Black History Month: Journalist Lucile Bluford Left Her Legacy in Missouri
Well-known for her contributions for equality and justice
Black History Month includes a woman who left her legacy in Kansas City, Missouri — Lucile Harris Bluford.
Lucile was a well-known journalist who passionately opposed segregation in the education system in the United States. The Kansas City Public Library named one of its branches after her.
In the Special Collections and Archives at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, there is a section dedicated to Lucile Bluford.
Lucile’s younger years
Lucile was born on July 1, 1911, in Salisbury, North Carolina. She lost her mother, Viola H. Bluford, when she was 10. Her father, John H. Bluford, was a professor at North Carolina’s Agricultural and Technical College.
Lucile’s father accepted a science teaching position at Lincoln High School in Kansas City in 1921. Lucile also later attended that high school.
Since Missouri was a Jim Crow state, Lucile was exposed to segregation in schools at a young age. The Jim Crow laws lasted from the 1870s to basically the 1960s until such laws thankfully ended.
