© 2024 Kansas City Public Radio
NPR in Kansas City
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Central Standard

Seg. 1: High School Exchanges After 1968 Riots. Seg. 2: Local High Schoolers Take Civil Rights Tour

Segment 1: Community members recall memories of switching schools after riots following Martin Luther King Jr's assassination.

 
After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, two local catholic high schools, one serving a primarily white community and the other serving a primarily black community, held a year-long student exchange program. Today, we speak with a few individuals who participated in the exchange as students and discuss the profound effect it had on their lives.

  • Debora Demeter
  • Mike Damico

Segment 2, beginning at 32:04: local students return from civil rights tour of the south.

Local students of University Academy, a charter school with mostly black students, and Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy, a private Jewish school, discuss their experience visiting civil rights landmarks in the southern United States.

People don't make cameos in news stories; the human story is the story, with characters affected by news events, not defined by them. As a columnist and podcaster, I want to acknowledge what it feels like to live through this time in Kansas City, one vantage point at a time. Together, these weekly vignettes form a collage of daily life in Kansas City as it changes in some ways, and stubbornly resists change in others. You can follow me on Twitter @GinaKCUR or email me at gina@kcur.org.
Matthew Long-Middleton has been a talk-show producer, community producer, Media Training Manager and now the Community Engagement Manager at KCUR. You can reach him at Matthew@kcur.org, or on Twitter @MLMIndustries.