Kansas City

1959 Chevrolet Spartan Tow-Truck, similar to the truck owned and driven by Eddie Griffin's character Eddie Sherman, from the KCMo based television show 'Malcolm & Eddie'

Eddie Griffin is an American stand-up comedian and actor. Born in Kansas City, he is best known for portraying Eddie Sherman in the sitcom Malcolm & Eddie, the title character in the 2002 comedy film Undercover Brother. Griffin, having started his career making ends meet dancing and painting houses, he’s now ranked at number 62 on Comedy Central’s list of the 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time.

Aaron Dontez Yates, better known as Tech N9ne, is an award-winning American rapper and singer, and founder of the record label Strange Music. He has sold over two million albums and has had his music featured in film, television, and video games. His stage name originated from the TEC-9 semi-automatic handgun, a name given to him by rapper Black Walt due to his fast-rhyming chopper style. Yates, is a major influence of the chopper genre of rap music.

Born in Kansas City, Misty Copeland began her ballet studies at the late age of thirteen. At fifteen, she won first place in the Music Center Spotlight Awards. She studied at the San Francisco Ballet School and American Ballet Theatre’s Summer Intensive on full scholarship and was declared ABT’s National Coca-Cola Scholar in 2000. Misty joined ABT’s Studio Company in September 2000, joined American Ballet Theatre as a member of the corps de ballet in April 2001, and in August 2007 became the company’s second African American female Soloist and the first in two decades. In June 2015, Misty was promoted to principal dancer, making her the first African American woman to ever be promoted to the position in the company’s 75-year history.

Scene from a play at the Black Repertory Theatre of Kansas City

Damron Russel Armstrong is a producer/director/actor who spent his formative years in Kansas City, a graduate of Ruskin High School, he has performed on most of the stages Kansas City has to offer. He's been a familiar fixture at The Unicorn Theatre, The Coterie Theatre, Theatre for Young America, The American Heartland Theatre, The Living Room Theatre, Chestnut Fine Arts Center, New Theatre Restaurant, and Kansas City Actors Theatre. Damron sought to further his education in New York, where he received the best education of life. He has performed nationally in A Raisin in the Sun (Arizona Theatre Co.); The Full Monty (Show Palace, FL); Children of Eden (Papermill Playhouse NJ); and Dreamgirls (The Palace, NH). As a Director, his credits also range from local to international, including Three Guys Naked from the Waist Down...A Comedy (TANSTAAFL, KC); Assassins (The Barn, KS); and Red Hot and Jazz (Piza Festival, Guatemala).

Animation of 'War Machine,' Marvel character portrayed by Cheadle in the MCU

Donald Cheadle is an American actor. He is the recipient of multiple awards, including two Grammy Awards, a Tony, two Golden Globes, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. He’s earned nominations for an Academy Award, two BAFTAs, and 11 Primetime Emmys. His nomination for an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony make him one of few African Americans to be nominated for an EGOT.

Big, Bad, Blue album cover

Joseph Vernon "Big Joe" Turner Jr. was an American blues shouter (a blues singer, often male, capable of singing unamplified with a band) from Kansas City, MO. According to songwriter Doc Pomus, " Rock & Roll would have never happened without him". Turner's greatest fame was due to his rock and roll recordings in the 1950s, particularly "Shake, Rattle, and Roll." Turner was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, with the Hall lauding him as "the brawny voiced 'Boss of the Blues'".

Simple Simon excerpt, The Chicago Defender

Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. Hailing from Missouri, who graduated from Lincoln University, a Pennsylvania HBCU. He is known for being a leader of the Harlem Renaissance, and an innovator of ‘Jazz Poetry’ Chicago Connection: From 1942 to 1962, as the civil rights movement gained traction, he wrote an in-depth weekly column in a leading black newspaper, The Chicago Defender.

Dispensation. 2020.Acrylic on canvas. 61.6 x 69.6 x 4.1 in.

Michael Vance Toombs is an American artist based in Kansas City. He is a painter, arts educator, and arts community project director. Toombs is specifically known for his interactive community murals in Kansas City, Missouri. Toombs is the founder of Storytellers Inc., an artist collective that designs and implements work with inner-city youth and children in urban communities in Kansas and Missouri.

Janelle Monáe is an American singer, songwriter, rapper and actress. She has received ten Grammy Award, and won a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Children’s and Family Emmy Award. Monáe has also been honored with the ASCAP, as well as the Rising Star Award and the Trailblazer of the Year Award from Billboard Women in Music. Monáe has also ventured into acting, first gaining attention for starring in the 2016 films Moonlight and Hidden Figures. For portraying engineer Mary Jackson in the latter, she was nominated for the Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Hattie McDaniel was an American actress, singer-songwriter, and comedienne. For her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, becoming the first African American to win an Oscar. She has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1975, and in 2006 became the first Black Oscar winner honored with a U.S. postage stamp.] In addition to acting, McDaniel recorded 16 blues sides between 1926 and 1929 and was a radio performer and television personality; she was the first Black woman to sing on radio in the United States. Although she appeared in more than 300 films, she received on-screen credits for only 83.