Kansas City Museum seeks protest memorabilia to add to archive
Click here for updates on this story
KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) — The Kansas City Museum is searching for protest memorabilia to add to their archive.
So far, the collection has only received a few items, but they’re hoping others can help spread the word about the project to preserve what they say is a piece of Kansas City history.
“It’s something that you can look at and say, ‘Wow this person really wanted to make a difference, and hopefully this person did make a difference.’ And when history is so new … these signs are so ephemeral. It’s important to get them now, because I’m afraid in six months someone will just throw them away,” said Katherine Warfield, a collections specialist with the Kansas City Museum.
Some have connected the latest protests against racial injustice to the civil rights movement. Some of the same resistance tactics were used in the 60s to protest segregation and discrimination.
Decades later, some say the same problems exist, and museum officials hope people can look at these items they collect as a reminder to stand up for what is right.
“This isn’t the first period of racial unrest that we’ve had in this country. It’s been happening over and over and over again, so we just want to acknowledge that this is happening, and it’s an important to remember that this is happening … hopefully they’ll be able to take some lessons away from what happened in the past and how we can grow as citizens,” Warfield said.
Some of the items the museum has collected so far include a hand-written sign asking for justice and accountability, an evidence bag from a man who was arrested by Kansas City police during the protests and a sign that calls out white supremacy.
“We want to help people understand what happened in 2020. That’s what we feel we can do as a history museum is to help connect the past in the present. History is happening … so hopefully in 50 years when people see these protest signs, we can have a conversation about what happened in 2020 and why it happened now,” Warfield said.
If you want to submit your items, send an email of some picture of those items to katherine.warfield@kcmo.org.
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
