Interview with retired Army Lieutenant Albert Bly. He discusses his father's and his own experiences as Black soldiers in the Army, the history of military segregation and integration, the limitations on advancement for Black officers, and shared stories about fellow soldiers Jackie Robinson and Joe Lewis.
Interview with World War II army veteran Albert Jones. Jones discusses being drafted into the army in 1943, joining the 10th Calvary, serving in North Africa and Italy during the war, and building bridges and maintaining supply lines. He also discusses the history of the 10th Calvary and the Buffalo Soldiers and conventions honoring that history.
Interview with Mo-Kan Minority Contractors Association founder Alexander Harris. Harris discusses his early life in West Virginia, leaving the state for Kansas City because his father didn't want his sons working in the coal mines, touring as a musician as a young man, serving as a soldier in the Korean War, entering the building trade with his father after leaving the service, and founding Mo-Kan, an advocacy organization for Black contractors, in the late 1960s.
Interview with UMKC chemistry professor Dr. Antonio Sandoval about his life. Born in 1931, he recalls his early childhood on a New Mexico ranch in a Mexican American community, moving to Colorado to be able to attend high school, doing agricultural work, and notes that of his graduating class of 100, he was the only one to go on to earn a PhD. He discusses his mother's hope that he would become a priest but instead majoring in chemistry, enlisting in the army where he worked to support nuclear testing at locations including Los Alamos, going on to earn his PhD from Kansas State University where he almost met his microbiologist wife, and coming to Kansas City where he was on faculty at UMKC and his wife taught at Avila, Rockhurst, and Donnelly colleges. He also discusses his participation in United Mexican American Students (UMAS) and working with his wife in the Catholic church's Marriage Encounter program.
Interview with Don Sole about his childhood, his experience in the Army Air Corps during World War II, and later career working his way up in Ford dealerships. He came to Kansas City as a result of his father's work in the garment industry, and worked in aircraft manufacture before enlisting. He discusses his training, his experience guarding Japanese internment camps in California, and his experience as a flight engineer as a civilian and later as part of the Air Corps. He also describes supply flights that would take him to locations including Brazil, West Africa, and India, and shares a Life magazine photo spread about the journey; as well as discussing his family and genealogy research.
Interview with Dr. Billy James Taylor. Taylor discusses his family and early life in Chattanooga, Tennessee, enlisting in the Army Special Forces, attending Tennessee State University and the University of Minnesota, returning to Tennessee to enroll in Meharry Medical College, working as a restaurant inspector, and coming to Kansas City in 1972. He also discusses seeing Black and white patients, race-based assumptions in medical care, varying economic conditions and neighborhoods in Kansas City and throughout the country,
Three part interview with Dr. Samuel Rodgers about his life and experience as a Black obstetrician/gynecologist in Kansas City. He discusses segregation and desegregration of patients and staff in area hospitals, his pursuit of community health facilities, engagement with the Black Panthers, the increase in homelessness due to cuts in mental health funding, and other funding issues for local health care entities.
Interview with Edith Long about her two brothers, Charles Richard and Robert, their childhood in Independence, and her brothers' experiences in the Korean War and World War II. Robert enlisted in the US Army Air Corps but was not sent overseas. Richard, as she called him, enlisted in the Army and served in Europe during World War II, participating in the Battle of the Bulge. He went into the Reserves after his discharge and was later sent to Korea, where he was killed in action, and posthumously received the Medal of Honor. Edith shares fond memories of her brothers and recalls how Richard was acknowledged in local newspapers and by peers.
Interview with civil rights activist and Kansas City Public Schools board member Fletcher Daniels. Daniels discusses his family and early life and education in Muskogee, Oklahoma, being drafted into the army, and moving to Kansas City to work as a postal clerk. He also discusses Kansas City's Black community, his memories of Ruth Kerford and the Community Committee for Social Action, staging demonstrations for integration of downtown department stores, his memories of the protests after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and his experience in leadership of the local NAACP, and his work with and as part of the KCPS board, including his thoughts on school integration.
Interview with Georgene Stinnett in which she describes her childhood on an Iowa Farm, taking the civil service exam, and moving to Washington, DC, to work at the Pentagon during World War II. She discusses being a stenographer in the Signal Corps, taking dictation from officers and working with classified documents, having lunch while bands played in the Pentagon courtyard, and recalls Franklin D. Roosevelt's death and funeral. She also recalls measures taken by her family and others on the home front, and working as a USO hostess, where she met her husband, and notes improvements in medical care during the war years that benefited her during her pregnancies.