by KKFI 90.1 FM Kansas City Community Radio
This podcast tracks the audio archives for the “Urban Connections” show. Urban Connections conducts guest interviews covering issues affecting our local, national, international and global communities from a Black perspective.
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🇺🇲
Publishing Since
4/12/2014
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March 29, 2025
On Tuesday, March 25th, the Kansas City Defender and the Kansas City Call hosted an urgent town hall titled Kansas City’s Crisis of Black Food, Land & Survival — And How We Fight Back. Per the KC Defender, Kansas City’s Black farmers and urban growers are leading the fight for food sovereignty. They invited the community to join The KC Defender and The Kansas City Call for an urgent Town Hall to strategize, organize, and take action.<br /> <br /> Carl A. Stafford<br /> <br /> Our guest, Carl A. Stafford, artist, and founder of the Kansas City non-profit organization My Region Wins!, participated as a panelist at the town hall event. Carl Stafford shares his town hall experience with us here today. Other panelists participating in the town hall include: Nadine Farris, Executive Director of WELL, Inc., Alana Henry, Executive Director of the Ivanhoe Neighborhood Council, Mike Rollen, founder of Ophelia's Blue Vine Farm, Alecia Kates, Board Member, KC Black Urban Growers.<br /> <br /> The stated mission of Carl's organization, My Region Wins! is to "TRANSCEND EVERYDAY CHALLENGES by nurturing innovative ideas that drive societal change, shaping a more inclusive and sustainable future FOR ALL. It's vision: "We are building a future where the transformative power of the Arts, nature, and neighborhoods foster creativity, sustainability, and connection."<br /> <br /> Carl Stafford will be the key-note speaker at the Missouri Department of Conservation program March 29, 2025, Native Plants: NatureScaping, at the MDC Virtual Nature Center located at Burr Oak Woods Conservation Nature Center in Blue Springs, MO.<br /> <br /> The Kansas City Defender is a Black nonprofit community media platform employing innovative digital and community-building strategies to engage Gen Z and Millennials across the mid-west. Their primary areas of focus are education, justice, business, arts & culture, and technology. Reaching over 50 million people and growing our social media audience to over 75,000 followers since launched in 2021, they have created a new model for reaching Black people and Gen Z.<br /> <br /> The Kansas City Call, or The Call is an African-American weekly newspaper founded in 1919 in Kansas City, Missouri, by Chester A. Franklin. It continues to serve the black community of Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Kansas.<br /> <br /> host/producer/engineer: Donna Morrow Wolfe<br />
March 24, 2025
Marilyn McCleod, Anne Calvert and Harry Bognich discuss concerns and activities of Leagues of Women Voters. They are interviewed by Radio Active Magazine regular Spencer Graves.<br /> <br /> Marilyn is President of the League of Women Voters of Missouri. Anne is President of the League of Women Voters of Kansas City, Jackson, Clay and Platte Counties, Missouri. Harry is President of the League of Women Voters of Johnson County, Kansas. Harry discusses special elections scheduled for April 1 in Lenexa, Gardner, Edgerton, and Westwood,1 other Kansas elections this year including Overland Park Mayor, and about the League's concerns about voter suppression actions by leading state and federal officials.2 Anne discusses local elections scheduled for April 8 in Missouri.3 Marilyn describes the Missouri League's concerns about alleged voter suppression by leading elected officials in Missouri.4 Both Missouri and Kansas have optional primary elections August 8.5<br /> <br /> Leagues of Women Voters have traditionally engaged in voter registration and education. They have opposed restrictions on voting that seem unwarranted by the prevalence of actual vote fraud by individual voters and seem more designed to suppress votes by humans more likely to vote for the opposition of the party in power, e.g., residents of areas known to have higher populations of Black and Brown humans. This includes purging names from voter registration lists on questionable grounds. It includes restrictive voter ID laws that are harder to meet for people with name changes like women or address changes like students who may move more frequently than older adults.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 2025 elections in Kansas <br /> <br /> Special elections are scheduled for April 1 in Lenexa, Gardner, Edgerton, and Westwood.1<br /> <br /> Overland Park Mayor Curt Skoog is running for re-election. June 2 is the deadline to file to run against him. June 21 is the deadline for election officials to transmit absentee ballots to members of the uniformed services registered in Kansas but living away from their official home district and to other US citizens living overseas. July 15 is the deadline to register to vote or to update voter registration for the August 5 primary, if there is one. Advance voting begins sometime between July 16 and July 29, at the discretion of the local elections board. Similar deadlines apply for the general election November 4.6<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 2025 elections in Missouri <br /> <br /> There are special elections in some Missouri jurisdictions April 8.3 Sample ballots for Missouri voters are available from the website of the Missouri Secretary of State.7 The website of the Kansas City Election Board offers a "sample ballot", but that includes all the races and issues for voters in both Kansas City and Jackson County, but no voter can vote in all those races.8 Vote411, a voter information website maintained by League volunteers, provides sample ballots and election information in some but not all cases. Anne Calvert noted that the Kansas City league was holding numerous forums with those events being recorded and posted to YouTube with information on their web site, lwvkc.org. Other sources for some candidates and ballot issues may include The Beacon (thebeaconnews.org) and Ballotpedia (ballotpedia.org).<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> Restrictions on voter ID, voter registration and absentee voting <br /> <br /> The League has for years been fighting restrictions on voter IDs, voter registration, and voting. In 2011 the Kansas Secure and Fair Elections (SAFE) Act was enacted and took effect in 2013. It was justified by claims of massive problems with people voting illegally, especially noncitizens. In 2016 the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit on behalf of Steven Wayne Fish and others claiming that the Documentary Proof of Citizenship requirements of that act were unreasonable and inconsiste...
March 22, 2025
Joseph Jackson is host, producer and engineer of KKFI public affairs program, Cow Town Conversations, which airs every Thursday, 9 am to 10 am, www.kkfi.org, following Democracy Now.<br /> <br /> Joseph is a veteran of the United States Air Force and former member of the Kansas City Missouri School Board and Treasurer for the Kansas City Public Schools. He is a community advocate and former neighborhood President of Santa Fe Area Council and member of the Kansas City Neighborhood Advisory Council. He enjoys movies, reading and football.<br /> <br /> Joe's favorite quote: Information is knowledge and knowledge is the key that will open any door.<br /> <br /> Urban Connections host, producer and engineer: Donna Morrow Wolfe
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