The Green Duck’s complicated legacy in Kansas City: What to know | Hudnall

The building that housed the Green Duck, a tavern with deep ties to Kansas City’s civil rights movement, burned Monday night at 26th and Prospect. Years of legal disputes, a contested estate and documented neglect preceded the fire.

FULL STORY: A decade of lawsuits, feuds and neglect lie behind fire at KC’s Green Duck | Opinion

Here are key takeaways:

• The Green Duck was once owned by civil rights leader Leon Jordan, who founded Freedom Inc. in the building and was shot to death outside it in 1970. The city later placed the building on its historic register.
• Jimmy Townsend, who restored the building in the late 1980s, was killed near the tavern in 2015 at age 83. Nearly a decade later, his estate remains unsettled, with family members and others locked in disputes over property and inheritance.
• Kam White says she paid Townsend’s daughter, Delores LaBlance, $125,000 toward a $250,000 purchase before being locked out. LaBlance disputes that account, saying White could not secure financing. The building was reportedly under contract to sell on June 5 to attorney Alfred Jordan.
• City records show years of complaints since 2022 about falling bricks, broken windows, unsecured entry points and an abandoned bus across the street linked to alleged drug use and prostitution.
• The Kansas City Fire Department’s Bomb and Arson Unit is investigating the cause. Historic Kansas City’s Ethan Starr said the building “was protected from architectural modifications, but not from neglect.”

The summary points above were compiled with the help of AI tools and edited by journalists. The full story in the link at top was reported, written and edited entirely by journalists.