyrone Clark, said the show will run “50 minutes, give or take. It all depends on how Sarah wants me to move.”
Edwards said “Sarah kind of exploded” after the movie, but the film raised as many questions as it answered.
“A lot of people kept asking, ‘Well, the movie only talks about Sarah up to age 11. … What happened after that?’” he said. “‘What was her life like in Kansas City?’
“ She did some incredible things as an adult, once she relocated to Kansas City, that people don’t know about, both personally and professionally. She became an entrepreneur. She did a lot to create businesses and help other people create businesses and develop neighborhoods.”
Rector’s family moved here in 1920, shortly after she turned 18. She married Kenneth Campbell two years later and had three sons, living in what became known as the Rector Mansion at 12th Street and Euclid Avenue.
These were the Roaring ’20s, before the stock-market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, so Rector and her family were like other wealthy Americans. They spent lavishly and enjoyed good times — furs, shopping sprees, fancy cars and parties. Especially the parties.
“I mean, who wouldn’t want to go to a party where in one corner is Langston Hughes, in another corner is Josh Gibson, and in another corner is Count Basie and sitting at the piano was Duke Ellington?” Edwards said.
Poets, baseball players and musicians aside, Edwards said much of what has been presented about Rector — especially online — is inaccurate. Chief among the errors is a photograph of a young girl that runs with nearly every story about her (including several in The Star) and was on the cover of the 2014 book “Searching for Sarah Rector: The Richest Black Girl in America,” which was the basis for “Sarah’s Oil.”
Edwards stated flat out that the girl pictured is not Sarah Rector, and he said other family members are just as adamant.
“An Evening with Sarah Rector: ‘The Untold Story,’” he said, will correct all the misinformation.
“I did a ton of research, just digging through the formal research, and then also incorporating elements that I would hear my family members share about Sarah Rector from the time I was a kid,” Edwards said.
“Another thing we want to accomplish with this is how incredibly challenging and difficult it had to be for her. Because she instantly became wealthy, but also everybody knew her name. Everybody knew what she looked like. Everybody knew where she lived. Like, how do you manage that? And how do you manage that in the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s?”
Those years included a divorce and remarriage, as well as the loss of much of her wealth and of Rector’s grand house during the Great Depression. She died at age 65 in 1967.
Ultimately, Edwards hopes the Boone Theatre shows are just the beginning for the play.
“We would love to go on tour with this, or land on Broadway,” he said. “It’s the perfect vehicle to do so, and because it’s a one-woman show it could very easily travel.”
“An Evening with Sarah Rector: ‘The Untold Story’
When: 7 p.m. June 13, 19, 26 and July 2, 3 p.m. July 5 and 12
Where: Boone Theatre, 1701 E. 18th St.
What: Black Repertory Theatre production of one-woman show about a Black girl who became a millionaire after oil was discovered on her land in 1913 in Oklahoma, then spent her adulthood in Kansas City.
Tickets: $40-$65, VIP $125
Information: brtkc.org
