Explore Kansas Stories
Big Idea: Top 10 Influential African American Musical Artists
Musician and historian Lem Sheppard shares his list of top 10 African American musical artists. The list of musicians is united by a common thread of tonality, spirituality, and social consciousness.
Full Story
Full Story
The Big Idea
Big Idea: My Top 10 Most Influential African American Songs
Cash Hollistah’s list of 10 influential African American songs from the 1950s to today are are "historical audio documents chronicling periods of time when voices like these were needed."
Full Story
Full Story
The Big Idea
It's Time to Expand Our Views on Peacemaking
How do we find peace in times of conflict? In her Big Idea, Sheryl R. Wilson, director of KIPCOR, writes that it's time to expand our views of what peacemaking looks like in contemporary times.
Full Story
Full Story
The Big Idea
Big Idea: It's Time to Understand the History of Black Voting Rights
What happened after the 15th Amendment was ratified? Dr. Kim Warren explains what the 15th Amendment did and did not do for African American voting rights.
Full Story
Full Story
The Big Idea
Big Idea: Coupling Jim and Jane Crow
Jim Crow impacted African Americans throughout the twentieth century. So did its accomplice Jane Crow. Dr. Ayesha K. Hardison describes how Jane Crow affected Black women's lives and shaped their writing and activism.
Full Story
Big Idea: Free Did Not Mean Welcome for My Family
Millions of African Americans left the South after Emancipation looking for freedom. Some journeyed to Kansas, a "free state." Discover how many realized that for Black people in Kansas, "Free" did not mean "Welcome."
Full Story
Full Story
Spark a Conversation with Big Ideas about Women
Millions of African Americans left the South after Emancipation looking for freedom. Some journeyed to Kansas, a "free state." Discover how many realized that for Black people in Kansas, "Free" did not mean "Welcome."
Full Story
Full Story
Big Idea: It's Time to Reconnect with the Earth
Millions of African Americans left the South after Emancipation looking for freedom. Some journeyed to Kansas, a "free state." Discover how many realized that for Black people in Kansas, "Free" did not mean "Welcome."
Full Story
Full Story
Big Idea: It's Time to Change the Way We Talk About Poverty
Millions of African Americans left the South after Emancipation looking for freedom. Some journeyed to Kansas, a "free state." Discover how many realized that for Black people in Kansas, "Free" did not mean "Welcome."
Full Story
Full Story
Big Idea: It's Time for More Representation in STEM
Millions of African Americans left the South after Emancipation looking for freedom. Some journeyed to Kansas, a "free state." Discover how many realized that for Black people in Kansas, "Free" did not mean "Welcome."
Full Story
Full Story
Big Idea: We Need to Elevate Black Women's Stories
Millions of African Americans left the South after Emancipation looking for freedom. Some journeyed to Kansas, a "free state." Discover how many realized that for Black people in Kansas, "Free" did not mean "Welcome."
Full Story
Full Story
Big Idea: It's Time to Change the Way We Talk About Immigrants
Millions of African Americans left the South after Emancipation looking for freedom. Some journeyed to Kansas, a "free state." Discover how many realized that for Black people in Kansas, "Free" did not mean "Welcome."
Full Story
Full Story
The Big Idea
Changing How We Talk About the Civil Rights Movement
Domestic workers, laborers, unemployed youth, public housing tenants and other grassroots foot soldiers – largely working class, female, or both – did the daily work of the Civil Rights Movement. Where are their stories?
Full Story
Full Story
The Big Idea
The Heart of the Matter: The Role of Humanities
In 2010, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences created a Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences to address the importance of the humanities in the 21st century.
Full Story
Full Story
The Big Idea
Writing for the Event: Bring Back the Occasional Poem
Poet Laureate of Kansas Kevin Rabas makes the case for bringing back the tradition of "occasional poems."
Full Story
Full Story
The Big Idea
Big Idea Q&A with Clarence Lang
Clarence Lang, Interim Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Kansas, answered Kansans' questions about his Big Idea: It's time to change how we talk about the Civil Rights Movement.
Full Story