National Archives – The Kansas City Defender

Abolitionist Architecture: How Black Designers Are Building a Liberatory Future

By Ryan S. ● Arts & Culture ● December 2, 2025

The newly appointed president of the National Organization of Minority Architects, Bryan C. Lee Jr., sits down with The KC Defender’s Executive Editor Ryan Sorrell to discuss why, in an age of fascism, building a blueprint for liberation means reclaiming the spaces where Black life can flourish

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Bowen Tower Rent Strike: 26 Evictions and a Slumlord’s War on Black Elders

By Ryan S. ● Housing ● October 23, 2025

How a California slumlord unleashed a campaign of terror against Raytown’s Black elders—and how they’re fighting back with the city’s first rent strike

“Missouri Is Next”: Neo-Nazi Network Expanding Whites-Only Towns—Here’s Where They’re Looking

By Ryan S. ● Fascism Watch ● October 8, 2025

How a fugitive and a porn-star-turned-fascist are exploiting legal loopholes to resurrect segregation—and why they think Missouri won’t stop them

BREAKING: Albuquerque Police Department Announces Independent Investigation Into Jayvon Givan’s Death—Less Than 24 Hours After Defender Investigation and Mass Protest

By Ryan S. ● Justice ● October 7, 2025

Less than 24 hours after The Defender’s investigation, mass protest and national outcry, APD announces independent review of Jayvon Givan’s death. Here’s what it really means.

Corporate Media Dismisses Jayvon Givan Case as “Rumors”—Despite Outraged Family Demanding Answers, Hastily Cremated Body & Concealed Evidence

By Ryan S. ● Justice ● October 7, 2025

As The Kansas City Defender published deeply investigative reporting on Jayvon Givan’s suspicious public hanging, white-owned corporate media immediately parroted police talking points from a man so notorious that a city ordinance was passed because of him.

“This is a Cover-Up!”: Family of Jayvon Givan Demands Answers After Black Kansas City Man Found Hanged in New Mexico

By Ryan S. ● Justice ● October 6, 2025

Originally from the Kansas City area, Jayvon Givan was found hanged in New Mexico. Police hid his death for over a year, cremated his body before even notifying his family of his death, and called it suicide. His family is demanding a full investigation and justice for Jayvon.

ICE Kidnaps Mother in KC: Family Shattered by a Green Card Trap

By Ryan S. & KC Defender Staff ● Immigration ● April 29, 2025

They lured Rosmery Alvarado into a federal building with a green card interview then snatched her and stuffed her in a white van. No warning. No goodbye. Just disappearance. Her family is left shattered—another casualty of a violent, fascist machine.

I Can’t Write About Anything Other Than the Fact Trump is Sending People to Extermination Camps

By Ryan S. ● World ● April 17, 2025

Disguised as anti-immigrant policy, the government is now abducting and trafficking legal U.S. residents into high-tech death camps in El Salvador.

INVESTIGATION: CoreCivic’s Plan to Turn Leavenworth Into an ICE Concentration Camp

By Ryan S. ● Immigration ● February 26, 2025

CoreCivic is quietly planning a new ICE detention camp in Leavenworth, Kansas – a for-profit facility designed to cage immigrants. This dystopian ICE facility, fueled by political lobbying and blood money, echoes the horrors of history’s concentration camps. This investigation exposes the greed, and state violence behind CoreCivic’s scheme.

Ralph Yarl, Andrew Lester, and America’s Unforgiving Legacy of Racial Terror

By Ryan S. ● Justice ● February 21, 2025

As white legacy media reports Andrew Lester’s death, they omit why it matters. They gloss over how they first concealed his hate and racism, nearly burying Ralph Yarl’s story beneath sanitized headlines. This isn’t just about Lester’s death—it’s about America’s legacy of racial terror, media complicity, and the resistance that demanded truth.