Missouri Valley Sundays

Historian Donna Rae Pearson examines the lingering impacts of redlining and urban renewal and how each promoted residential segregation in communities across the nation.

During the mid-19th century, a mass migration of pioneers traveled westward by wagon across rugged trails, wind-swept prairies, barren deserts, and formidable mountain ranges, seeking new opportunities in the West. Historian Travis Boley discusses the three principal trails – Santa Fe, Oregon, and California – and how...

Established in 1887, Kansas City Southern (KCS) started as an intercity belt railroad. It’s now a vital north-south rail link between the U.S. and Mexico. Drawing from his book Vision Accomplished: The History of Kansas City Southern, author William H. Galligan examines how the railway’s leaders were integral to the co...

Drawing from her thesis A Kansas City Founder “Proud of His Position:” Race, Exploitation, and the Rise of William Gilliss, local historian and educator Diane Euston examines the legacy of trader, landowner, and business leader, William Gilliss, as an influential town founder who helped establish one of the city’s firs...

Local attorney Gary Jenkins, a filmmaker, author and former Kansas City police detective, investigated mafia bombings and murders in the 1970s in the River Quay – today’s City Market. Jenkins discusses the rise and fall of the district and shows excerpts from Gangland Wire, his new documentary chronicling the saga.

Pat O’Neill, author of From the Bottom Up: The Story of the Irish in Kansas City, spotlights many of the colorful characters who once called the West Bottoms’ shanties, hotels, and saloons their homes, and their perseverance in overcoming floods, fires, and other obstacles as they helped build the city.

Janssen Place, the first private street built in Kansas City in the 1890s, is still considered one of the city’s most beautiful developments. Kansas City authors Bruce Mathews and Stephen Mitchell discuss their new book, Janssen Place: A Unique Kansas City Neighborhood: Still on Parade After 125 Years.

Carmaletta Williams, CEO of the Black Archives of Mid-America, discusses the research of the Greater Kansas City Black Suffragist Committee, formed nearly four years ago to identify local suffragists and activists of the early 20th century and make their contributions to women’s rights more widely known. Among those sp...

In a discussion drawing from his new book The Bars Are Ours: Histories and Cultures of Gay Bars in America, 1960 and After, Lucas Hilderbrand of the University of California, Irvine, spotlights two Kansas City venues in the 1960s – the Jewel Box Lounge and the Colony Bar – and how they helped make clear the distinction...

Art Lujin, a former manager of aircraft engineering during a nearly 26-year career with TWA and now a guide at Kansas City’s TWA Museum, recounts the airline’s history, impact on the industry, and indelible place in our city’s aviation annals.