The KC Parks group formed to study monuments to slaveholders hasn’t met in 8 months
Kansas City has an opportunity to do the right thing. But the committee assigned to studying the renaming of city streets and monuments tied to slaveholders hasn’t even met since January.
More than a year has passed since the City Council introduced legislation ordering the Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners to establish a 12-person committee to research and make recommendations to the council for the removal of monuments and streets honoring those who participated in this oppression.
Much has happened since, including the retirement of Terry Rynard, former Kansas City Parks and Recreation director. A global public health emergency slowed progress on a number of important initiatives.
A core group last met at the beginning of the year. Months ago, the city removed most restrictions tied to COVID-19 until a surge in new cases emerged in recent weeks. Rynard retired just last month. There is little reason the committee hasn’t proceeded.
Community engagement and outreach are important components of the process, interim director Roosevelt Lyons said. But in-person meetings are on pause at the moment.
“We take the issue seriously,” Lyons said. But do they really?
“We’re working on it but we want to do it safely,” he continued.
Kansas City 3rd District Councilwoman Melissa Robinson ignited the local call to remove statues and rename landmarks that celebrate America’s history with the Confederacy and slavery. She has pressed the parks board to make the matter a priority.
“We haven’t gotten very far with this,” Robinson said.
No one who had a hand in degrading others should be honored in Kansas City. Far too many area roadways and artifacts are named after people who turned a blind eye to unfair housing covenants, inequitable educational opportunities and discriminatory hiring practices.
The delay is unfortunate. Thousands of residents are reminded daily that their lives did not matter at one time. How could they not be? Some of the city’s more well-known thoroughfares are named after people who owned other humans.
The city made national news when the parks board voted unanimously to strip the name of J.C. Nichols from a fountain and roadway near the Country Club Plaza. Nichols developed the Plaza and used restrictive deeds to keep Black home owners out of neighborhoods on both sides of the state line.
The ramifications of those covenants have had far-lasting consequences for generations of minorities in Kansas City.
A contentious back and forth saw signs to honor Martin Luther King Jr. taken down along The Paseo. The parks board — at the urging of the City Council — renamed a stretch of Blue Parkway, Swope Parkway and Volker Boulevard for the slain civil rights leader.
A monument paying homage to the “Loyal Women of the Old South” was removed from the median of Ward Parkway four years ago.
We can’t stop there. Major streets in Kansas City such as Wornall Road, McGee Street and Troost Avenue were named after slaveholders. Jackson, Johnson Clay, and Cass counties also bear the name of slave owners.
Yes, Rynard’s retirement stalled progress on the process. COVID-19 hasn’t helped. Did the department drop the ball during the transition?
