09/01/2026
They Warned Kansas City Decades Ago. Now the City Is Trying to Repair What Highway 71 Did to the East Side.
Bruce R. Watkins warned that a highway through Kansas City's Black community could become a dividing wall. Thousands were displaced, homes disappeared and neighborhoods were separated. Now billions could eventually be spent rebuilding the corridor--and Black Kansas City has a stake in determining what comes next.
By The Kansas City Call 09/01/2026
Before there was Bruce R. Watkins Drive, there were neighborhoods.
There were houses where families raised children. Churches. Schools. Businesses. Grocery stores. Sidewalks that connected neighbors to one another.
And there were warnings.
Black Kansas City leaders and residents fought for decades over plans to construct a major north-south highway directly through the city's predominantly African-American East Side.
Among the most prominent opponents was Bruce R. Watkins himself.
Watkins, Kansas City's first Black councilman and a co-founder of Freedom Inc., feared the proposed South Midtown Freeway would divide the Black community and separate residents from the Prospect Avenue commercial corridor.
The highway was eventually built.
And Watkins' name was eventually placed on it.
But history suggests his concerns were justified.
Today, Kansas City is attempting something extraordinary: trying to repair some of the damage created by the highway it spent decades building.
The city's Reconnecting the East Side initiative is studying a major transformation of U.S. 71/Bruce R. Watkins Drive between Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and 85th Street.
The project could improve safety, reconnect streets and neighborhoods, and potentially create new opportunities for housing and economic development.
But before Kansas City builds something new, it is worth remembering exactly what was lost.
▪️A Highway Through Black Kansas City
Plans for a north-south expressway date to the early 1950s.
Kansas City's growing suburbs needed faster access to downtown, and highway planners considered several possible routes.
One proposed route would have run farther west through areas near the Country Club Plaza.
Residents there strongly resisted.
That proposal eventually disappeared.
The route through the predominantly Black East Side survived.
The consequences were enormous.
Kansas City now acknowledges that construction of Highway 71 displaced nearly 2,000 African-American families. Historical reporting has documented the destruction of approximately 2,000 homes and the displacement of thousands of residents.
▪️The disruption lasted for decades.
Homes were acquired and demolished while legal battles delayed construction. Blocks sat partially empty. Families moved away. Neighborhood connections disappeared.
The highway wasn't fully completed until 2001—roughly half a century after the concept first appeared in city planning documents.
What disappeared cannot simply be measured in demolished structures.
A house is an asset.
A neighborhood business is an asset.
A commercial corridor is an asset.
And when those assets are removed from a community, the financial consequences can continue for generations.
Kansas City's own recent planning work acknowledges that Highway 71 divided communities along Prospect, redirected traffic away from the corridor and contributed, alongside other public and private policies, to housing devaluation, racial segregation and wealth disparities.
That makes today's project about considerably more than traffic.
▪️Bruce Watkins Saw It Coming
There is an irony that remains difficult to ignore.
The highway bears the name of a man who fought against it.
Watkins became Kansas City's first Black councilman and emerged as one of the city's most consequential Black political leaders.
He worried that the freeway could create another dividing line through Kansas City.
During the long fight, residents, neighborhood organizations, churches, Freedom Inc. and civil-rights advocates pushed back.
▪️Their resistance ultimately mattered.
A 1985 federal consent decree required major changes to the project. Instead of becoming a conventional uninterrupted freeway, portions were designed with traffic signals, pedestrian crossings, landscaping and other features.
Kansas City renamed the roadway Bruce R. Watkins Drive in 1986.
But putting Watkins' name on the road didn't restore the homes.
It didn't bring back displaced families.
And it didn't automatically restore the economic activity Prospect lost.
Now Kansas City Wants to Reconnect
Decades later, Kansas City, the Missouri Department of Transportation and the Mid-America Regional Council are working together on Reconnecting the East Side.
The study area extends along U.S. 71 from Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard south to 85th Street, with a broader study area stretching roughly between Paseo Boulevard and Swope Parkway.
The first phases have been supported by a $5 million federal RAISE planning grant plus another $2.5 million from Kansas City and MoDOT.
This summer, another federal award moved the conversation closer to the enormous question of how actual construction could eventually be financed.
Kansas City and MoDOT received $1 million in July to develop financing and delivery strategies for improvements to U.S. 71 and Interstate 35.
Combined improvements to those two corridors could eventually cost as much as $4.5 billion, according to the city. That figure includes both U.S. 71 and I-35 and should not be interpreted as a $4.5 billion commitment specifically to the East Side project.
For U.S. 71 itself, recent concepts have included substantially less expensive alternatives. Project reporting this year has discussed a roughly $120 million parkway concept, alongside other possible approaches.
▪️Whatever the final price, the investment could be substantial.
And that creates a different question.
If Billions Are Spent, Who Benefits?
Construction can reconnect streets.
It cannot automatically reconnect wealth.
If major public investment arrives along the U.S. 71 corridor, property surrounding that investment could become more attractive.
Developers may see opportunity.
Property values could increase.
New housing could follow.
Businesses could arrive.
Those outcomes could be welcomed in neighborhoods that have endured decades of disinvestment.
But they also create the possibility of a painful contradiction:
Kansas City could spend public money repairing a highway that displaced Black families only to have the resulting investment eventually displace another generation of Black families.
That cannot be allowed to become the final chapter of this story.
The city must think about economic protection at the same time it thinks about engineering.
▪️Repair Should Mean More Than Concrete
A genuine East Side reconnection should be measured by more than how quickly cars move.
It should ask whether longtime homeowners can remain in their homes if property values and taxes increase.
It should ask whether vacant land becomes affordable housing or simply another speculative investment.
It should ask whether Black-owned construction firms participate substantially in contracts.
It should ask whether businesses along Prospect gain customers.
It should ask whether residents can safely walk from one side of the corridor to the other.
It should ask whether children experience less exposure to traffic pollution.
And it should ask whether the families whose neighborhoods bore the cost of the original project receive an economic benefit from correcting it.
Kansas City says the current project is centered on safety, connectivity and equity. The city has conducted multiple community meetings and says resident input is guiding the process.
Residents should continue holding the city to that commitment.
Because public engagement cannot end when construction begins.
Prospect Must Be Part of the Conversation
There is another piece of the story that deserves particular attention from The Call.
Prospect Avenue.
Highway 71 didn't simply remove houses.
It redirected traffic.
Kansas City's own corridor analysis says the highway moved the U.S. 71 route away from Prospect Avenue, taking with it people who previously patronized businesses along the corridor.
Today, city leaders describe Prospect as an important economic backbone of the African-American community.
Reconnecting the East Side therefore shouldn't simply mean reconnecting one residential street to another.
It should also mean examining whether investment can help restore the economic ecosystem surrounding Prospect.
That could include Black-owned retail.
Restaurants.
Professional services.
Housing.
Grocery stores.
Small-business financing.
And opportunities for entrepreneurs who already live in the community.
If billions in transportation investment eventually flow through this area while Prospect remains economically disconnected, Kansas City will have missed a historic opportunity.
▪️This Time, Listen Before Building
Perhaps the most important lesson of Bruce R. Watkins Drive isn't found in an engineering report.
It's found in the people who warned Kansas City the first time.
They organized.
They attended meetings.
They protested.
They went to court.
They said their neighborhoods would be divided.
And decades later, Kansas City government itself acknowledges that the highway separated communities and harmed the predominantly Black East Side.
The city now has an opportunity to approach this corridor differently.
Not by deciding what is best for the East Side and then informing residents.
But by allowing the people who live there to help determine what investment should accomplish.
That means residents must have a voice in the design.
But it also means something more.
They should have a stake in the economic outcome.
The Call Was Here Then. We Are Here Now.
For more than a century, The Kansas City Call has documented Black Kansas City.
That history gives this newspaper a particular responsibility as the U.S. 71 project moves forward.
There are stories in our archives from people who watched their neighborhoods change.
There are families whose homes disappeared.
There are businesses that lost traffic.
There are residents who stayed.
And there are children and grandchildren who inherited the consequences of decisions made before some of them were born.
Their history should be part of what Kansas City builds next.
Bruce R. Watkins and others warned this city that a highway could divide the Black community.
Kansas City built it anyway.
Now the city has an opportunity few communities ever receive:
A chance to go back and repair part of what was broken.
But repairing the road is the easy measurement.
The true test will be whether Kansas City can reconnect neighborhoods **without once again pushing aside the people who call them home.**
