Join Margie Carr Thursday at Watkin’s Museum at 7:00 as she relays some of her favorite stories and insights from her new book: Kansas City’s Montgall Avenue: Kansas City’s Black Leaders and the Street They Called Home. The men and women of Montgall were associated with some of the most important leaders of America’s past, including Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, and Thurgood Marshall, and at the height of Jim Crow, they headed up many of the institutions that provided the economic and social foundation for Kansas City’s Black community.
Carr will also discuss the important connection between Montgall and Lawrence since many of its early Black residents attended KU because the University of Missouri would not take them, including Lucile Bluford, the long-time editor of the Kansas City Call, one of the most important Black newspapers in America. Another resident of Montgall, Danny Herndon, attended KU with Wilt Chamberlain, and the basketball legend spent many nights on Montgall.
Montgall’s leaders were fierce advocates for civil rights, and eventually, Kansas City’s Black community saw the end of Jim Crow, but other changes in America had devastating effects on Montgall itself.
