The Dunbar Neighborhood: Past, present and future in Kansas City's First Black Suburb

Ms. Kathryn Persley is the President of the Heart of the City Neighborhood Association, which represents the Historic Dunbar Neighborhood in Kansas City, Missouri. She has lived in the Dunbar neighborhood for more than 50 years. Ms. Persley is a dynamic leader involved with a wide variety of organizations all for the purpose of revitalizing the Dunbar neighborhood - Kansas City's first Black suburb. Her work includes attention to housing, urban agriculture, neighborhood health, and the future of Dunbar's historical legacy as a place of African American self-determination.

Damon Lee Patterson has been working in the Dunbar Neighborhood for the past two years. He was encouraged and inspired to work in Dunbar because of the rich African American history and knowing that the neighborhood has been heavily looked over and disinvested in. He loves that the neighborhood is similar to a rural town and has vast natural features like woods, a river, and a creek. His wish is that the neighborhood will be recognized and given the historical designation it deserves, and that the neighborhood can be developed in a way that it wishes. A fun fact is a steward of a beautiful flock of Cayuga ducks on land in Dunbar. In addition to his work with the Dunbar neighborhood, Mr. Patterson is an active advocate for urban environmental stewardship, working towards a new era for the Dunbar neighborhood through community planning and promoting innovation in the built environment. He is a photographer and creative industries professional active in the Kansas City area

With over 30 years of community engagement, organizing, and project-based development, Dina Newman is the Director of the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s (UMKC) Center for Neighborhoods (CFN). Hired in 2016 as the Center’s first director, Dina is instrumental in establishing and administering the internal office environment for CFN while also providing overall daily external management of the Center. A key part of her day-to-day efforts includes close collaboration with her staff on the Center’s curriculum development, programs, technical assistance, community engagement, development and outreach, and neighborhood leadership development training. With her expertise in “Communities of Concern” (those that experience social vulnerabilities, low wealth, poor health, and concentrated poverty), Dina promotes healthy neighborhoods through new forms of urban innovation and project implementation. Housed in Architecture, Urban Planning and Design in the School of Science and Engineering, the Center for Neighborhoods has contributed to the leadership development and capacity building of more than 100 neighborhood organizations and 300 neighborhood leaders, advocates and residents. Dina is also the founder of Kansas City Black Urban Growers (KCBUGs), a nonprofit organization focused on supporting the current and next generation of Black farmers.

Jacob A. Wagner, PhD, Associate Professor of Urban Planning & Design, and co-founder of the UMKC Center for Neighborhoods (CFN). Jacob A. Wagner was born and raised in the Kansas City area. He returned to Kansas City to help build the Urban Planning and Design Program at UMKC in the summer of 2005. The same year – in August, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Wagner worked over the next three years to support the recovery of the City of New Orleans with the Urban Conservancy and the Friends of the Lafitte Greenway. In 2007, he was invited by Marlon Hammons to develop a Neighborhood Action Plan with the Washington Wheatley Neighborhood Association. In 2015, Dr. Wagner worked with Senator Curls to establish the Center for Neighborhoods (CFN) as a research and outreach center in the UMKC Urban Planning & Design Program. CFN provides neighborhood leadership development, advocacy planning, and capacity building for neighborhood leaders in the Kansas City region. CFN has served hundreds of leaders, advocates and organizations since 2016. He has worked with Ms. Kathryn Persley of Dunbar for the past five years to helped stabilize the area, and to plan for the future of the historic neighborhood.

Mr. Tom Meyer, Neighborhood Planning + Design Coordinator. Tom Meyer is an urban planner who is interested in breaking
down the barriers that surround municipal planning and development processes so that the neighborhood organizations
we serve can forge their own futures. Tom is a 2020 graduate of UMKC – Architecture, Urban Planning + Design and served as
a Center for Neighborhoods intern in the summer of 2018. In his current role, Tom monitors current planning processes,
alerts neighborhoods about planning actions in their community, and responds to neighborhood questions and concerns
regarding changes to the built environment in their communities. Additionally, Tom works with the CFN team to develop
curriculum materials for the Center’s workshops and Cohort Neighborhood Leadership Training classes. Tom’s passion for
urban places stems from his many years riding his bicycle, taking public transportation and walking around his historic
neighborhood in Midtown Kansas City.