The Kansas City Defender

09/17/2025

Less than a month after KCPD dismissed Black community warnings, a 22-year-old Black woman who was kidnapped from Prospect Avenue in Kansas City escaped a serial killer’s basement torture dungeon 30 minutes outside of KC in Excelsior Springs.

This horrifying, explosive story that The Defender broke in September 2022 sparked international headlines and continues to reverberate today, as Black women and youth continue to vanish in what many describe as an epidemic.

Now, our investigation continues.

For nearly three years, we’ve tracked court hearings, combed records, walked neighborhoods, and spoken with families who’ve been ignored.

As the trial of the man who was abducting Black women in Kansas City approaches, our years of reporting are culminating in the launch of a new project.

Investigative reporters Vaughan Harrison, creator of the Fountain City Files podcast, and Mili Mansaray, senior editor at The KC Defender, are coming together to launch Fountain City Files: Vanishing Point.

This limited series, set to be released in December, will uncover the wider crisis of missing Black women in Kansas City, the institutions responsible, and the people fighting back.

If you or someone you know has gone missing and would like to share a tip or testimony, please reach out to [email protected]

Check out our Instagram for the full story https://www.instagram.com/p/DOo_1TECbvg/?img_index=1

08/19/2025

Last week, the last full service grocery store for miles surrounding 31st & Prospect closed its doors, plunging thousands of poor and Black folks further into an already existing food desert.

But rather than waiting on City Hall for a solution, The People have decided to fight back.

Today, The Defender, KC Black Urban Growers, the Ivanhoe Neighborhood Association, and every major Black farm in the KC metro, are uniting to launch the Hamer Free Food Program, a first-of-its-kind Black-led mutual aid program that distributes fresh produce from Black farms straight to Black families within a one mile radius of 31st and Prospect at ZERO COST.

WANT TO VOLUNTEER OR RECEIVE A FREE FOOD BOX? FILL OUT THIS 30 SECOND FORM: https://forms.gle/QwzkKBCWH211aW2T9

What is the Hamer Free Food Program?

Named in honor of Fannie Lou Hamer, often heralded for her Black liberation & civil rights activism, she is less known for her pioneering role in founding the Freedom Farm Cooperative in 1969.

The Hamer Free Food Program purchases produce directly from Black farms including: Young Family Farm KC, Global One Urban Farming, Sankara Farm, Ophelia’s Blue Vine Farm, and Pearl Family Farm, and the program is coordinated by KC Black Urban Growers, Ivanhoe, and The Defender.

In our September-October phase one rollout, we will deliver free boxes packed with nutrient-dense produce to 50 households within a mile of 31st and Prospect, prioritizing Black elders and neighbors facing mobility barriers after the Sun Fresh closure.

The Defender raised funds to purchase food directly from Black farmers at a fair rate for our phase 1 rollout. This enabled our program to schedule purchases of roughly 667 pounds of fresh produce for direct distribution, while injecting direct reliable cash-flow into Black growers’ income.

SEND THIS FORM TO SOMEONE WHO WOULD SIGN UP FOR A FREE FOOD BOX, MUST LIVE IN 1 MILE RADIUS OF 31ST & PROSPECT

Fill out this 30-sec form: https://forms.gle/QwzkKBCWH211aW2T9

07/12/2025

Missouri’s oldest Black bookstore flips its last page today, and you’re invited to help write the sequel.

From 2-8 PM @ 5547 Troost, snag Black books for $5 paperbacks / $15 hardcovers.

Come through for FREE soul-food plates, 2 raffles, and an open-mic of stories with Ms. Willa, her fam, and the Freedom-Fighter crew.

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THE BACKGROUND

For more than 40 years Ms. Willa Robinson an 84-year-old Book Collector, Freedom Fighter & Visionary has kept Willa’s Books & Vinyl alive on Troost Avenue.

It is Missouri’s oldest and longest-standing Black-owned bookstore, a living archive of 20,000+ works, including first-edition Frederick Douglass volumes and books printed in 1863, the very year our ancestors seized emancipation.

Last year when she was 1 week from being forced to sell everything to non-Black collectors due to gentrification and her rapidly declining health, The Kansas City Defender stepped in and began covering her rent and also mobilized 40 volunteers to catalog her 20,000 book collection.

Now she is passing the torch to us and we will be converting her storefront into a free public archive, mutual-aid hub, Freedom School site, and the Defender’s first brick-and-mortar HQ.

05/26/2025

Kansas City’s brief invasion by white supremacist fascist group, Patriot Front, made two things clear: Missouri is a central theater for 21st-century neo-Nazism, and our state also houses a growing coalition determined to stop it.

05/09/2025

🚨 Black KC Community SLAMS Mayor Lucas, Shuts Down City Council Meeting & Wins $750K for Sunfresh on 31st & Prospect.

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — With a sea of Black elders, neighborhood presidents, pastors, tenant organizers and young freedom-fighters packed shoulder-to-shoulder in Council chambers, yesterday’s meeting shifted from routine agenda to people’s tribunal in under five minutes.

Urban Summit leaders refused to give the gavel back until the City ponied up the $750,000 it had promised—but never delivered—to keep the city-owned, community lifeline grocery store Sun Fresh at 31st & Prospect alive.

“You’re a duplicitous liar!” Gwen Grant, President & CEO of the Urban League thundered, pointing straight at Mayor Quinton Lucas from across the city council chamber. Dozens of community and faith leaders flanked her knodding and vocally acknowledging their agreement and anger.

Before the end of the day—after chants and procedural stall-outs—the Council voted 12-0 to pass an emergency ordinance releasing the full $750K immediately and waiving red tape that had blocked the funds.

The Urban Summit’s Prospect Corridor Public Safety Task Force says it will continue to press forward until:

- The City of KCMO disburses the $750,000 without further delay.
- The City appropriates at least $1.8 million annually to subsidize operations at Sun Fresh.
- The City fulfills its responsibility to address the crime, loitering, and blight at 31st & Prospect.
- The property manager, CDC-KC, repaves the parking lot, enhances landscaping, and installs the fencing to restore dignity and safety to this critical corridor.

This is a developing story. The Defender will continue our on the ground reporting.

04/24/2025

Join us Tomorrow for Composition Night! —an intimate evening where Black creativity flows freely through poetry and communion. Open mic with a twist!

Come see Hyprocrace, Gie Santana, and more deliver untold truths and connection! Sign up for open mic at event.🫂📺

The Revolution will not be televised but possibly broadcasted?

🗓️ Friday, April 25th @ 6pm
📍Blip Roasters
🎶Poetry | Black Art | Celebration
🎟️ Free Entry but Donations Welcome!

See y’all tomorrow🧑‍🎤

04/08/2025

04/08/2025

🗳️KC ELECTION DAY VOTER GUIDE: Kansas City voters are facing a critical decision on the April 8 ballot—one that’s being dangerously misrepresented.

Question 1, often referred to as the “public safety sales tax,” is being sold to voters as a commonsense investment in safety. But in reality, it would lock KC into paying for a nearly $1 BILLION new city jail—a facility with zero mental health infrastucture, zero trauma care, and no diversion or rehabilitation programs whatsoever.

To be clear: This proposed jail would not house people convicted of serious crimes. Those cases are already handled at the $300+ million Jackson County jail currently under construction.
Instead, this facility would target people accused of low-level municipal violations—things like trespassing, public disturbance, sleeping outside, or petty theft from a store (crimes of survival). The overwhelming majority of people affected will be unhoused, poor, Black and Brown, and in crisis.

In fact, we just spent $16 million last year to build a jail inside KCPD HQ with over 100 beds—so we are not lacking jail space. What we’re lacking is housing, mental health care, jobs, and community investment.

And that’s exactly why every major civil rights and community group in Kansas City has come out against Question 1:
➡️ NAACP
➡️ Urban League
➡️ SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference)
➡️ National Black United Front
➡️ Black Student Solidarity Network

They all agree: this tax is mass incarceration in disguise. It is the school-to-prison pipeline on autopilot for the next 20 years.

We all want safety—but true safety comes from care, not cages.

Vote NO on Question 1, and let’s demand real solutions: housing, healthcare, education, and investment in our youth—not another jail.

📢 Please share this with your friends and neighbors—too many people are being misled. The truth deserves to be heard.

04/08/2025

🚨 ATTENTION KC, VOTING TODAY: Black KC residents describes gunshots and why she's voting NO on the Question 1 Jail Tax

03/20/2025

🫑🥦Black farmers and urban growers in Kansas City are reclaiming land and food sovereignty despite systemic attacks.

Join The KC Defender and The Kansas City Call for an Urgent Town Hall to expose the truth, build solutions, and fight back.

RSVP now!

02/19/2025

Lee’s Summit School Board Vice President Heather Eslick unleashed a race-fueled, conspiracy-laden attack against Black parents and The Kansas City Defender’s Editor. But this isn’t new—it’s part of a long history of white supremacist fear-mongering and coded dog-whistles. Here’s why we won’t be silent.

Lee’s Summit School Board Vice President Heather Eslick unleashed a race-fueled, conspiracy-laden attack against Black parents and The Kansas City Defender's Editor. But this isn’t new—it’s part of a long history of white supremacist fear-mongering and coded dog-whistles. Here’s why we won...

02/19/2025

Lee’s Summit School Board Vice President Heather Eslick unleashed a race-fueled, conspiracy-laden attack against Black parents and The Kansas City Defender's Editor. But this isn’t new—it’s part of a long history of white supremacist fear-mongering and coded dog-whistles. Here’s why we won...