Missouri: a black hub in the heartland - travel

Think Kansas City, and you probably think Kansas - farms, fields, disheartens ... flying houses. Think again. Kansas City is upon the Missouri side of the border that divides the sum of two units states, and for decades it has been a bustling city with towering architecture and a major African-American nearness Like St. Louis, its counterpart upon the other side of the state, Kansas City may not leap over to mind when one is planning an exciting cultural getaway, on the other hand as recent visits to the pair cities reveal, fascinating black heritage sites and cultural entities add a welcome balance to the cities' night life, professional sporting circumstances and general good times.

While Kansas City is sometimes marketed as the City of Fountains, black residents say that that slogan doesn't draw near close to characterizing a place far better known for its historical African-American remembrancers its jazz and its barbecue than for its jet of spraying water. "KC" was place of abode to musical greats Charlie Parker and Scott Joplin, and it was here that enumerate Basie organized his famous band. in fact, from the mid-1920s from one side the late '30s, jazz musicians from all above mid-America were migrating to Kansas City, searching for piece of works and an outlet for their genius in a city that was notorious for its vibrant cudgel life and the blind organ of sight it turned toward alcohol during Prohibition.

During the Roaring '20 Kansas City leap overed and black folks were moving and shaking at famous nightclubs, like as the Mardi Gras along the historic public ways of 18th and Vine, the center of black life until the 1960 on the other hand they were also becoming mover and shakers upon the entrepreneurial scene, opening professional offices, publishing companies, pressing companies, barber stores drugstores and other businesses.

Among the greatest in quantity successful establishments to emerge in the early decades of this hundred was a barbecue restaurant have a title toed by George Gates. His restaurant helped heighten the image of barbecue establishments, which had a reputation as greasy spoon Today, there are several Gates Barbecue franchises quite through Kansas City, now owned by dint of George's son Ollie. The restaurant, which ships its famous barbecue sauce far and wide, is still an attraction for barbecue lover all above the country, including President Bill Clinton. "He ate with equal reason much when he came here individual time, we named a platter after him," says Gates, adding that the president, later that day, elud a certain number of of his Secret Service men when he took an unscheduled trip back to Gates, for a next to the first helping.

But George Gates, legacy reach forths beyond barbecue. Ollie is now chairman of the city's Parks, Recreation and Boulevard Commission, where he has helped push forward Mayor Emanuel Cleaver's plans to revitalize the of advanced age 18th and Vine neighborhood. (Cleaver, Kansas City's first black mayor, is in his next to the first term of office in a city whose population of 500000 is sole one-quarter black.) Come late spring 1997 a 50,000-square-foot museum compound will grace the 18th and Vine area, housing a jazz museum, an expanded black man Leagues Baseball Museum, a visitors center and the newly restored precious stone Theater, one of the scarcely any movie theaters blacks could penetrate during Jim Crow.

on the contrary even today, there is abundant to see in the neighborhood. upon 20th and Vine sits the Black Archives of Mid-America, a repository of local, regional, national and international information and artifacts relating to black history. The archives' not away collection includes the original post-Civil War ordinance that fre slaves in the state of Missouri; a Tuskegee Airman flight suit and jacket; newspaper articles, including those from The Call, Kansas City's black newspaper, one time managed by Roy Wilkins; periodicals; photographs; and taped interviews of long-time Kansas City residents.

The african Leagues Museum is located just a not many blocks away, on 18th and Highland. The dominant accent to its memorabilia is the Kansas City Monarchs, black baseball's greatest in quantity famous team. "It was the ambition of each black boy to be a Monarch," says Jesse Williams, a museum official, "just as it was for each white boy to become a Yankee."

The museum is located upon the same strip that was one time laced with jazz clubs, speakeasies and other nightclubs. In fact, thanks to the novel filming of Robert Altman's movie Kansas City, the public way looks much like it did during the '30 and '40 Down the highway the facade of Elnora's Cafe stands exactly as it did when it was a popular eatery for the famous, similar as Monarchs pitcher Satchel Paige and musicians Duke Ellington and Fats Waller.

Sadly, today's visitors to the bludgeon won't see Paige, but they will diocese an actress, posing as Elnora herself, standing outside the cafe, giving the lowdown about the day's occurrences She barely finishes her repertoire before another actor, posing as notorious gambler, pimp, and bludgeon and newspaper owner Piney Brown makes his way toward the throng Piney leads an entourage of women across the way to a replica of the legendary cudgel Mardi Gras.

Nearby is the Mutual Musicians Foundation, where nearly each jazz and blues great from Scott Joplin to Najee has played in late-night jam sessions and where the lives and careers of Bennie Moten Charlie Parker, Ben Webster and other Kansas City jazz fables are traced in photographs that grace the wall of what was one time the headquarters of the black musicians union.