David and Stacy Evans talk about the difficult road ahead for the Quindaro Ruins Townsite, why education is important, and the incredible history and role of Kansas City in the Underground Railroad. Stacy Evans is the chairperson of the Quindaro Ruins Townsite Project, a senior pastor of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
When hearing about Quindaro for the first time, or even as in depth as Stacy and David do here, it is both difficult and frustrating to simultaneously learn that the efforts being made to restore and support Quindaro are not as fruitful as they need to be. To learn more about being involved in Quindaro or to donate to its’ restoration, you can visit the Quindaro Ruins Townsite Project website.
In this episode, we are trilled to be sitting down with KC Leader Stacy Evans to discuss her many roles in the community alongside all her efforts and passions for the Quindaro Ruins Townsite. Although every minute of this episode is as important as the next, here are a few key takeaways:
Stacy’s pick for Best BBQ: Gates BBQ
Be sure to check out our Resources Page to see all the best BBQ in KC!
Stacy said it best when she so confidently shared, “We are only as good as our materials.” Check out The Black Archives and The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum to learn more about some of the history that has taken place within our wonderful Kansas City.
In the discussion of local leaders that Stacy looks up to, Stacy mentions:
All episodes of The KC Leaders is brought to you by Catapult Creative Media
Hello, and welcome back. I’m excited to be here on the Kansas City Leaders podcast today with a very special guest. Today I want to introduce to all of you is Stacy Evans. She is a chairperson with the Quindaro Ruins Township Project, and she is a pastor with the African Methodist Episcopal Church here in Kansas City. Without any further ado, Stacy Evans, welcome to the show!
Thank you. Glad to be here.
I am so excited to have you here on the podcast today. Just a little bit right now, just tell me a little bit about your background and how you ended up in Kansas City.
Well, I was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, and I went to college at M.U. In Colombia, and then I finished a Master of Theological Studies from St. Paul School of Theology. And there was a man by the name of Emmanuel Northern who attended Allen Chapel A. M. E. Church in Kansas City, Kansas. And he had been on the board for the Quindaro Ruins for like 30 years. And he was getting up an age and he thought that I would make a great addition to that board. He told me that he asked the bishop to assign me to that church because I had had a minor in African-American Studies at MU and also had finished an emphasis in black church ministries at St. Paul. So for him, he thought, I’m pretty sure there aren’t a lot of pastors who have these degrees in African-American Studies and whatnot. So he thought that I would be a great addition to the board. That’s how I wound up working with the Quindaro Townsite Project.
Tell the listeners right now out there, what is the Quindaro Ruins Township Project and why is it important?
The Quindaro Ruins Town-site Project is a non-binding MOU with the unified government of Wyandotte County. The property is actually owned by Western University Association of the AME Church, African Methodist, Episcopal Church. So we actually own the property there, but we were having difficulty raising funds after having met several times with National Parks, the Kansas Historic Society. They encouraged us to take on a partner to help facilitate raising funds so that we could do things like put in a national Park and trails into this incredibly historic site that had already received regional designations, state designations, and we were trying to get the National Historic Landmark designation. We ended up getting the National Commemorative site, so we do have a federal designation as well. But we were still just having so much difficulty getting traction to raise funds. We spoke with National Parks about being our partner, and they shared with us that they had so many properties already that they didn’t feel that they could take on another. The same with the Kansas Historic Society. And so we wound up partners with the unified government, who also owns a little bit of land in the Quindaro Ruins as well.
So what is Quindaro ruins, though? I mean, you talked about it being a historical park. Why is it important?
The Quindaro ruins is actually what I think is probably one of the largest underground railroad sites in the country. The grid of the original town, which was a boom town, they came up there in 1856. It was a town that had Native Americans there who had been relocated there from Ohio. So then the Quindaro Native Americans were like the Fifth Tribe to be relocated to that area. There were lots of European Americans from up north who were fundling in money to make this into a Freeport town. So there were other stations throughout the state of Kansas, which was still a territory at the time, that were there on behalf of pro-slavery. This town was wanting to come into Kansas as a Freeport town along the river so that they would be able to get supplies and food into other territories or places where they were fighting for freedom.
To my listeners who may not know this, this is all pre-Civil War. The Civil War started in 1861, and Quindaro comes about 1856. During the time when there was quite a lot of strife here regarding slave and free state, Kansas being a free state, and Missouri being a slave territory or slave state at the time. Is that correct?
It’s the other way around. Missouri was a slave state, and Kansas was still just a territory. And the question was, would it enter into the Union as a free state or as a slave state? And so people were actually pouring in across the border from Missouri, flooding into Kansas so that they could vote the territory to be a slave state. Likewise, there were lots of people coming from up north into Kansas as well so that they could fight and vote for the territory to come in as a free state. There was a lot of turmoil.
Okay. In what year did Kansas become a state officially?
1861.
Okay, 1861. Just before the Civil War starts officially. Yeah. That’s amazing. So Quindaro, people were flooding into the Kansas Territory in the 1850s, so they could influence that vote or that outcome. Exactly. And Quindaro was a port on the Missouri River at the time, is that right?
That is correct.
Okay, so what happens to Quindaro? You called it the Quindaro ruins township. It sounds like something happened.
Lots of things happened. There was pressure from the state of Missouri to not give it licenses, such as liquor licenses and food things, so that they could continue on as a town. Many people began to leave to go fight in the Civil War, so they moved their families to safer places. And so it just had a hard time to begin with. There was also a very steep hill. I always call it a 100 foot slope, but it may be higher. That prevented the town from creating the street that would get up into the rest of Kansas. They just had lots of barriers.
By 1862, the town was basically abandoned at that point.
Yes, by 1862. I think I’ve read that it grew to as many as a few thousand people, 6,000, 7,000 people in that time. So then during the Civil War, soldiers come through and then they need to eat. There aren’t many people there. They begin to tear down buildings to burn for wood and also just to be destructive because they knew that it had been an underground railroad as well. And then in 1869, post-Civil War, the exodusters come and breathe life back into the town. Exodusters are people who are down south that are really suffering from Jim Crow, and they are being actually solicited to come to Kansas because it’s being built as a free state. When they get to Kansas, they find Jim Crow still looming pretty large, but eventually those plant jobs and railroad jobs do happen and they become what’s known as the Kansas elite back there in Quindaro. They move into some of those houses that were left. And so then you can meet people today in Kansas City, Kansas, who tell you that they used to go visit their grandparents there, their great grandparents there. You mean, a lot of African-Americans that say they were born in Douglas Hospital, which was the second black hospital to be started in the United States, and attended Western University, which was HBCU. So it’s a pretty incredible piece of property.
I have to stop you there for one second. You just mentioned Western University, which was not just an HBCU. Is it the first HBCU?
No, I doubt that very seriously. I don’t know. But it was a very good one. It was well-known. It had people who traveled the world to sing, to bring funds back to Western University. Booker T. Washington attended there. It followed the Booker T. Washington model. It was the first black ROTC to happen in an HBCU. Like I said before, it had a choir, it had a nursing school. They were trying to teach kids to work.
What does the Quindaro Ruins Township look like today?
Today, it is in ruin, overgrown, brush. There are 22 foundations that the National Parks has come and done an evaluation have been able to find. Most of them are not significantly above the ground, but a few are. We had one stabilized back in the ’80s, and there is what’s left of a hotel, very much a significant amount of walls over six feet tall, still standing all the way around.
You talked about how you got in your current role with the Quindaro Ruins. What do you find the most rewarding thing about it?
The most rewarding thing I find about it is it was passed on to me to do. Since then, Mr. Northern has passed away and several other people have passed away. I find it rewarding to try to complete something that they started more than 40 years ago.
I’m going to switch gears just for a second. As you’re also a minister with the African Methodist Episcopal Church, what do you find the most rewarding about that?
About being a minister? About being a minister, I find the most rewarding is helping people to live into who they were born to be.
Now in Kansas City, in what ways are you helping to contribute to making Kansas City a better place to live, play, and work?
Well, that’s a constant for me. I’m always just trying to educate. People often say I’m a teaching preacher. So for me, I really like to help people to be able to comprehend bigger and better language, bigger and better words, whatever they’re involved in, whatever it is that they’re trying to accomplish. I believe that we’re only as good as our materials. So I try to equip people with the materials that they need to be successful.
Is there a particular initiative or project either in Quindaro Ruins itself or outside of that that you’ve been particularly proud of your involvement in or proud of what the project has achieved and why?
Yes. At Quindaro, we do all kinds of things. I’m particularly proud of bringing together community stakeholders. In the past, we have had several stakeholders in the community to meet in the basement of the church and talk about what it is we’d like to see in Quindaro. Ultimately, everybody would like to see a national park and trails with signage, interactive signage and state-of-the-art experience for walking through the ruins and seeing the foundations and being able to walk in and out of them and touch them and be educated. We like this idea, especially because at the time that Quindaro was created, you had Native Americans, you had European Americans, and you had African Americans working together in unity in a time where it was not very acceptable, and yet they did it. And so we love to teach that concept. People say that the name Quindaro loosely means a bundle of sticks or bound together unity thing. And so we like to educate about that, especially now in this day and age. Other thing that they said they would love to see, is an archives interpretive center to house the artifacts that have been found there that are now being kept at the Kansas Historic Society, as well as bring public library to the place, maybe an amphitheater, outdoor theater. We’d like to do book tours and education, just continue to supply materials that people can learn from, be interactive with, maybe some reenactment, some theater, music would certainly be a traditional thing in Quindaro.
If someone wants to help support your efforts in Quindaro, who do you need access to? Who are you looking for or who do you need to know about this project?
We’ve been trying a lot of years to just reach as many people as we can. We need private donors or people who would just like to give to the project for the purpose of stabilizing foundations, putting in trails and signage. Right now, we’re trying to put together monies for a design plan. We have a great company who’s given us a good rate. We’ve reached out to a lot of people. So typically the problem, in my opinion, and you didn’t ask this question, but we believe sometimes people don’t give because they are redlining. And quite frankly, it’s been nickeled and dime to death. People give little money, and then sometimes people say, if all of you can work together, then we’ll give this money. And that doesn’t always feel fair. And so we’ve got some barriers, I think, that have to do with color. We like to meet people who would give money to a project and trust us with the funds to do the right thing.
Is there a way to receive donations to the website right now?
Yeah, you can give to the website, Quindaro Ruins Townsite Project. There’s a button on there you can click to give.
Anybody who’s listening to this right now, if you go to the kcleaderspodcast. Com, if you go there, you’re going to see within the show notes here, we’re going to link out to the Quindaro Ruins Project. You can go directly there and to give, or to go to Quindaroruinstownsite.com as well to give. It’s an important project. It’s a very important piece of American and American history. It does, as Stacey said, it exists at a very particular junction in history, a flashpoint, so to speak. If you think about what it achieved and what it did, its part to play in helping make Kansas come into the as a free state in 1861, I think the power and importance of this site cannot be understated, and it was a major stopping place for the Underground Railroad. Go give, and we’ll put some more information there on the website, etc. I did want to shift gears just for a second here. We’re involved in a lot of different projects, and you have an interesting place in community as a minister as well. What unique opportunities or challenges do you see for Kansas City in the coming years?
Unique opportunities or challenges?
You can pick one, two, or do both.
Wow, I wasn’t expecting that question.
But – We always like to have a couple of fun ones.
I would have to say the challenge is education. I think that the poor education that’s going on in Kansas City is a direct link to the high crime we have in Kansas City. I could really go deep here.
It’s your mic. You got the time. You could talk about it.
I’m concerned about charter schools. I know that everybody thinks that charter schools are a great thing, but I think that charter schools are highly unregulated and we don’t have a clue what’s going on with our young people. It’s disappointing for someone who grew up in Kansas City not to see football and basketball and debate and marching band and drill teams from urban schools that we used to have: Central, Paseo, Southeast High School, East High School, Northeast High School. We don’t know if those still exist anymore. We don’t know what’s going on with the charters from education, math, science, language arts, all the way to debate, basketball, football, swimming, whatever. I think it creates this vacuum. We don’t know where our kids are. And then when they show up, it’s in some criminal capacity. Of course, I don’t believe that for all of our kids. We know the vast majority of them finish high school and go on to college, but we don’t even get to hear the good things that they’re doing. So when it was the majority of the kids were in public school, it was a constant on television all the time. How poorly the Kansas City, Missouri school district was doing. We saw black children’s faces plastered across the news articles, and now they’re just gone, just disappeared. People say charter schools are doing well, but do we really know?
There’s a big question there. When you take performing public schools and you leave a large portion of the student body out, there is a question. When they have different regulations and rules for that versus what are in public schools, I think that’s an interesting point, and I think that is a challenge. I understand that anybody listening to your show, I’m the product of a public education system in the state of Georgia, and there weren’t a lot of charter schools when I was growing up. I do understand why people might be interested in them, but we can’t lose sight of the fact that in many cases, if they’re unregulated or you’re not sure exactly what’s happening there, it’s very difficult. And when you don’t see anything about your schools on TV, about the schools that used to be on TV, obviously there’s a gap there.
Yeah, and a lot of them have been closed, and a lot of charter schools have been opened, and we don’t know what those are, what they do, how well the children are performing. We hear a lot of horror stories. We hear some good stories, too, but what are the facts? That’s the question.
For every challenge, there represents a corollary opportunity, one related to it. What do you see as opportunities for Kansas City? If we were going to address these educational challenges we’ve got, obviously, education is something that I’m a big believer in, that a rising tide lifts all boats. But I think it’s important to understand that it does not happen for everyone. In my question for you is what opportunities do you see? What are ways we could either change the script on this, change that work? Are there some opportunities we have to fix that?
Well, I think if charter schools were a little more transparent, and I don’t know that they’re not willfully untransparent, maybe they’d be happy to share some of their stats with us or all of their stats as I would like it. But I think then we would know how we could help. It’s just a real absence of urban children. What are they doing? How can we help them? What programs can we provide for them? I grew up an athlete myself, so I’m pretty partial to athletics, but being an educator myself, I’m also very partial to things that lift them academically as well. But I think it’s important to note that a lot of kids make it out of poverty through athletics and music and dance. Are those things being offered? And of course, we know that a lot of kids make it out of poverty through their grades. Are they able to have enough credits to go to a four-year school? Are they going to two-year schools? Are they just going straight from high school to prison in large numbers? We just need to know.
So transparency and reporting would help us know and identify those challenges or those problems and know if these schools are performing or not. But also, like you said, it might be interesting to know, do they have programs for the kids? What programs do they have?
Incidentally, it’s very indicative of what we do with Western University as well. And the Quindaro-Ruins town site, the whole thing is based on the education. They started out at Book of T. Washington School, which was a Votech model. But by the end, they had grown into this more of a W. E. B. Du Bois school, which focused on academics. But the point is that everybody was interested in educating. Presbyterian Minister, Eblon Blakeley, started the school back when the town very first started. He was a white Presbyterian Minister who wanted to educate freed slave children, which is what makes it an HBCU. An HBCU is a school that is founded prior to 1964 with the intent of educating African children, African-American children. And so to me, education and comprehension is everything. You know more than you can do more. You know better, you can do better. What you were saying about raising the tide and raising the boat, I believe all that is true.
I’m not going to shift gears. Whenever we address problems, I think one of the challenges, and this is my own opinion. Stacy, I’m not trying to put words in your mouth, but I found that this idea of this monolithic, one person who’s going to come in and fix everything and change things for us, I think is often just a myth. I feel that things only get better when we engage in a community way and we approach people across the things. I’m not saying that’s always the way to do it, but I feel like a collaborative approach is the way to do it. That’s my own thoughts on it. Well, how do you personally approach collaboration and fostering unity within your community and field? For example, Quindaro Ruins needs… How do we get more people involved? How do we foster community and that thing? How do you personally do it?
Well, with Quindaro Ruins, we had a symposium within the organization called Freedoms Frontier several years ago. And the symposium brought 1,500 people in a weekend to Kansas City, Kansas Memorial Hall, and we also had one meeting at the downtown public library in Kansas City, Missouri. And so in one weekend, we were in front of 1,500 people. We had speakers from the community, we had reenactment from the community, we had professors, and we even brought in someone from, I think it was from San Francisco, to speak on the history. And it was incredible, and I was one of the speakers. No, I wasn’t. I was one of the panelists. And I remember I had just read Brené Brown’s book about vulnerability. And so they asked me a question and I was vulnerable about it and I broke down. It was so embarrassing. But by being vulnerable and sharing with people the weight that I felt trying to make something happen at Quindaro for all of these people who had been trying to do it for over 40 years. And that vulnerability brought a lot of people to me and we began to talk. And so we just started a community meeting.
Doctor Tye Edwards with Johnson County Community College, she’s over the Kansas Department, just became a super friend and Dr. Leickner over there. And from there we just started having a Zoom meeting because we were in COVID too after that. But we just started doing a Zoom meeting and inviting people. And so now we have people from Johnson County Community College, Kansas City, Kansas Community College, U. M. K. C, KU, K. State, National Parks, Kansas Historic Society, the EPA, the Unified Government, community stakeholders, everybody’s welcome to this meeting. The Windot Nation, the El Quindaro Museum, the Vernon Center, everybody’s welcome to come to these meetings. We send out an email and we get together and we talk and decide what we’d like to do next. And so we’ve done several clearings and cleanings where we’ve gotten the brush off of the foundations. We’ve cleared away tires and debris and all of that thing to keep the ruin stabilized. Basically, we’re doing it just the old-fashioned way, getting out and doing the work ourselves right now. Always applying for grants and looking for funds and all of that together.
You got to do the work. You got to roll up your shirt sleeves and get your hands in the mud. You got to get dirty, do these things. I think you need a community to do it. It sounds like you’re building that.
We are. But to your point that you made earlier, who do you need to meet in order to get the funds to do the bigger work? Because where at now is we need the bigger work done. We need a design plan. We need money to stabilize the foundations. We need money to put in the trails and the bridges that have to go over the low places and the creek-to-mix, we actually need real money now and funds. We’re just reaching out, trying to be vulnerable and sharing that. But there’s just been so much in the past that has stopped it from happening. But we just keep on working and applying and looking for people who want to give to support it.
We’ll do what we can after the show. We’ll see if we can maybe connect you with some of the people we’ve met. I think there’s some opportunities here open in the community. I do want to ask a personal question right now. Is there a personal experience or lesson in your life that has shaped your career and perspective? How do you view these things and what would that be?
What things?
How do you view the work you’re doing now, why Quindaro Ruins is important? Is there any lesson or anything you want to share with the viewers to say, This is something that I ran into or experience and it made me think that this work was important.
So, yes. Let’s just say I suffered a bit. I have great parents and a great family who have supported me through some difficult times. When I was a teenager, I suffered some depression and ideation. And then my parents got me the help that I need and I started getting better. But I know what it feels like to be the outsider. I know what it feels like to be the fat kid, the only black kid. I know what it feels like to be discriminated against. I know what sexism feels like. I know what real suffering and pain feels like. And so what motivates me, I love the educational piece that Quindaro brings. I love how people work together to make it happen against odds at a time when slavery was really at its heights. And I often say to people, for African-Americans, really anything that is alive, there’s nothing more important than freedom. And so I have gained my freedom. I’m a happy person. My life is good and I know how I got there. I know that it was because of the opportunities and the chances that I was given, because of my parents and family, economic situation and education. And so I’m always just trying to get that for as many people as I can, regardless of race or religion or gender. I just want to help people to have the best that they can. And I think that Quindaro is an excellent story and opportunity to be able to uplift that community, create jobs, bring in some industry that may be needed there. It’s just an opportunity to provide people with the materials that they need to live better and be better to raise up a whole community.
Educating people seems to be part of where your heart is.
Absolutely.
Is there an actionable piece of advice you’d like to give to any of our listeners? If anybody stumbled across the show and you said that they’ve realized there’s a gap in their knowledge, that they need more education or more skills or something. Is there anything you would point them at or encourage them to do?
Yes. We’re only as good as our materials. I was told a long time ago, You don’t really have to go to college. You just need the information that college has. I encourage people to read. I encourage people to find the materials that they need, that thing that they’re interested in, study it, learn it. When I was in broadcasting, I don’t know if people will remember Chris King, but in Kansas City, he was a big deal in black radio. And he used to say, You have to love what you do. Love it enough that you do it in your free time. And that always meant a lot to me because there were a lot of disk jockeys back then we used to be called, who never played one record when they were not on air. Then they would come on air and just do something, but they would never be as great as Chris King. That’s because Chris lived and breathed radio. He lived and breathed music, and I just learned that from him.
I heard something the other day from a nationally published author, bestseller, etc, and he made the comment. He said, Great authors need to be reading other work. Period. End of sentence. I thought that really struck me is that how many of us love what we do but don’t think about, would you do this in your free time? Would you go do that? I guess if you’re disk-jockey on the radio, you need to be consuming the music that you want to hear played. I don’t know, I wonder if that’s a disconnect thing that just happens to people. But that’s just what that sparked in my mind when you were saying it. I was like, man, that author said you got to read other people’s stuff, and I never thought about it. What do great authors do. They’d be just writing all the time. He stated that you have to read other things and be available.
If you’re a preacher, you should be helping people all the time.
Helping other people all the time.
You’re not always in the judgment seat. As we all know from day one, there’s only one righteous judge, and we are not it. Our job is to love God, love ourselves, and love our neighbors like we love ourselves. Help somebody so that our living will not be in vain.
The other day I was talking to somebody, and it’s that rhetorical question, Am I a brother’s keeper? One of the oldest stories in the Bible, and it’s rhetorical. The answer is yes, yes, you are. It’s not brother, as in your literal brother, it is in the world as a whole. I’ve always thought that’s a man. I don’t know. When I was a kid, I didn’t get that. Now it’s just so apparent. In Kansas City, how do you stay informed, engaged, and inspired? How do you stay plugged in to this community?
Well, I’m active in the community. I wouldn’t say I’m the most plugged in person. As a matter of fact, I’m probably more tunnel vision. But people tend to bring me what’s going on in the news and in the world because I’m really more focused on this needs to be done. This needs to be done. I feel like I’m the chairperson of of Quindaro. I’m also the chairperson of Western University. I’m also the pastor of a church. I’m also the daughter of elderly parents. So I got a lot to do. I’m at every meeting I’m supposed to be in, so I’m hearing what I’m supposed to be hearing there. Like I said, we have this huge collaboration of colleges and historic and archeological people, and so they’re keeping me abreast of all those things, what’s coming down this pike and what grant is available here and this and that. My parents watch a lot of news, so when I’m at their house, I see a lot of news. But I’m a person who makes lists, and I accomplish nearly everything on my list daily. I’m really more of a get it done person.
Absolutely. You’re doing a lot. That being said, what do you love most about Kansas City and what makes it stand out from other cities?
Well, I was born here, so they’re- So.
Checkbox, Stacy was born in Kansas City, so there we go. Makes it great. Seriously, though.
No place like home.
No place like home!
And I like the history of Kansas City. Even though it has a vast racist history, I like to hear things like it was built to be beautiful. And when you travel around the other cities, you can really see that Kansas City is a beautiful city. Like most Kansas City-ans, I’m very upset about all the trash that is all over our beautiful city. And so I love that. And then we’re a city of a lot of first, the first outdoor shopping mall. I can’t remember all now because you got me on the spot. The Fountains were the third city in the world with the most fountains, sister city to Venice. We’ve got a great, rich history here in Kansas City. Swole Park is like the third largest state park in the country. We’re the smallest city with our own ballet, our own symphony. So I like the social life and the culture in Kansas City, and that’s why I wish… To me, we’re one of the wealthiest cities in the country, but also one of the lowest in education, and so that’s why education really is a thing for me, because I want our education to be as great as everything else is in Kansas City.
I got to say the chiefs and the royals.
No, you got to say the chiefs and the royals!
The museums, the art galleries… It’s just endless. The beauty and the history that Kansas City goes on and on. I could just go on and on it so much.
It’s interesting you mentioned those things just recently, and I don’t want to date the podcast too much, but we just made the list of federal tech and innovation hubs. We just got and listed as one of the top technology cities in the United States. We’re on the list of the top 20, and we’re the only one that ranks much higher in what they call momentum. We’re ranked sixth for momentum and 19th for placement right now. When you look at the investment in the city, Google, Meta, some of these other things that are coming in here. I don’t know what those are going to mean in the long run. We got the new airport. It’s really interesting right now. I don’t want to misquote this, but I think Tripadvisor are some a major online publication put Kansas City in the top, I want to say top 10 cities in the United States you must visit. I just think it’s really amazing what’s going on in this town right now.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the Jazz and the Blues.
The Jazz and the blues. We do have the Jazz district. We’ve got the Negro baseball Hall of Fame. There’s just so much cool about the city and just so many undiscovered gems maybe people haven’t heard about. Thinking about the city, and it’s a very vibrant community. We have a community of artists and designers and good people. Are there any local leaders or influencers in Kansas City who inspire you? Other people out there also doing good work.
I’ve always been very active with the Black Archives historically. I’d have to say those. I think our mayor is great. I like Quentin Lucas, of course.
Mayor Q for those of you on the show.
Mayor Q-, yeah. I think he’s doing a great job. I like Sherees Davis, Emmanuel Cleaver. I think they’re doing great work.
By the way, any person or place she’s mentioned in the show, we’re going to actually put in the show notes. I have to ask a question now, and Kansas Cityans are very pinionate about this. Where is the best barbecue in Kansas City?
Oh, my goodness. Okay. All right. So my grandmother went to school with Ali Gates, Sr., so my family is very partial to Gates Barbecue. And so we’re really Gates lovers.
Do you have a dish there in particular?
Wow. My mom likes the sausage. She loves the ribs, though. The ribs are her favorite. But then my brothers, everybody, we like the sausage. We like the beef. We’re just Gates lovers. Even if we were to buy another barbecue, we still would put Gates barbecue sauce on whoever’s ribs those are.
That’s a pretty resounding vote there for that. I discovered that it’s a, I don’t know, it’s amazing. You’ll have people who are like, Oh, go to Joe’s in the gas station. Do people tell you that there’s a gas station there, and that’s important, apparently. I am learning, but it’s a very interesting thing we thought about. What do you hope to see in the future of Kansas City? What role do you hope to play in that future?
I hope to see… Hopefully, I’ve made this really clear. Quindaro is very important to me. Incidentally, you’re not from Kansas City, so I have to say this for you. Quindaro, of course, is in Kansas City, Kansas. Okay. And when I’m talking about education, I’m talking about Kansas City, Missouri. Oh. Kansas City, Kansas Schools are still holding on to their traditional schools, neighborhood schools, which I think is a good thing. I think they need a lot more support. Teachers need to be paid well. More money needs to be put into Kansas City, Kansas Schools without doubt. Got it. But in Missouri, I remember Charlie Gibson came here. He said that Kansas City was going to be like some hub for alternatives, not alternative schools, for charter schools, and that he would be back to tell us about how it’s developing. But then Charlie Gibson, you may remember, is a news guy from CBS, ABC. Anyway, he retired and we never heard much about the charter schools. So for both sides of the river, though, I would like to see urban schools greatly, greatly, greatly improved and supported any way and every way we can. I think that people think they live in the suburbs and they’re not going to be around this kid or that crime, but that’s just not the reality of life. Dr. King said, If one fails, we all fail. I just would like to see all kids. And people tend to think that children don’t know what they don’t have, but that’s not true. When they travel around to these schools and see what they do have in suburban schools and private schools, they immediately know what they don’t have. Incidentally, in the Brown versus the Board of Education decision, I believe that was the hallmark of the whole decision, was that these children know what they’re not receiving, and it’s not fair because it will create some psychological situation.
It’s interesting because as an attorney, that is one of the big cases. It overturned Plessi versus Ferguson, which is a case in late 1800s. I want to say 1898. That was a separate but equal, which Brown said, These are not equal. These are not the same, and it’s not appropriate in America. It’s one of those places where the Supreme Court says, We’ve really got that wrong. It’s interesting. I think we still see those disparities today. When you start looking at inner city schools, and I’m not trying to be in my soapbox here, I think that as Dr. King said, if they fail, we all fail. I think that’s something we have to think about inclusively as a community, how we do that. What steps would you suggest to someone who really wants to make a difference in Kansas City? What would you say? Hey, because it’s about the work, it’s not about the talk. I appreciate talking. That’s what I do for a living. But what work can they do? How can they be involved? What can they do to make a difference?
In education or just in general?
You could pick one.
I think in education, like I said earlier, I think we just need to know more about what’s going on with our kids. We need some transparency in what actually a charter school is. We need to know where the money comes from and where the money is going and how is it being used to educate the kids? What kinds of classes are kids receiving in these schools? How many credits? How many of them are going on to college? And maybe even a higher degree than that? We just need to know. We need to know how many of them are going to prison? How many of them… We need to know.
That could be from the same point of voluntarily disclosing, which I don’t know if that would happen. I mean, it’s possible, but or some legislation of some kind that says we should compel in some ways to let people know these things. I mean, there are kids and the kids are truly the future, then we want to know what’s going on.
Exactly. We need to. I mean, people’s imaginations can get pretty wild. In the black community, we’ve got all sorts of hypotheses of what we think is going on. We believe that they’re building a lot more prisons than they are schools. We’d just like to know.
Final question is, how can our listeners get involved and/or support your initiative? We’re obviously going to list you in the show notes.
Well, like we said, there is a way to give on the website, Quindaro Townsite Project. And you also mentioned there are a few Google Quindaro. There are lots of organizations that have Quindaro in their name. Ours is the Quindaro Ruins Townsite Project. And there’s a button on there you can click and give. You can get involved with us. You can email me at [email protected]. That’s ‘[email protected]. Email me and then I can get you involved in that community meeting that we have. Usually online, we meet online so that everybody can get there even if you don’t live in the state.
That brings us to the end of another great episode. Stacy, I want to sincerely thank you for being on the show today.
It’s my pleasure.
This was awesome. For those of you out there listening, if you like what you heard here, please like or subscribe. Give us a review on Spotify or Apple or wherever you listen to great podcasts. Stacy Evans with the Quindaro Ruins Township Project. Thank you so much for being on the.
Show today. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
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