Kansas City memorial for Black man lynched in 1882 is vandalized, thrown off cliff
A memorial marker for Levi Harrington, an 23-year-old Black man lynched by a white mob in 1882, was cut off its pole in a Kansas City park and thrown off a cliff over the weekend, a park official said Monday.
“We got a report the other day that the sign was missing and came to find out that it was vandalism,” said Kevin Evans, superintendent of parks for Kansas City Parks and Recreation. “We discovered that it was thrown over a wall.”
The extent of the damage to the historical marker was unknown until it could be retrieved by a boom truck and inspected, he said.
“Below the wall is a very small ledge, so its kind of dangerous,” Evans said. “So we’ll probably have to get a contractor to retrieve it.”
If the damage is not too bad, the sign would be put put back in place within a few days, Evans said. It was unknown if the vandalism was racially motivated. There was no evidence of that at the moment, he said.
“All that I can do is get it and see if the rest has been spray painted or any other kind of vandalism happened to it,” Evans said. “Other than that, I have to wait until I get the sign above the wall to see.”
A portable outhouse was also tossed over the cliff and will have to be retrieved.
“This is a sacred space. We do not take its destruction lightly,” said Rod Chapel, president of the Missouri NAACP, in a release from the Community Remembrance Project of Missouri.
“It is part of our continuing struggle to acknowledge our history, and advocate for a better future. We do not deface churches or graveyards or other holy places.”
The marker was erected in 2018 near 10th and Summit streets in the West Terrace Park, which is adjacent to Case Park. It was made possible through a collaborative efforts between the Black Archives of Mid-America, the Missouri Conference of the NAACP, Missouri Faith Voices, the Equal Justice Initiative, Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, Kansas City, and the Kansas City Parks and Recreation department.
The park was chosen because of its proximity to the lynching of Harrington the night of April 3, 1882.
That night, Police Officer Patrick Jones was fatally shot while chasing two men who were believed to have been stealing butter from a nearby shipping yard. Harrington happened to have been in the area and a group chased him and turned him over to police.
As Harrington was being transferred to the main jail, a mob of several hundred people overpowered the policemen and seized Harrington. They wrapped a rope around his neck and hurled him over the side of Fifth Street cable car bridge. Someone shot Harrington several times.
The memorial marker was an effort to rectify the absence of recognition of lynching and racial conflict in Kansas City history, according to the release from the Community Remembrance Project of Missouri.
“In the context of protests throughout the country and locally in Kansas City to decry the killing of George Floyd and demand reform of police practices, it is shocking to see a monument dedicated to acknowledging the horrific lynching endured by another unarmed African American man in Kansas City brutalized,” the organization said. “To intentionally cut down the marker and throw it down the hill represents a rejection of historic and current truths.”
The Community Remembrance Project it is discussing with the parks department the next steps to reinstall the marker and enhance its security and protection.
This story was originally published June 15, 2020 at 4:54 PM.
