The Kansas City Defender is fully funding 100 meals at Daiquiri District on Wednesday, October 7 at 6pm, opening a week-long celebration of the World's Greatest Food Culture. We need your help to cover the cost.
Through our People's Programs, we have distributed thousands of free items to Black families across Kansas City. This Saturday's People's Drop Off gathers clothing and hygiene essentials so our children walk into the classroom whole.
B-REAL Academy, the only abolitionist freedom school of its kind in the region, just graduated its third cohort, the largest and youngest yet. In one year since its launch it has held students from ten to eighty-one in the same room, in a city that is emerging as a new national organizing hub.
They call this corner a crime hotspot. They never tell you the state sent tanks down this same street in April 1968 to crush the Dr. King assassination uprisings. Fifty-eight Aprils later, our Defender Mutual Aid Team came back with clothing, hygiene, and political education for the people the state abandoned.
The Defender's Abolitionist Freedom School is accepting applications for Cohort 3. The 14-week organizer, activist & Black study training program for Black people across Missouri and Kansas launches this spring. Applications close February 21st.
This weekend, the KC Defender and Urban League delivered fresh food to over 100 Black families across Kansas City, sourced from the city's last remaining full-service Black owned grocery store, to circulate our dollars back into our community. Each box included the KC Defender's latest edition with investigative reporting, practical resources, and political education.
In the wake of Sun Fresh’s closure and the deepening food apartheid along Kansas City’s Prospect corridor, the Black community responded with power. The Hamer Free Food Program—named for revolutionary freedom fighter Fannie Lou Hamer—has officially launched, with more than 60 volunteers joining Farm Days to grow, harvest, and deliver free produce directly from Black farms to Black families.
The KC Defender, KC Black Urban Growers, Ivanhoe Neighborhood Association, and every Black farm in the KC metro are launching the Hamer Free Food Program. Free CSA boxes from Black farms will reach elders and families near 31st and Prospect after Sun Fresh’s closure. Volunteer, donate, or partner to scale it.
How a 22-year-old, 40 organizers, and a newsroom fought to save Missouri's oldest Black bookstore — and what comes next.
In a time of rising fascism and constant fear-mongering about Black gatherings, our people proved what we’ve always known: we don’t need overseers & state agents to be safe. We keep us safe. And we make it joyful.
Community support is the lifeblood to the sustainability & growth of our urgent work among Black youth. Will you help us by becoming a Defender?
Your new monthly donation goes 24x further right now