(dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) - [Nico] "You know, you spend a lifetime "purchasing a little old house, "rear your children and then someone sits down "with a pencil and paper, and within a half second, "this is wiped out."

This was the reality of over one million residents in the United States following the Federal Highway Act of 1956.

Laying over 40,000 miles of concrete coast-to-coast, many of these freeways would run right through the Black community, demolishing once thriving neighborhoods.

(dramatic music continues) In total, over half a million households would be demolished across the country, not to include businesses, schools, churches, and other institutions.

Kansas City would be no exception.

First introduced as the South Midtown Freeway, 71 Highway would take over 50 years to be completed, displacing over 10,000 residents.

- One has to be honest with the destruction that 71 Highway brought.

- There were very real communities, people attending the same church, people having neighborhood get-togethers, it just ripped that community apart.

- [Nico] I wanted to learn more about this freeway and its impact on urban neighborhoods, so I pulled up a map, and my eye was drawn to one of only two bends in the freeway, at 25th and Vine, and at that bend sits Paseo Baptist Church.

Seeming to almost intentionally avoid the church, I had a feeling this spot would reveal not only the history of this freeway, but possibly expose how this community fought back.

With all the devastation, I didn't just want to know what was lost, I wanted to know what prevailed.

I was searching for the resistance.

(dramatic music continues) So, I started poking around and got connected with Sister Gines, a passionate historian (gentle guitar music) who's been a member of the congregation for decades.

I'd learn this church is not only rooted in the pride of what it means for Black families to call Kansas City home, but because of that pride, would fight to protect the legacy of their community.

- I have here- - Wow!

- that was when they started building the church.

- Wow.

- August 5th, 1927.

- [Nico] Erected in 1927, Paseo Baptist sits at 25th Street, within the heart of the Black community and adjacent to a newly developed neighborhood known as Beacon Hill.

- [Sister Gines] People used to call Paseo the snooty church, (Nico laughs) because they said all of the people who were doctors, lawyers, politicians, et cetera, went to Paseo, and teachers, you know, all of the folks who thought they were something intellectually.

Now that wasn't necessarily true, but that's- - [Nico] Not a bad reputation.

- [Sister Gines] That's the reputation that the church had.

- [Nico] And the way people would dress for church.

I don't know how much this still happens today- - [Sister Gines] It doesn't.

- [Nico] Not the churches I go to.

- [Sister Gines] It doesn't, but you have to remember, I grew up in the era where folks said, "When you goin' to church, "you better put on your goin'-to-meeting clothes.

- Oh, well, I'm sorry that I'm underdressed then.

I'm significantly underdressed.

(Sister Gines laughing) (bright organ music) I apologize.

- You did not, you did good.

You didn't come up in that era.

(laughing) - Nah, no, no, no, nah.

I didn't wanna shine from you.

You look great.

I didn't wanna take any of the attention away from you.

- [Sister Gines] Oh, come on.

- [Nico] When was the first time you stepped into this church?

- So, ironically, it was not when I became the interim pastor.

It was as a high school senior.

- And the first time you preached here, what did it feel like?

- I was actually walking out of my office and there is a diploma of Dr. D.A.

Holmes that's right outside my office.

And so it really gave me some pause and consideration to dig into who Dr. Holmes was outside of just being the preacher of Paseo Baptist Church.

And as I dug a little more deeper, I began to see that he was more than just a pastor.

He was a, what they called then, a Black Moses, (gentle piano music) - [Nico] Born in 1876, D.A.

Holmes would be the founding pastor of Paseo Baptist.

Emerging as the voice for Black Kansas City at the turn of the century, his church would become the physical example of his leadership He raised $250,000 in the twenties, equivalent today, that's a little over $4 million, $4.3 million.

How does a pastor go about raising $4.3 million in the twenties?

- Only a pastor at that time could have done that.

D.A.

Holmes would've been one of them.

- [Nico] How would you describe the leadership he actually provided for the church?

- Dr. Holmes was a no-nonsense kind of person.

And as I told you the other day, he was larger than life and very well respected.

And so, what he proposed and what he put before the congregation, it was like, it's gonna happen.

- The Paseo Baptist Church was packed with African Americans who were considered to be Black rich.

They had an affluent and influential congregation.

And then when you have D.A.

Holmes, the godfather.

- Blacks began to move into that Beacon Hill area.

And this West Paseo was developed up there, and there were a lot of middle to upper class Blacks who were living up there, and a lot of them were members of this church.

- [Nico] Immediately, I recognized the name.

I spent a couple of years living at the corner of 25th and Troost, and right across the street sat the sign Beacon Hill.

(bright music) Funny enough, I never considered how it might be one of the most historic neighborhoods in the city, but now I was determined to find out.

As I searched for the best place to start in understanding the history of this neighborhood and its relationship to the freeway, everyone kept mentioning one name, Dee Evans.

Having served as the president of the neighborhood association for over two decades, Dee reminds me the history of this community is much like the history of our city, an unrelenting determination for Black people to prosper in the face of overwhelming odds.

Hello, hello, hi Dee.

How are you?

(Dee speaking indistinctly) Pleasure to meet you.

- Yes.

My husband and a friend of his came by here one day, and he came home and he said, "You know, "I think you need to go take a look at that house."

I met her over here one day, and when I walked in and I thought, oh, this house has a lot of character.

It just looked rich, that's what I could feel, just oh, I'm rich, you know?

(laughing) I'm coming into a rich house.

- [Nico] I love that.

I love that.

- And we moved in on a Christmas Eve, and we have very little furniture, but we called all our friends over.

They helped us paint the whole house.

I've been here 44 years now.

- [Nico] Wow.

By the 1920s, many of the homes within Beacon Hill would be sold by Fortune J. Weaver, Kansas City's most successful Black realtor at the time.

Weaver's Afro-American Realty and Investment Company put the entire block of 2500 Tracy up for sale.

The property would be sold to quote, "Highly respected Negroes."

(quiet bright piano music) - Beacon Hill was a great, traditional, and historic neighborhood of Black people in the core of our city.

Black people who were close to a hospital and close to downtown and close to resources on the Paseo Boulevard, like a good spot.

- You had groceries, you had bakery, you had pharmacy, you had physicians.

Everything was right there, all your amenities.

- Tell me, what are we looking at?

- We are looking at the Paseo and Beacon Hill prior to the invention of Highway 71.

We're looking at 1925 Kansas City.

This is an Atlas Map.

- [Nico] This is Dr. Jacob Wagner, Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Design at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and the founder of the Center for Neighborhoods.

- [Jacob] So you'll see 18th and Vine here, and all of the businesses that would've served African Americans was basically walkable to what we call Beacon Hill today.

- Sure, you had a multitude of professional individuals that lived in Beacon Hill, teachers, doctors, lawyers, principals, they all lived in this community.

- [Mamie] Yes, yes.

- [Shawn] 'Cause this?

- [Mamie] Amy.

- Your mama.

- [Mamie] Yes.

- [Nico] This is your mother.

- [Mamie] Yes.

My Grandmother Mamie.

- [Nico] Grandmother.

- So how did you end up in Kansas City?

- [Mamie] I was here, because I met Leonard Hughes at Fisk University.

- [Nico] And he's originally from Kansas City.

- [Mamie] He is originally from- - [Nico] And so And so he roped you to come back here and- - [Mamie] Yes.

- [Nico] So you arrive in Kansas City in the fifties.

What was it- - In 1949.

- [Nico] Oh, you came that year.

- We came right after the wedding.

His folks had a party.

- Mama, tell him where that party was held.

- 2519 Tracy.

- [Nico] Your husband's mother's house was in Beacon Hill.

- [Mamie] Correct.

Correct.

Correct.

- [Nico] Wow.

I was so inspired in realizing that Beacon Hill was a neighborhood of dreamers, and Mamie would carry that dream with her throughout her life here in Kansas City, becoming one of our greatest activists.

With a bridge that crosses over the South Midtown Freeway, named in her honor, Mamie would fight back against the demolition of Black neighborhoods and work to preserve their endearing legacies.

How would you describe Beacon Hill during that time?

- Oh, I would describe it as very nice and very connected.

The neighborhood people who felt comfortable enough to talk about what was and was not happening in their area.

- [Nico] I think about how truly revolutionary it probably felt at the time, because a lot of well-to-do Black families moved into Beacon Hill because they built these homes, and they were some of the first new housing that Black families got to move into.

- And again, there wasn't a lot of choice because remember, this is 25th and Paseo, there were just two or three more blocks up to 27th, and you didn't go beyond 27th.

- [Nico] Once the most race-defining street in Kansas City, Black families just did not move south of 27th Street.

(gentle piano music) Whether through enforced laws, social standards, and sometimes the bombing of houses, Black families in Kansas City were confined to strict Negro districts.

- [Emanuel] If you are on 18th and Vine, the jazz district, it's called 18th and Vine, Vine Street.

As you come south to where the population was all White, the name changed to Wayne.

- [Nico] The same street?

- Same street.

Vine Street was a Black street name, and White folk were not gonna live on a street that was called Vine, 'cause that was a Black street.

Shows you just how deep things went.

- [Nico] Congressman Cleaver's comment had me wondering how explicit was the definition of race in our city planning and did Beacon Hill end up in the path of the South Midtown Freeway uniquely because it was a Black neighborhood?

Are we rolling?

- [Crew Member] We are rolling.

- Oh, okay, good morning.

Good morning, everyone.

We are at the Kansas City Public Library downtown, specifically because on the 5th floor of this library, they have a room called the Missouri Valley Room, which holds all of these special collections of Kansas City.

- [Librarian] How's it going?

- [Nico] Hello, hello.

Good, yeah, Nico.

Oh wow, we're getting the goods today.

(laughs) (bright music) - [Librarian] So let me explain.

- [Nico] This is quite the preservation.

- [Librarian] So these are the Sanborn fire insurance maps.

These would be used to make determinations about fire insurance rates.

And so, they're not photos, but they're somewhat images.

The original volume was published in 1909, and there's a log here of when this was updated last, which was 1950.

- So who would have written that?

- [Nico] Wow.

- [Librarian] So someone who owned this book, probably an insurance office.

- The idea that diverse, urban neighborhoods cannot be stable, cannot be good places to invest, that was invented over the course of the 20th century.

That gets really manufactured through the real estate industry's valuation of properties in considering race as a factor.

- [Nico] The latest version of this was 1950.

Is that what it is?

- [Librarian] Yep.

- Regardless of your economic level, your income, your profession, doctors, lawyers, in their documentation of saying that certain communities were dangerous banking investments, because there are undesirable residents, they didn't say just low-income people of color, all people of color.

- That's right.

- [Librarian] You know, they wanted to make sure that it was known that this is the Negro section that we're looking at.

- This is not just about the materials that were used that determined its value.

You're talking about this systemic approach to devaluing places and spaces based upon the who that was there.

- [Nico] The less-desirable, colored district in Kansas City is confined to the areas between 12th and 27th.

And from the center of... - [Librarian] The city to about to about three, 30- - [Nico] 300 block.

- [Librarian] 30 hundred block east.

- The explicit language to have the audacity and boldness to characterize or identify this church as a Negro church, they don't do that anymore explicitly, but I'm wondering if that is still taken into consideration when applying for insurance.

- Dude, this is again, another golden documentary moment when a librarian wheels out one of these, man.

What I came to understand was that property values within Beacon Hill would be suppressed simply because it was a Negro neighborhood.

And as the land where Beacon Hill sat became, quote, "undesirable," it would leave the community vulnerable just as America was set to introduce its vision for the future, the freedom of the road.

This promise that every American would not only have a car, but would be able to drive that car from coast-to-coast through this vision of the super highway.

This idea was first introduced at the World's Fair in 1939 when a group of auto lobbyists, led by Ford, GM, and others, designed what a new highway system would look like, a spectacle they called Futurama.

- Imagine showing up in 1939 in New York, millions of people over the course of that World's Fair, going to see this exhibit of what you're being told, "This is what the future looks like," is beautiful, right?

Who wouldn't wanna live in that amazing future where you can move quickly through the metropolitan area in your own little private bubble?

- [Nico] By 1955, the Department of Commerce was on board with this vision and laid out every route the highway system would take, giving birth to what would become the largest Public works project in our country's history.

Beginning in the sixties, highways were mapped across the United States, driving economic progress and a promise to connect our country like never before.

(bright music) - [Narrator] And so, you can say that the American road is being opened up, is being made free, the freedom of the American road.

- [Nico] Kansas City would decide to go all in and become a leader in the age of freeways.

We promoted our freeways, and I mean really promoted them.

We proclaimed that it would be the best thing for the city, the best thing for residents, the best thing for communities, that it was the way of the future and everyone would benefit.

The problem is that wasn't true.

- Most major metro areas had to deal with the insertion of interstate highway systems into existing complex urban environments.

(pensive music) And the way that was scaled up was very controversial and very destructive.

- [Nico] Someone would have to pay the cost.

The freeway would have to end up somewhere.

But I wanted to know more about how the state decided where it should go.

Why does it take the specific route that it does running through Beacon Hill, And were there ever any alternative routes?

In doing some research about Kansas City's early freeways, I discovered an interesting blog, written by a local historian in her own right.

- My name's Ladene Morton.

I have written several books on Kansas City history for the Brookside area, for the Waldo area, and the legacy of the Country Club District.

- [Nico] Brookside, Waldo, the Country Club District, these are some of Kansas City's most recognizable neighborhoods and historically White.

Her blog post was entitled "The Country Club Freeway," and if you're from KC, then you immediately understand my curiosity.

The Country Club District is one of our city's most pristine neighborhoods and one of its wealthiest too.

So, did the freeway almost end up there?

- What happened was, first, the people started complaining and actually, a whole bunch of 'em took the city to court.

It would require them to broaden the easement at least 200 feet on either side of roughly Warnell Road, and that meant a lot of houses, a lot of expensive houses.

It was taking houses from judges and doctors and lawyers and people of influence, so.

- [Commentator] This is where you start to get kind of more organized resistance.

And so they're literally just like for this south community newspaper, they're putting these two photos together and saying, "This is what we have.

Do you really want this?"

And then the Waldo Business Association's getting in on it, calling it a danger to children and the community.

- [Nico] When the threat of the highway came in, is there any way you might contextualize how they actually protected themselves?

(dramatic music) - Political influenced.

The people who were wealthy and influential were relatively small in number, and they all knew each other.

That's why Nichols built country clubs, so that people like them could network.

That rippling effect of being closer to rich people meant a lot of people had a neighbor who knew a guy, who knew the judge, who could talk to somebody.

- West where the wealthy White people lived, Ward Parkway and so forth, and they told 'em real fast, "You all can go somewhere else."

- That was the last straw for the Department of Transportation, too much trouble.

They just said at the time, "We've got our eye on another route over on the east side.

"We're gonna go over there," and the subject was dead for those people.

- [Nico] So, the planned route would shift from the Country Club Freeway to the South Midtown Freeway, ultimately becoming 71 Highway as we know it today.

But the question still remained for me, did the shifting of where to put the freeway, a decision that is ultimately determined by our federal government, have to do explicitly with race?

- How else would this Federal Highway Aid Act of 1956 be practiced, right?

It is gonna be shaped by all of the thinking and the ways of being and what was simply normal during Jim Crow.

- What do you feel like that says about what the expectation was of demolishing Black neighborhoods?

- Oh, I don't think there was a care in the world.

I think the idea and the approach was that they could demolish anything within the Black community since there was the concept or the approach at that time, that Blacks, Negroes, that Negroes weren't important, and they could do whatever they wanted to do.

- [Nico] Now, faced with the threat of demolition, Beacon Hill would use their prominence built through the 20th century to organize a resistance of their own in an effort to preserve the legacy of their neighborhood.

(gentle piano music) So when did you start to get involved politically and have a social voice in what was happening in Kansas City?

- Not until his father was very interested politically, and it was a difference between Black and White, or between colored and White.

- [Nico] Mamie's family and others would notice the lack of influence to protect their community, giving birth to a political voice known as Freedom Inc. - They recognized that votes meant power, and they started galvanizing and gaining and we started running candidates for different offices.

And once they started doing that, they started demonstrating that they had control over their community.

- [Nico] Do you mind if we go downstairs to take a look at the exhibit?

Is it best that we take the elevator?

- No, you can go.

It's best for me.

- [Nico] (laughing) He said, "You can take the steps "if you want to, but I'm taking the elevator."

We can take the elevator down.

(gentle music) So you arrived in Kansas City, and at what point did you start considering politics?

- [Emanuel] I think I may have been unconsciously dealing with it in my head.

I led my first demonstration when I was 15-years-old.

We ended up getting the attention of the nation.

You know, 50 stupid kids, we could have gotten killed.

- [Nico] Influenced by activist parents, Congressman Cleaver grew up in the time of the Jim Crow South.

Arriving in Kansas City in the seventies, he'd soon begin an extraordinary career in politics.

- I took orders initially from Bruce Watkins who would say, "All right, now here are the things I want you to do," and he would give me a list of things, but at the top of the list was the South Midtown roadway.

(gentle piano music continues) - [Nico] As the first Black man elected to city council, Watkins would emerge as one of our city's strongest political voices.

- The two people who could do things in the community without retribution from the White establishment were ministers, D.A.

Holmes and businessman, Bruce Watkins.

There was nothing you can do to these guys, nothing.

- [Nico] Nothing.

(laughing) That's the feeling I get.

I only wish I could've... Well, look, I get to know you now, so that counts for something, right?

- Well, yeah, but you need to know somebody with some money.

(Nico laughing) - [Nico] With the rise of its political influence, the Black community would be poised to lead a resistance to the freeway's planned demolition.

The question is, would they be capable enough to succeed in protecting their neighborhoods?

- They were in the process of demolishing houses and taking them, and then when they had this pushback, it was like, oh, what do we do now?

- I get goosebumps thinking about it right now, that if I was in the sixties and I lived in this neighborhood, and I was maybe first or second generation to feel this sense of pride in belonging to a place and having a neighborhood of everyone that has kind of moving-on-up feeling, and we get to have pride in a place and the homes are beautifully done.

And then, you start to see layer by layer of that neighborhood demolished from 22nd, house is demolished, 23rd, house is demolished, all the way to 25th.

And that leads to this lawsuit in which the neighbors decide that they're going to block, how I have felt this story is, they're going to block their history from being erased.

They're gonna block their culture from being erased.

(dramatic music) - They provided a voice.

They were at a point where you're not gonna come through here.

This is almost sacred ground.

- [Nico] Beacon Hill would take the fight to protect their neighborhood into the legal system.

With violation of federal, civil, and environmental rights, the lawsuit would last over a decade, reaching national prominence.

How actively did D.A.

Holmes show up in the resistance of the highway affecting the church?

- He was in the middle of it.

He was at the forefront.

(Nico and Sister Gines laughing) - I can only imagine the support that Dr. Holmes garnered by standing up to the powers that be to say, even it was quoted in a news article, "Not over my dead body."

(dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music outro)