Kansas City’s rich queer history comes to life with this unique tour
Many people remain unaware about the LGBTQ+ history of Kansas City, Missouri.
Mark
If you’re heading to Kansas City, MO, anytime soon, or even if you’re a local, there’s a novel way to explore the city’s captivating LGBTQ+ history.
The KC Rainbow Tour was devised by author and activist Joel Barrett. It’s now available to follow in a car via the Voicemap app. You can also join an occasional bus tour, led by Barrett. He’s also now working on a downtown, smaller walking version of the audio tour for those who can’t drive around the whole city.
Barrett has quite a history himself. He tells GayCities he was raised in a conservative Baptist home in the small town of Effingham, central Illinois. He always knew he was gay but didn’t see it as “an option” for him. Instead, he married, became a father to three kids, and entered a Baptist ministry. He stuck it out for a decade.
It didn’t alter his feelings toward men. Desperate, he put himself through three years of conversion therapy to “get things fixed once and for all.”
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That, of course, also had no effect. Instead, he decided to come out, end his marriage, and resign from his church.
A couple of years later, he met his husband, David Seymour. They’ve now been together 20 years.
Barrett now advocates for LGBTQ+ rights and helps those struggling to reconcile their spirituality and sexuality.
Redlining
Barrett’s husband’s job led them to settle in Kansas City, Missouri, in 2016. They soon began to explore the city’s history.
“In about 2017, I heard on a radio station about a driving tour called Dividing Lines, which told the story of redlining and segregation in Kansas City,” Barrett tells GayCities.
Redlining was a discriminatory practice that started in the 1930s. The Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) drew red lines around neighborhoods it considered as lending risks. Those neighborhoods disproportionately housed Black communities. It was yet another hurdle for Black people wishing to own their own homes.
“At the same time, I was also beginning to really learn about the LGBTQ history of Kansas City. So when we took that Dividing Lines tour, I told my husband, ‘There needs to be something like this for queer history, because we have such a rich history.’”
That’s where the idea for the KC Rainbow Tour was born.
Womontown
Barrett stresses, “I’m the accidental historian. Other people did the hard work of collecting the history. I just curated it. And I have a friend who wrote a book called Changing Times. It’s an almanac of Kansas City’s LGBT history. So that was really helpful because it’s laid out in chronological order, and I just started with that, highlighting things and planning a route.”
The Voicemap app tour covers 18 miles and lasts for two hours. It features interviews with some of those involved with Kansas City’s history. Some of these excerpts are also played on the bus tour, bringing the history back to life.
For example, the tour covers Womontown, an “intentional women’s urban community” that covered several blocks in the Longfellow district.
“It was the first, to my knowledge, and only intentional lesbian community in the urban area,” says Barrett. “In the late ’80s, early ’90s, two lesbians lived in that neighbourhood, which was kind of neglected. It was potentially going to be razed. So they were living there, and they just had this concept, thinking, ‘This is kind of not a great place to live, but what if we got other lesbians to come and live here?’ And they did.”
The women placed adverts in the gay press and queer newsletters. Women from across the US moved to the district.
“There’s a historical marker there now. In its heyday, it had about 90 lesbian residents. And it consequently saved the neighbourhood, too, because it showed that the neighbourhood still had value and could be lived in.”
“People always find that really fascinating,” says Barrett, and they always want a photo in front of the historical marker on the tour.
The Jewel Box Lounge
Then there’s the site of the former Jewel Box Lounge. This was a classy cabaret and drag joint dating back to the 1950s. With no modern technology to assist them, drag queens sang their own songs. The club earned a name for itself nationwide. The club is now gone to make way for residential units, but Barrett is able to offer photos of the venue as it used to stand.
Many people believe the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement began with the Stonewall Uprising of 1969. However, Barrett is keen to remind people that three years before Stonewall, Kansas City hosted a seminal gathering of grassroots gay rights advocates from across the US. Organizers called it the “National Planning Conference of Homophile Organizations”. Attendees discussed the best way forward to advance their cause.
Barrett believes the groundwork laid down in that meeting set out an agenda for other activists to follow, especially post-Stonewall.
“I like to say that what was then known as the gay rights or gay Liberation movement was conceived here in Kansas City,” he says. “And then it was born three years later in New York City.”
It’s another location Barrett will include on his planned downtown walking tour, which he hopes to have active by next summer. The city is expecting an influx of visitors in 2026 as it hosts six of the soccer World Cup matches.
History Month
All too often, queer history is forgotten or erased. It’s why we celebrate October as LGBTQ History Month in the United States. It’s also partly what drove Barrett to create a tour celebrating his adopted city’s fascinating past.
“I believe our history is best shared through stories,” Barrett recently told Axios. “If we don’t keep our stories alive, our history dies with us.”
Find out more about Joel Barrett’s work at joelspeaksout.com.
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