Spring Break
Long gone Leeds district comes to light
David Cordill
Issue date: 2/18/08 Section: Culture
Around World War I, residents of a local African-American district battled against the odds and bonded together through their ideals and goodwill, creating a neighborhood legacy which has only recently received public notice.
Through a presentation entitled "Just Like a Garden of Eden: African American Community Life in Kansas City's Leeds", Dr. Gary R. Kremer, Executive Director of the State Historical Society of Missouri, discussed this time and place before at the Miller Nichols Library last Friday afternoon.
The program, a Black History Month celebration event, featured a lecture and slide show from Kremer. He spent nearly four years studying the 1915-1960 era in the racially segregated Leeds District.
Kremer began his lecture by explaining why he chose to study this particular area in Missouri, as well as a similar community in St. Louis.
"For more than two decades a growing number of American scholars have devoted their research to uncovering the ways in which African-Americans forged rich and rewarding lives during the late 19th and early 20th centuries within a society committed to the devaluation of people of color," he said. "Despite this intellectual effort, our understanding of African-American community life during the age of segregation is incomplete, specially the regions outside of the Deep South."
Early on in the 20th century, a dramatic increase Kansas City's black population created a need for housing for African-Americans since most white neighborhoods at that time did not allow persons of color to co-exist in traditionally Caucasian environs.
According to Kremer, much of this influx was due to southern residents migrating to the north and the mass movement of persons from rural to urban areas.
Through cheap land and installment payment plans, Kansas City area African-Americans were able to afford housing and establish a thriving neighborhood at an area just west of the Blue River, not far from the present site of the Truman Sports Complex.
Through a presentation entitled "Just Like a Garden of Eden: African American Community Life in Kansas City's Leeds", Dr. Gary R. Kremer, Executive Director of the State Historical Society of Missouri, discussed this time and place before at the Miller Nichols Library last Friday afternoon.
The program, a Black History Month celebration event, featured a lecture and slide show from Kremer. He spent nearly four years studying the 1915-1960 era in the racially segregated Leeds District.
Kremer began his lecture by explaining why he chose to study this particular area in Missouri, as well as a similar community in St. Louis.
"For more than two decades a growing number of American scholars have devoted their research to uncovering the ways in which African-Americans forged rich and rewarding lives during the late 19th and early 20th centuries within a society committed to the devaluation of people of color," he said. "Despite this intellectual effort, our understanding of African-American community life during the age of segregation is incomplete, specially the regions outside of the Deep South."
Early on in the 20th century, a dramatic increase Kansas City's black population created a need for housing for African-Americans since most white neighborhoods at that time did not allow persons of color to co-exist in traditionally Caucasian environs.
According to Kremer, much of this influx was due to southern residents migrating to the north and the mass movement of persons from rural to urban areas.
Through cheap land and installment payment plans, Kansas City area African-Americans were able to afford housing and establish a thriving neighborhood at an area just west of the Blue River, not far from the present site of the Truman Sports Complex.
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