The Kansas City Star published a rare front-page editorial in 1964.

The Kansas City Tavern Owners Association had forced a vote on a new ordinance that banned discrimination in public places such as bars and hospitals. The bar owners opposed it.

The Star did not. “Defeat … would be a victory for white extremists who are now attempting to stir hate and fear,” our editorial said. “Hate begets hate.”

“Approval of the ordinance would be a victory for justice and an endorsement of moderate, common-sense leadership,” we said.

The measure passed narrowly, with the mayor crediting The Star’s advocacy for the result.

It was a testament to the progress the editorial board could help spur — but sadly, it is one among a very short list of historical examples of Star leadership on issues of equality.

In fact, just five years earlier, The Star Editorial Board had sympathized with restaurant owners who refused to serve Black customers, absolving the businesses from blame.

“They are simply reflecting their views of what they consider a community attitude,” The Star wrote about owners who favored such discriminatory practices. “They are in business to make money and they try to please their patrons and they should.”

Such has been The Star Editorial Board’s complicated — and ultimately, disappointing — historical record on race, one that’s marred by countless sins of omission and a recurring unwillingness to speak hard truths to the people in power in Kansas City.

Quiet in the face of school segregation, business boycotts

While The Star Editorial Board sometimes came down on the right side of racial equality, such declarations were often belated, half-hearted — or just plain weak. What stands out among decades’ worth of opinion pages is how often The Star remained silent while pivotal events rocked the city. From blatant efforts to keep Kansas City schools segregated to a boycott of downtown businesses that discriminated, The Star Editorial Board stayed on the sidelines while The Call, a local Black-owned newspaper, decried injustice and pushed for change.

Occasionally, we found our voice. In 1950, The Star Editorial Board applauded when the Jackson County Medical Society admitted Black doctors for the first time. In 1953, we supported a city program aimed at improving blight.

In 1968, we backed a fair housing law. We urged calm after the 1968 riots, but strangely added in a page one editorial: “There is further value in emphasizing the good that exists within our city, in knowing that on the basis of chaos no white man should judge the black man and no black man should judge the white.”

In 1977, we said a school desegregation plan that involved districts in Kansas and Missouri deserved consideration — a statement, rare at the time, that white flight and sprawl were problems to be avoided. “The proposed metropolitan plan is not an assault on the suburbs,” we wrote.

These editorials, and others, share common traits.

Discrimination demanded leadership, not moderation

Some of The Star Editorial Board’s positions were sound. But our institutional voice was too often soft, relying on appeals to economic interests and moderation above all else. Typically, we were reactive, not proactive. Following, not leading.

Instead of fighting for what was right, The Star opted to say what was palatable to the powerful.

And we were often unwilling to use our pages to explain the obvious: The problems facing Black Kansas Citians have always been systemic and connected.

“There is a correlation between discrimination, segregated housing, economically anemic neighborhoods, failing schools and the proliferation of violence in the Black community that warrants coverage on the news and opinion pages,” longtime Kansas City activist Clinton Adams said.

“Poverty, disinvestment, violence, and segregation are all signs of systemic failures locally,” said DJ Pierre, a Kansas City attorney.

Today, The Star Editorial Board recommits to listening, to understanding these concerns and to proactively advocating for change.

Going forward, The Star Editorial Board will stand up for the rights of all Kansas Citians, combating inequality and training a spotlight on these four issues: economic development, education, health and public safety in Kansas City.

▪ Economic development: Kansas City’s efforts to extend opportunity and growth to its poorest neighborhoods are a disaster.

But that isn’t an accident. The city has powerful tools designed to steer money and jobs to the central city and routinely uses them instead to build luxury apartments and glitzy, unneeded office space.

That has to stop. And not with an incremental approach: Merely capping incentives for wealthy developers isn’t enough. In the near-term, the City Council should reject nonessential projects not built in the underserved urban core.

The city needs a Marshall plan for housing, small business development and infrastructure repairs. Existing sales tax revenue now divided equally among council districts should instead be concentrated in neighborhoods that need help.

Mayor Quinton Lucas has led on this issue, and more work is necessary. Homeowners should get tax increment financing, not developers.

Priorities should include “intentional financial and social investment into our East Side city parks, public schools, mental and physical well-being outcomes, capital access, interactive community art sources within reach, and restorative storytelling that elevates the ideals of family and the value of home,” Chris Goode, an East side entrepreneur, told The Star Editorial Board. “Also, actively removing blight by implementing home ownership programs that allow residents a realistic path to owning homes.”

In 2017, Kansas Citians approved a $100 million sales tax increase to provide seed funds on the East Side. We’ve criticized administration of the tax, not because it should fail, but because it must succeed.

City Hall should insist on a paid staff for the tax, capable of expediting applications and getting the money on the street.

There is more to be done. Job training is essential and should be required of any developer or business seeking city aid. Permitting should be easier on the East Side. Filing fees should be eliminated for businesses committed to the inner city.

Private enterprises must step forward to help, and public officials should insist they do. “Profit-making companies have a responsibility to the communities they serve,” said Bridgette Williams of the Heavy Constructors Association. “For far too long, there have been too few Blacks serving in the C-suite.”

▪ Education: Kansas City Public Schools have made up some ground after years of disinterest and underperformance. More must be done.

We opposed a sales tax to provide pre-K instruction in the public schools because it was ill-defined and regressive. But improving early childhood education and day care facilities is still a critical need.

The City Council should ask the legislature to establish an earnings tax surcharge on high-income Kansas Citians to pay for such a program.

But that alone won’t be enough. The jobs of the 20th century, in manufacturing and sales, are disappearing. Jobs in information technology are not, and the schools must work harder to provide training and resources for students to seek those opportunities.

The district must do more to expose students to new ways of earning a living. “Minority high school and college students should have opportunities for internships, not only during the summer but year-round,” Williams said. “How does one know if they have an interest in investment banking or auto manufacturing if they have never been exposed to it?”

Kansas City’s business community should commit to providing paid internships for every high school senior in the Kansas City Public Schools who wants such a job. We can’t let another generation fail to thrive for lack of exposure to opportunity.

▪ Health: To improve the health outcomes of Black residents in Kansas City, policy must be set with an equity-focused lens, said Qiana Thomason, president and CEO of the Health Forward Foundation. The conversation must shift from health disparities in the Black community to health injustices, she said, and policymakers must work with minority residents to address inequities.

Recruiting qualified minority health workers will be pivotal in changing outcomes in underserved communities, Thomason said.

“There are not enough Black and brown doctors, nurses, board members or researchers,” she said. “Data shows, when there is cultural proximity between practitioners and patients, there are better health outcomes.”

Minority residents are more susceptible to long-term health issues and diseases than their white counterparts. The lifespan of a Black man residing in one of Kansas City’s poorest neighborhoods is shortened by several social, economic and environmental factors.

For example, a Black man living in the 64128 ZIP code on the city’s East Side is expected to live to 68, according to data compiled by the Kansas City Health Department from 2013-2017. A white woman living just a short drive away near the Country Club Plaza can expect to live to be 85 years old, a 17-year difference.

“Health is shaped by the environment that we live in,” Thomason said. “But there is no racial equity component in the health care profession. Tactfully, policy making through a racial equity lens is our path forward.”

▪ Police and public safety: Reconciliation between the Kansas City Police Department and the Black community must begin with an admission of truth: Too often, law enforcement officers have been treated minorities differently than other people.

Only then will the fractured relationship improve.

Police must recognize the history of policing causing harm to the Black community and acknowledge their role in the distrust that has resulted. Apologizing to minorities for decades of mistreatment isn’t a novel concept, said Ken Novak, a professor of criminal justice and criminology at University of Missouri-Kansas City.

“It seems that recognition of past harm is an essential first step for the police and the community,” Novak said. “The symbolism of reconciliation can be very powerful.”

Kansas City must also recognize the injustices many Black residents encounter, said Vernon Howard of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Greater Kansas City chapter. Over-policing in the Black community should be eradicated, Howard said.

“We must move the conversation from improving race relations with police to eliminating racial injustices,” he said.

These steps will not be easy. But a study of The Star’s past editorials reveals a sobering truth: Kansas City has grappled with inequality and racism for decades and still has many miles to go.

“There seems almost always to be a lag between the enlightenment of the majority and the timidity of the few, backed by an outmoded tradition,” we wrote in 1950. That remains true today.

For too long, The Star Editorial Board was part of that failure. “The KC Star has not and does not cover the root causes of the pathologies afflicting the Black community in a meaningful, insightful, and impactful way,” Adams said.

More recently, The Star Editorial Board has forcefully called out and condemned systemic racism and has aggressively advocated for social justice. Today, we are owning our history, apologizing for our past failures and pledging to do more.

The Star Editorial Board should be leading the effort to find solutions and to fight for the rights of all Kansas Citians. We can do better. And we will.

This story was originally published December 20, 2020 at 5:00 AM.