Marker noting Black Kansas City man's 1882 lynching damaged
KANSAS CITY — An historical marker commemorating the lynching of a Black man by a white mob in Kansas City more than a century ago was cut down and thrown down a hill over the weekend, according to a group that advocates for remembering the city's racial violence.
The marker details the case of Levi Harrington, who was killed by a white mob on April 3, 1882, after he was falsely accused of killing a white police officer earlier that day. After a rope was placed around his neck, Harrington was thrown off a bridge and shot several times as hundreds of people watched.
The actual killer was later arrested and tried. No one was ever charged in Harrington's death.
The damage to the marker, installed in 2018 in a park in west Kansas City, was discovered Sunday. It was the first marker ever installed in the city to remember a victim of lynching.
"The damage to the marker reinforces how important it is to see and remember the violence suffered by Black people in a historical context," said Glenn North, co-liaison of the Community Remembrance Project, a coalition of groups formed last year to encourage community understanding and reconciliation. "That can help us to better understand how to act and progress in the present."
The Community Remembrance Project met Monday with the city's parks department to discuss reinstalling the monument and enhancing its security. A police spokesman said no one had filed a police report as of Monday afternoon.