KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A memorial marker that remembered the lynching death of a Kansas City, Missouri, man has been vandalized.
The marker in West Terrace Park tells the story of Levi Harrington’s 1882 death.
It was cut from a pole and “thrown down a hill” on Sunday, according to a news release from the KCMO Parks and Recreation Department.
Missouri NAACP President Rod Chapel said in the release that the organization does not take the destruction “lightly.”
“It is part of our continuing struggle to acknowledge our history, and advocate for a better future,” Chapel said. “We do not deface churches or graveyards or other holy places.”
The marker was erected in 2018 through a partnership between multiple organizations, including the Black Archives of Mid-America and the KCMO Parks and Recreation Department. Its location was chosen due to the “proximity to the lynching site” in 1882, the release stated.
Harrington, 23, was accused of killing a police officer, according to the release, and “murdered at the hands of an angry, white mob.”
“The marker’s erection was an effort to rectify the absence of recognition in the public space on the subject of lynching and racial conflict in our history—Kansas Citians are largely unaware that these events even occurred,” the release stated.
The Community Remembrance Project is working with the parks and recreation department to reinstall the marker and “enhance its security and protection.”
