| Featured Project Douglass-Sumner DASH Project is Featured on Local Radio Show Students share with KCUR listeners how they've gained a sense of community though oral history project. (May 25, 2008) Sumner Academy students participating in the DASH (Douglass and Sumner Heritage) Project can now add “being featured on local public radio,” to their already impressive resumes. Senior Melissa Villalobos and junior Kayla Barnes recently joined Damon Broadus of Greater Kansas City LISC in the KCUR 89.3FM studio to discuss the DASH Project, an innovative three-year service-learning project funded by LISC to help preserve the unique history of the Douglass-Sumner neighborhood.
What is DASH? DASH – Douglass and Sumner Heritage project – is an innovation three-year, service learning partnership between Greater Kansas City LISC, Sumner Academy and Douglass Elementary, and the Douglass-Sumner neighorhood. DASH will preserve and raise awareness for Douglass-Sumner’s forgotten history and its significance to the larger Kansas City community.
Through DASH students learn how to research, interview and document the stories of long-time Douglass-Sumner residents through video documentary. Once the historical record is complete, partners will determine how best to share this history. The goal is to develop a unique physical infrastructure project within the neighborhood to serve as a reminder of that history.
Douglass-Sumner in northeast Kansas City, KS has a rich history that is as fascinating as it is unique and important. A stop on the Underground Railroad and the birthplace of Charlie “Byrd” Parker, the neighborhood was settled by ex-slave migrants from the Deep South shortly after the Civil War. Douglass-Sumner was home to such notable African Americans as physician A. Porter Davis and Wyandotte District Court Judge Cordell Meeks Jr.
Greater Kansas City LISC serves as the primary sponsor and coordinator of the DASH project. Douglass-Sumner is a NeighborhoodsNOW community and the DASH project was identified as a priority in the neighborhoods Quality of Life Plan. Other neighborhood stakeholders have been involved throughout the project’s implementation, including:
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