"It is our generation that will be the ones to do something about the division of economic status in the KC area. We will create steps to stop the economic and educational division."
​~ Race Project Student

Race Project KC Promotional Video

Monthly Workshops

Student Cohorts meet monthly with up to three partner high schools. The themed monthly workshops are: ​
  • Identity - Students meet their partner peers for the first time and experience multiple opportunities to dialogue, share their stories, and challenge their assumptions about other schools--and people--in the KC area. They take stock of the multicultural diversity in their lives to get a clear image of how diverse or homogeneous their surroundings are and identify ways to improve their exposure to multiculturalism on a daily basis. And they end the day with an activity focused on identity and the narratives being told about them, and how those narratives may or may not differ from how they see themselves.
  • Representation - Students learn about the history of collections and representations of people of color in the arts. The event includes icebreakers, gallery discussions, and art-making, and takes place at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Students discover how race and power permeate art, dissect it, and offer their own responses. They visit a featured exhibition and interact with local artists in small group activities.
  • Community - Students take a Segregation Tour. They ride in buses to share the experience then debrief and discuss after. The tour focuses on the story of segregation and integration in Kansas City and why in many ways Kansas City is in a state of defacto segregation. The goal is to expose participants to a new perspective on the racial landscape of the city. Many times students are visiting areas they have never visited before. The tour experience is available for everyone; learn more on our Resources page.
  • Health - Students explore health disparities in our communities, seeing how well-being is directly linked to race and determined by historic government policies and practices such as redlining, how structural racism negatively impacts the mental and physical health of people of color.

Annual Symposium

The Race Project KC Student Symposium is a day-long culminating event in April of each year that provides high school students with the opportunity to explore racism--its effects and potential solutions--using their minds, their hearts, and their feet. It features author Tanner Colby, other national authors, and local experts, offers a variety of sessions and experiences to choose from, and includes all participating schools together for the only time all year. The Symposium allows students to interact with their peers, engage in racial equity discussions, interact with community change agents, and engage in conversation with national authors--and challenges them to continue the work beyond the Race Project KC program.

Prominent figures who have been featured at past Symposiums include:
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