The Kansas City Star removes the name and image of its founder William Rockhill Nelson Kevin Hardy, The Kansas City Star
Jan. 10 The Kansas City Star has stripped from its pages and website the name, words and image that recognized its first publisher and founder, William Rockhill Nelson.
The move comes after The Star s Dec. 20 series investigating its own history of how it covered and failed to cover Black Kansas Citians. Star President and Editor Mike Fannin launched the project with an apology, saying the newspaper had robbed an entire community of opportunity, dignity, justice and recognition.
Another piece in the series examined the role of Nelson, whose support of developer J.C. Nichols enabled the proliferation of neighborhoods that explicitly banned Black Kansas Citians a practice that laid the foundation for decades of racial segregation that still persists today.
The Nancy and Rich Kinder Building at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Photo: Richard Barnes.
THIS PAST MAY, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, was briefly in the public eye for being the first major American museum to reopen after the initial wave of coronavirus-related lockdowns. Come November, the debut of the final component of a $450 million expansion project the Nancy and Rich Kinder building, which boasts 164,000 square feet of exhibition space dedicated to international modern and contemporary art coincided with the onset of what promises to be the pandemic’s deadliest season yet. Despite the grim winter forecast, museum leadership, armed with the blessing of Governor Abbott’s “Strike Force” team (of which Nancy Kinder is a member) to reopen Texas, blithely pushed through the launch of this game changer for the Houston art world. Thus, a highly curated behind-the-scenes press stratagem competed with Instagram posts by @ChangeTheMuseum that challenged official accou