1. Kansas City International Airport seeks to expand:

Over three decades, 12,000 acres spread across Platte County, Missouri, have been acquired by the City of Kansas City, Missouri. The Airport has remained modest in size, and traffic. Only in recent years has it experienced growth on its grounds as well as properties adjacent to it.

There has not ever been an airline industry business leader, like other airports (example, Atlanta, Dallas Fort Worth) or quasi-public entities (Port Authority of New York and New Jersey) that either planted a hub or which had regional powers to create a major economic function.

KCI has functioned as well as it has, and has responded to modest market demand, as it is a Department under the City Manager with no real political, management, or industry advocacy. It has devolved into a revenue generating self governing near entity which management, local and county elected officials, have little guidance over or input to.

Over these many years, the pre- and post civil war farmsteads of the 1800's settlers were purchased, with structures removed, abandoned, or placed under culitvation. Formal efforts to record the disappearing history by thoughtful, interested, credible citizens or consultants were neglected, or specifically set aside.

2. Jimmy Johnson, archeologist, studies the Miller Planation: With a small grant from the State of Missouri, and  a a lot of volunteer, youthful energy from a local Scout troup, Kansas City archeolgist and college professor Jimmy Johnson carefully catalogued a portion of the Miller Plantation.

Located south of the south end of the main airport runway and not within any projected development area, the remains of the main house are located in a stand of woods along a creek bed flowing to the south down a sloping valley. Mr. Johnson, amongts his other findings, located iron fittings. He speculated, based on where they were found, and their design, that they were much like the shackles used to keep slave families in the root celler of the house, to prevent escape. Missouri can be bitterly cold in the winter and insufferably hot, humid, and mosquitoey in the summers.

At the Circle of Prayer (see below), Mr. Johnson traced his hand along the creek course fowm southeast to northwest, as he told the story of his dig and he told the story of why this particular dig. He said, "you see, for me the fields and that remaining Chiney and this creek bed trace the steps taken by my grandfather as he escaped slavery, crossed the frozen Missouri to the free town of Quindaro in Kansas...and then went on to enlist in the United States Army and fight in a Colored Regiment aganist the South".   

3. Olin Miller Contacts Warren Watkins:

The Aviation Department in 2007 sought State Court permission to relocate five family cemteries, ignoring one possible slave cemetery and one possible Indian burial ground.

Mr. Miller, descendant of plantation ownoers, contacted Mr. Watkins, descendant of slaves or sharecroppers, and asked whether he had any relatives that might be buried in Platte County.

Mr. Watkins and Mr. Miller worked together to understand what Olin had learned about the history of the KCI area. Olin introduced Warren to Mrs. Shirley Kimsey, long time resident of Platte County. Shirley showed Warren her map of the Platte County cemeteries, including the location of the Slave Cemetery just west of the runway west of Terminal B.

Olin, and Warren, were joined by Mark Raab, a skilled and experienced archeologist, and also a Professor, at the State Court Hearings. Judge Abe Shafer appointed the Robert Shaw, an attorney and also the Platte County County Counselor, to represent the Unknowns buried in and around the family cemeteries. 

The Judge found that the City did not have any good reason for moving the cemeteries, especially the ones that had been dismissed because the City failed to prove the owned them. He forbade the City from disturbing any graves.

3. 28 March,  2008: Oralee Watkins v. Mark van Loh:

A Federal Civil Rights Case was filed by a descendant of persons buried in a cemetery at Kansas City International Airport. Oralee Watkins, seeks repair to the civil rights damages descendants have endured from unlawful maintenance of cemetery grounds, including the slaves graves as well as the remaining family cemeteries where Unknowns are also buried. 

But first, the Case seeks that for those relatives who were granted citizenship by the Emancipation Proclomation but never endowed fully with those rights, that they have those rights fully bestowed.

Then the Case seeks their economic contributions, promised by military decision but never delivered either by military, Congressional, Executive or Judicial Act, must be fully granted.

Then, the new airport development can incorporate the new lessons we learn. By respecting this history, we can learn from the ongoing system of unforgiveably forgetting our ancestors. We learn what they and their masters went through to try and survive an economic and social system that many wished to end but found themselves powerless except through civil war to unseat.     

Now, we can use Federal laws and regulations to enable State and local policies to isolate and cure the deeply entrenched in "Mules' Rules", using the development of this regional transportation jewel to end the differances of the civil war, which persist even into 2008. The planning and discussions and memorialization and proper discovery and reburial of the Knowns and the Unknowns have become the perfect opportunity to allow America to heal, finally, and with growth and celebration deliver on America's promise of freedom for all who make it to these shores.

4. WINTER, 2008: Sometime during the State trial, the City allowed or ordered a tenant to plow under the Kimsey cemtery.

5. THE CIRCLE OF PRAYER: Olin and Warren invited friends numbering several hundred to the Miller-Rixey cemtery, overlooking the Miller Planation and under the roaring engines landing on the main north south runaway.

Celebration was given by speakers reciting how they grew up with stories told of the Civil War days. An African burial ritual was performed, possibly the first honoring the passing of the slaves in this specific cemetery. 

The horrors visited upon both slave and slave master in those days were told, and honor given that by their sacrifices we are now able to live in a society which tries to assure freedom for all our citizens.

If you would like a copy of Oralee Wakins' remarks, please contact director@futurenowus.com.

6. WATKINS v VAN LOH, on Van Loh's silence:

Mark Van Loh offered no response to the lawsuit through any of the opportunities given him by the Court. At Ms. Watkins' request for a default judgment, Van Loh's attorney offered that Mr. Van Loh had not been properly served, which is why he did not answer.

Of the two cases he cited, one had no relevance to the case at hand. The other did not support that no service was given.

 7. THE CITY AND ITS REQUIRED "106" REPORT:

In April, after the Court case was closed and as it was being decided, the City commenced a "Phase 1" Historic Resources Report.

In July, the City advertised for public comment, taking out a tiny classified ad in a Kansas City newspaper. During the comment period, the City refused to provide any of the report materials or any answers to questions, "until the comment period was over". Thus, no questions could be raised of the specific report procedures or findings.   

As of 2 September, "Unknowns" team members are reviewing the materials which the City relented and made available via delivery, after first insisting any respondents needed to appear at the Aviation Department offices to review the materials "because they were so extensive, etc."

Preliminary findings show that the April, 2008 Consultant's study, performed by the same Consultant whose testimony contributed to the State Court ruling aganist the City, identfied that some of the artifacts (a slave church, several distinctive civil war era farm structures) he had found were eligible for Historic Registry listing had been destroyed with no record preserved, no preservation law procedures followed, or any explanation by the City or by the Consultant.

It is noted that the SHPO has signed off on this Consultant's finding, which includes this finding.

Please contact director@futurenoewus.com if you wish to be kept informed of these events as they unfold.

Copyright, National Architect Corporation, 7 February, 209