Where Highways Divide, Librarians Connect
Kansas City Public Library
Innovation Synopsis
Across Kansas City’s East Side neighborhoods, a six-lane highway separates today’s residents just as its construction once uprooted Black families and disrupted tightly knit communities. The Kansas City Public Library joined the city’s “Reconnecting the East Side” initiative by blending historical research, exhibitions, and civic participation to acknowledge that legacy and help shape a more equitable future. Through this approach, the Library linked community memory with contemporary urban planning, showing how history can guide civic healing.
Challenge/Opportunity
Kansas City’s Bruce R. Watkins Drive displaced hundreds of families and severed connections among East Side neighborhoods. Highway planning began in 1951, construction wasn’t completed for another fifty years, and the community continues to grapple with the highway’s social and physical impacts today. Residents were cut off from businesses they once frequented, pedestrians faced some of the city’s most dangerous crossings, and many found themselves separated from the churches and schools that had long anchored their lives. The Library recognized an opportunity to use its trusted position and historical resources to help the city confront this legacy and guide conversations toward equitable redevelopment. Through the Reconnecting the East Side initiative, Library staff collaborate with city planners and community members to discuss ways to heal the divisions created by the highway.
Key Elements of Innovation
• Created a historical exhibition and companion programs to establish context.
• Library staff serve on the project’s Technical Advisory and Project Ambassador groups.
• Partnered with city planners to center community memory and historical context in decision making.
• Joined community forums and listening sessions to learn from residents and help carry their voices into civic decision making.
• Linked exhibition content, programs, and civic participation into one coordinated project, enabling project participants and community members to easily access and apply important historical context.
Achieved Outcomes
• The exhibition occupies a prominent location in the Central Library, positioned between a high-capacity event space and the local history research room, ensuring hundreds of visitors encounter it each week.
• Staff have attended all Reconnecting the East Side Community Summits as well as every meeting of the project’s Technical Advisory and Ambassador Groups.
• Strengthened partnerships with city planning, transportation, and engineering departments, and established new relationships with multiple project consultants.
• Encourages community members interested in understanding Kansas City’s racial barriers, both social and physical, to explore the Library’s local history research resources.
