KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A staff member from the Kansas City, Missouri, Parks and Recreation Department removed a damaged monument from West Terrace Park Friday morning.
Last month, someone damaged the historical marker honoring Levi Harrington’s 1882 lynching. The parks department immediately reinstalled the monument after the vandalism, but it has many visible scratches, scuffs and other damage. Now the department will replace the damaged historical marker with a new, pristine monument.
“We have to stand for what is right. We have to say, ‘You know what, hatred was committed here and we’re going to flip that on its head and do what’s right in a very swift and decisive fashion,’” said Chris Goode, a member of the Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners.
A mob of white people lynched Harrington, a Black man, in 1882 after falsely accusing him of killing a police officer. A crowd gathered at what is today West Terrace Park to watch the lynching, which took place on the Bluff Street Bridge in the West Bottoms.
Goode and others say damaging the monument is an attempt to deny his story.
“It really saddens me to think we have such a close-knit community here in Kansas City and something so putrid, vile could happen right here in our city limits and there not be more outrage about it,” Goode said.
Glenn North co-founded the Community Remembrance Project of Missouri, which was instrumental in installing the historical marker in December 2018. He called the vandalism “heinous” and helped convince the parks department to replace the damaged monument. His organization is working with the police department to find whoever damaged the historical marker in June.
“Someone with malice and forethought sawed it off at the base and threw it over that cliff. It was like a hate crime,” North said.
North said historical markers are important so communities can “remember, reconcile and repair.”
Goode agreed, saying, “We have to make sure this site is respected, it’s valued, highlighted and honored. This is a sacred space, it shouldn’t be taken lightly.”
The parks department said it will install surveillance cameras at the site when it installs the new monument. A spokesperson said the monument and security equipment will cost a few thousand dollars.
The department has not set a date for installing the new monument but will hold a re-dedication ceremony. North and Goode hope to turn the location into a gathering place for the neighborhood with events such as poetry readings and musical performances.
The damaged monument will be on display at the Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Heritage Center. North works there and will include it in an exhibit highlighting how racism in the past affects systemic problems in the present.
“When you look at the historical context of racial terror, it helps us to understand why we’re seeing police brutality, it helps us to understand the disparities in how the death penalty is doled out, it helps us to understand all of the different flaws in the justice system and we want to be able to tell that story,” he said.
The site of the monument is on the African American Heritage Trail. Traffic Anchor Daisha Jones highlighted the trail in her One Tank Trips series.
