A City Divided: The Racial Landscape of Kansas City, 1900-1960 - Softcover

Schirmer, Sherry Lamb

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0826220959 ISBN 13: 9780826220950

Publisher: University of Missouri Press, 2016

Synopsis

This study addresses the emergence of ghettos alongside the formative issues of race, gender, segregation, and the origins of white ideologies in the urban Midwest. 1930s Kansas City maintained a system of racial exclusion by claiming that segregation was necessary to prevent racial violence. At the same time, a new perception emerged among white liberals that inte- gration would produce a better society by transforming human character. After World War II, African American organizations devised demonstration strategies that were successful in laying a foundation for desegregating public accommodations in Kansas City. Black and white activists nonetheless failed to dismantle the systems of spatial exclusion and inequitable law enforcement or to eradicate the racial ideologies that underlay those systems.

About this title

About the Author

Sherry Lamb Schirmer is Associate Professor of History at Avila College in Kansas City, Missouri. She is the author of Milestones: A History of the Kansas Highway Commission and the Department of Transportation and At the River's Bend: An Illustrated History of Kansas City, Independence, and Jackson County.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Missouri Press
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0826220959
• ISBN 13: 9780826220950
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 277