January 5, 2026 • 28 mins
Quindaro was once home to a stop on the Underground Railroad. In this episode, Nikki traces the long, rich, revolutionary history of Kansas City Kansas through the lens of a freedman who escaped slavery to make Quindaro home.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, I just wanted to give you a heads up
that this series will touch on some tough topics, including
sexual assault, murder, and suicide. If you or someone you
love has been affected by any of those themes, I've
left some links in the description that offer resources and
support take care of yourself. Like most neighborhoods across the country, Quindero,
(00:29):
the area of Kansas City, Kansas, where most of this
story is set, isn't perfect. You've already heard the stories
of crime, violence, and decline, but it's a community that
goes beyond the headlines, and for most of my childhood
it was just home. I loved walking around the neighborhood
after school, going to Wilson's Pizza for a slice with
(00:52):
cheese and pepperoni, and playing outside with my cousins, knowing
that all of my family members were just a few
minutes walk away. One thing I didn't know about my
neighborhood until much later was its incredible history.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
My name is Nikia Hope.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Nikia runs a nonprofit in Kansas City that was inspired
by a man she's never met, her fifth great grandfather,
Robert Monroe, who she was introduced to by the older
members of her family, like her grandma.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
I can remember early, as like five or six, them
telling us stories and pointing stuff out.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Back then, she wasn't really paying attention. As a kid,
you just do not care.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
It's just like, I'm just riding my bike and I'm
hanging with my friends.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
But as she got older, Nikia found herself drawn to
the photo of the man her family was always telling
stories about. She keeps it on display in her home.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
He's a a really young guy in the picture. He
had such a dignified smiling.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
The picture.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
I'm looking at the photo of Nikiya's fifth great grandfather.
Now he's a black man wearing a white dress shirt,
a bow tie, and a dapper blazer. It seems like
he's in his late twenties or mid thirties, and there's
an almost stately look about him.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
I just look at him, and he just looks like,
you know, life is well, and it's like, but life
wasn't swell for you.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Because Robert Monroe wasn't born a freeman.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
He was a slave in a corn plantation in Clay County, Missouri.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
But in the winter of eighteen fifty six, he hatched
a plan to escape slavery, a journey that would change
his life and shape the history of the city we
call home. Today, we're digging into the long, rich revolutionary
(02:56):
history of Quendero in Kansas City, Kansas, to hear about
native community who came together to help black people escape slavery,
the freedom seekers who carved space for themselves at the
start of a new age, and the people who call
Quandero home who are fighting to preserve our history and
create a better future. I'm Nicki Richardson from the teams
(03:23):
at Novel and iHeart Podcasts. This is the Girlfriend's Untouchable
Bonus Episode one, The freedom Seekers of Kansas City. The
township of Old Quandero sits on a hill. At the
(03:44):
bottom of that hill is the Missouri River.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Abandoned is the best word I could use to describe you.
If anyone was to go there today, you would just
see a bunch of trees. You would see a bunch
of just high tall grasses trees. Is really so like
a rancher lifestyle. The person at this house may have
some goats, is the person next door may have some horses.
There are a few signs, but those signs are so
(04:10):
old that they're faded and most people can barely read them.
They're like bullet holes through those signs. But the area
didn't always look so desolate. In fact, it was once
an oasis for black people on the path to freedom,
like her great grandfather Robert Monroe. Robert Monroe was an
(04:31):
enslaved man in his twenties, forced to spend long days
working at a corn plantation in Clay County, Missouri. Like
so many other black people in America, Monroe was desperate
to live as a freeman. In the eighteen fifties, the
abolitionist movement was picking up steam and rumors of change
(04:51):
were spreading across the country, but Robert was stuck in Missouri.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Missouri was a slave state, Kansas was a free state.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Clay County is close to the Kansas border, where Old
Quandero overlooks the Missouri River.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
At that time, there were a bunch of families seeking
freedom in Kansas, and there have been lots of talk about.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
This free port at the edge of the river.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
The Missouri River is the longest in America. Its waters
are filled with catfish and otters, and its banks are
surrounded by wild grass and leafy trees. It passes through
or along the borders of seven different states, including Kansas
and Missouri, and in the eighteen hundreds there was a
(05:39):
port on the river that separated them.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
There was an entry point there for steamboats and things
to bring food and goods for the people.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
In the winter, the river froze up, giving enslaved people
trying to escape to the free state of Kansas the
perfect opportunity to cross over. So in eighteen fifty six.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
D him and a couple of men wrapped cloths and
clothing around their feet in the winter, and they were
able to just walk across that river to get here
and get to really the mouth of what is now
Quindero Park. Because at the time slave catchers were allowed
to come into Quandero to bring slaves back, so they
(06:21):
had to get far enough away from the river to safety,
and then they had.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
To be hidden.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Robert's journey was aided by the Underground Railroad, a network
of abolitionists who used secret routes and safehouses to help
enslaved people escape to freedom.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
For instance, and Quandero, on the road to the Quandero Cemetery,
which is called Happy Hollow Road, there was a brewery
that was there and slaves could hide in the basement
of that brewery until they were able to let the
slave catchers pass over and then find their way to safety.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
The path to escape Missouri and pass over to Kansas
was a dangerous nye, but because the potential outcome was freedom,
people like Robert Monroe were willing to take the chance.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
It's like, wow, I'm this close, I might as well try.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
After successfully escaping slavery, the black people who made Kansas
their new home became known as the freedom Seekers.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
I don't one hundred percent believe I would have wanted
to be called an escaped slave either.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
You know.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
So it's like, what this looks like to us is
it's not so much about us escaping slavery, it's about
us seeking freedom.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
One of the groups who helped those seekers achieve freedom
were the Native Americans of the Windott Nation.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
They were the first here in the first to kind
of see the land and take over the land and
sort of initiate bringing all of these different groups of
people together.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Including Robert and the other members of the Monroe family
who escaped slavery.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Family was adopted by the Windote people, and that's how
we got into Quindero. My great great great grandfather came
over in eighteen fifty six, and he was actually adopted
by the Windte people to kind of make a space
for hisself and then.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Bring our family over later.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Working as a community was at the very heart of
Quandero's identity. It's right there in the name Quendero.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
It means bundle of sticks.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
One stick by itself is easy to break, but you
put a bundle of sticks together, and that's harder to break.
If we stick together, it's harder to separate us.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
It was a town founded on the basis of working
together as a community. So how did it become so unrecognizable?
What led Quindero to go from being an oasis for
black people seeking freedom to a place we now associate
with abuse and corruption inflicted on black women More after
(09:00):
the break in two thousand and eight, Nikia's uncle Jesse
Hope opened up Old Quandero House, a museum created to
(09:21):
preserve the history of their community. The museum is currently closed,
but when it was open, Nikia and her family stewarded it.
She loved showing people around its various rooms.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
My favorite space in the house was the room that
was dedicated to Western University.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Western University began as a freedman's school, an institution designed
to give formally enslaved people and their children the opportunity
to learn how to read, write, and study a variety
of subjects that would equip them to start a new life.
It was founded in eighteen sixty five, less than ten
(10:03):
years after Robert Monroe escaped to freedom in Quendero, and
its opening marked the start of a new chapter for
black people in the area.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
It's so cool to kind of have so many pictures
from when the school was operational, Pictures of women in
culinary class, men in shop classes. We have pictures of
the Jackson Jubilee, which was a singing group. They had
a really huge band that was really popular and they
traveled with the country. And for me to be able
(10:35):
to see pictures of my family members who went to
Western University who were direct descendants of Robert Monroe and
kind of just see that progression. It's probably my favorite
place in the house because it just it feels like
it's alive. It feels like real life history.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
But that's what it is. History. Because the university didn't last.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
It actually closed down in nineteen forty before, and I'm
so familiar with the date because when my grandmother was alive,
I remember her telling me how like sick she was
that she couldn't go to Western University because she had
just missed it. She had just graduated from high school
and they were closing down, so she couldn't go.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
The school lost some of its sources of funding and
enrollment dropped. Nikia says that the school had also gotten
into a lot of debt and couldn't maintain their buildings.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
There was a lot of loitering and people were vandalizing,
and I think a couple of the buildings even caught
on fire.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Things continued to go downhill in the community from there.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
In the sixties, they built the highway I think it's
six thirty five. Highway was built right through the town
of Quendero.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
The construction of the highway essentially cut Quandero off from
the rest of the city.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
We were kind of trapped. On one side, we're trapped
by the highway. On the other side, we're trapped by
the river. So a lot of families became displaced, a
lot of families moved. The community kind of just started
to die once the highway came into place.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
And that deterioration made the community lose value in the
eyes of the people who owned the land.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
By the time we get to the seventies, they're surveying
the land. They're saying, hey, there's some potential here is
riverfront property. Maybe there's some potential to build here. So
they had a surveyor come in and kind of tell
them what that would cost. And he's like, you know,
they can be fixed up, but it's gonna cost a
lot of money.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Then a trash service company came into the picture.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
They're like, it makes for a good landfield.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
But the people of Quandero refused to let that happen.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
They came together, they had a meeting, and they went
and found out what was going on. They found out
that it was going to become a landfill, and they're like,
that's a no for us. So they established Concerned Citizens
for Okquandero, which fought and provided. At that time, everyone
who lived in Corndero was a descendant of someone who
would escaped slavery, and in the seventies that history was
(13:09):
probably a lot better documented. People probably had a lot
better record to be able to say, hey, we have
proof that this is history, and you guys can't just
put a landfield here.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
From the outside, it looked like empty land, but there
was so much more below the surface.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Because of how the law was written at that time,
it required the city to do an archaeological dig before
they could move forward with trying to turn it into
a landfield.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Nicki's family didn't have great expectations when they went into
the dig. They were just hoping to find an artifactor too.
But when it finally happened, they unearthed the foundations of
entire buildings.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Some of them from Western University, some of them from
foundations that were at the bottom of the hill where
the town it was near the river, where homes were.
So they found a lot of items kind of buried,
you know, dishes and plates and things like that. And
so after that archaeological dig, they found that they couldn't
(14:13):
make it a landfill because it was indeed historical. So
just the community coming together is really what's saved the
complete erasure of the history.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
But while the community has a rich history, it's long
past it's golden days. The roads are filled with boarded
up buildings, businesses that have been forced to shut down,
streets that have gotten so dangerous that even I don't
feel comfortable walking down them. I hate to say it,
but as the years have gone by, I've seen the
(14:44):
area get progressively worse. It's painful to see a place
you love deteriorate. But like me, the kid can see
past what the community currently is, for what it was
and could still become.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Because of what I know so about it, I can
acknowledge that it needs work. But to me, I just
see history everywhere. Like one person could be looking at
this empty lot, my eyes can see the buildings they
used to be there, so my eyes can see the history.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Nikiya understands how hard it can be to convince people
to invest in preserving history when their immediate worries or
keeping their families safe, paying rent and putting food on
the table, so she was glad to see that rather
than closing the area off and separating people from their past,
(15:40):
the area became a hub for the community.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
I kind of feel like Quandero Park has become an
entryway into redeveloping old Quandero, and so to see groups
of boys playing basketball at the park now, I hadn't
seen that since I was a little girl in elementary
school to see you know, kids up there having picnics
and having food and throng birthday parties, and people are
(16:05):
starting to use it for baby showers and graduation celebrations.
So to kind of see life get breathing back into
it from the park, I think is a cool thing,
especially since I have like pictures at home of like
my grandparents picnicking in the park. You know, it's like
it kind of looks full circle to me, so it
gives me a little bit of hope of like this
(16:26):
could be good.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
In twenty nineteen, Quandero was designated a National Commemorative Site
for its role in the city's history. It was a
real cause for celebration, but what should have been a
moment to amplify the northeast side of ksey K's rich
history was soon overshadowed in the media by something else,
(16:51):
someone else, the man who'd been targeting and praying on
people in Quandero for decades.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Breaking news you begin with here, the man accused of
heinous crime spanning over three decades is dead.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Roger Gulupski, a man who would change our perception of
what should have become known as the home of the
freedom seekers.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
I got you, I got you, I got you.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
I don't know where you're from. Maybe you live in
a big city, small town, or tiny village. Regardless of
the place you call home, I think you probably understand
what it is to have a complicated relationship with the
place you grew up in. I know I do. Quen
Daro's the place that shaped me, so I'm happy to
(17:56):
talk about it honestly and critically. Nikki is the same.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
I am a person who understands that things can be
like mutually exclusive with one another, like two things can
one thousand percent be true at the same time. So
while I can see Quindero the way I can see it,
I also can see it the.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Way that other people can see it.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
I understood growing up that drugs were a problem. I
have family members who had gotten into drugs and were
living on the street.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
It's one thing for us to criticize our hometown, but
it's strange to hear people who've never been here or
understood what it's like to call this place home reduce
it to the headlines. Because modern day Quandero's story is
more than just how people find themselves on the wrong path.
It's about a community that bundles together to see each
(18:50):
other through the tough times too.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
So if we've seen a cousin or an uncle who
had now gotten into drugs to the point where they
become homeless or lost their home, we didn't treat them
like an outsider. It was like, Hey, go take your
cousin this, play the food. Hey, such and such. We
see him standing on the corner, roll down the window
and give him some money, or go up the street
to that store and let's buy him some stuff and
(19:13):
go take it back to him.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
But I won't lie. Sometimes it was scary growing up
in an area where so many people were in crisis.
I didn't always feel safe, and neither didn't Akiya.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
I saw the crime because I lived there.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
I was.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
It kind of flew right over my head. Literally.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
There were times where I would be in my house
as a little girl, sleeping and there are.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Gunshots outside at night.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
We had come out to my mom's car some mornings
and like her windows were shot out. I could one
thousand percent acknowledge that there was violence, and so I
could one thousand percent see and understand how other people
viewed Quindero. If you never knew the history of Old Quandero,
(20:00):
you wouldn't have an appreciation for what it could be again.
You would assume it's been this way forever. It's never
gonna get better. It has no potential to get better.
And a person like me who knew how it started,
is like, Okay, this is where we are, but there's
so much possibility, Like I know what this was.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
There's so much room for growth.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
And one of the areas for growth Nikiya can envision
is improving the community's relationship with law enforcement. But first
they need to acknowledge all the ways that the police
department and local government eroded the trust of the area's
black residents by failing to stop Roger Gallupski. Like so
(20:45):
many other people in the area, Nikia's family had negative
interactions with him.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
My dad had been harassed by Roger Gallupski several times,
stopped for no reason, thrown on the.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Hood of his car.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
I had a few cousins who had been violated by
Roger Glubski on my mom's side, So he was sort
of like this monster in the closet in the community.
Like you knew he was there, you probably weren't going
to escape him, So you just kind of did your
best to stay out of his way.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Really, for a generation of people living in Kuandero, Glupski
was just the problem they had to live through, a constant, oppressive,
but ultimately untouchable presence. News of his rest and trial
opened up a glimmer of hope, but a lot of
that hope died with him when he decided to take
his own life. It was difficult for Nikia to reckon
(21:43):
with after.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
I found out that he died.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
I think my biggest hope was that people wouldn't give up,
because in my mind, where there's one Gallupski, there's two,
maybe three, maybe four, And so I was hoping that
it would re energize people to fight harder, re energize
them to say, we need to actually go harder because
if there's him, who else is there that we haven't
(22:09):
talked about?
Speaker 2 (22:10):
It's not just him, you know.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
But that's not what happened when he died.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
For a lot of the black community, it kind of
reinforced like we never get the justice we deserve, we
never get the happy ending that we're looking for. And
I think for people in Wandae County, the police department
is kind of like the same as him.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
It's kind of like a monster in.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
The closet, and a lot of people have either decided
I'm just gonna live with it. I'm gonna move out
of the city, you know, I'm gonna go somewhere else.
I'm just gonna be quiet. We're never gonna get justice,
so why is it worth it? And I've heard that
amongst people like, oh, it happened, how do we move forward?
And that's kind of scary to me because I don't
(22:52):
feel like enough people are kind of sitting in how
big of a deal what he did was.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
So I find that scary a little bit.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
It's hard to get people to believe that change is
possible when cynicism and apathy start to creep in. But
Nikia still hopes the community will recover from their disappointment
and come back to fight for their city.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
What I'm still hoping is that people internalize and say, hey,
he kind of had a system that ran relatively smooth.
How was it able to run this move? Who's backing him?
Who's being quiet? It kind of goes back to kind
of breaking down those systems.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
And looking back at our community's radical history to inspire
us to fight for a better future. Our ancestors crossed
frozen rivers, hidden safe houses, and risk their lives for
a chance at freedom. Nikiya hopes that remembering where we've
come from will give people the courage to fight for
(23:52):
the city we want to see Casey K become.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
It is really hard to get people to buy in
to the idea that what I do and people like
me do is important. And I understand that to an extent,
because life is really hard in America right now.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
There's so much going on.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
People are having to work more, be away from their kids, more,
make ends meet.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
So I get it.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
But I think my biggest fear is by the time
people realize what's there, it'll be too late.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Because who do we become when we're so desperate to
move on that we forget where we came from.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
I kind of hate this whole like let's start overthing
that the country is doing and that the administration is
doing is like a let's just pretend it's never happened
and let's just build new nice things. I think so
much about children, and there are so many children who
live in Quindero who don't know that famous people went
to college at Western University who don't know that Tuskegee
(24:59):
is men went to college at Western University, who don't
know that there were doctors and lawyers and fire chiefs
and engineers and chemists. And it's like, it really is
sad to me. And so my hope is that we
can in some way ignite people to say, hey, we
(25:23):
need this, we need to see this, we need to
know this was here.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
And to the question that so many people have asked her,
why don't you just leave if there are so many
bad things happening in the community, Nikia has a simple answer.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Why can't we just fix the bad thing?
Speaker 3 (25:43):
My father is gonna be buried in the old Ndero Cemetery.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
I'm always gonna go there.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
So as she looks ahead to the future, she hopes
that people keep sharing the story of their neighborhood, both
the rich history and the sometimes painful reality, because knowing
what happened is essential to understanding what needs to be
done for the community to move forward, especially those affected
(26:11):
by Gelupski's abuse.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
I think it was really courageous.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
He had gone like unchecked for so long that I
thought it was extremely courageous for people to just start saying, hey,
what do you know? You know what happened to you?
It's courageous for people to share that, but also for
people to decide we're gonna do something about it. And
I think it's core that is quendero, like we're gonna
(26:36):
be a bundle of sticks for each other.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
In the next episode of The Girlfriend's Untouchable, my friend
Khadija will be taking the reins as we discuss how
to heal in the aftermath of trauma.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
I got a ton of cause and it's just like,
I'm not Jesus' baby, I'm not Moses.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
I don't know what you want me to do ye
all of this?
Speaker 3 (27:01):
How do you set these boundaries that don't retraumatize yourself
while you're trying to help other people.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
The Girlfriend's Untouchable is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcast.
For more from Novel, visit novel dot Audio. The show
is narrated by me Nicki Richardson. It was written and
produced by Rufaro Masarua. The editors were Leona Hamid and
Joe Wheeler. Our assistant producer is Mohammed Ahmed. The researcher
(27:34):
is Zaiana Yusef. Production management from Shari Houston and Joe Savage.
The fact checker is Findel Fulton. Sound design, mixing and
scoring by Daniel Kimpson with additional engineering by Nicholas Alexander.
Music supervision by Rufro Masarua, Nicholas Alexander and Joe Wheeler.
(27:55):
Original music by Amanda Jones. The series artwork was designed
by Christina Limpol. Novel's Director of development is Selena Metta.
Willard Foxton is Novel's creative director of Development. Max O'Brien
and Craig Strachan are executive producers for Novel. Katrina Norvell
and Nikki Etour are the executive producers for iHeart Podcasts,
(28:17):
and the marketing lead is Alison Cantor. Special thanks to
Will Pearson and his special thanks to Carley Frankel and
the whole team at w ME
Hey, I just wanted to give you a heads up
that this series will touch on some tough topics, including
sexual assault, murder, and suicide. If you or someone you
love has been affected by any of those themes, I've
left some links in the description that offer resources and
support take care of yourself. Like most neighborhoods across the country, Quindero,
(00:29):
the area of Kansas City, Kansas, where most of this
story is set, isn't perfect. You've already heard the stories
of crime, violence, and decline, but it's a community that
goes beyond the headlines, and for most of my childhood
it was just home. I loved walking around the neighborhood
after school, going to Wilson's Pizza for a slice with
(00:52):
cheese and pepperoni, and playing outside with my cousins, knowing
that all of my family members were just a few
minutes walk away. One thing I didn't know about my
neighborhood until much later was its incredible history.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
My name is Nikia Hope.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Nikia runs a nonprofit in Kansas City that was inspired
by a man she's never met, her fifth great grandfather,
Robert Monroe, who she was introduced to by the older
members of her family, like her grandma.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
I can remember early, as like five or six, them
telling us stories and pointing stuff out.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Back then, she wasn't really paying attention. As a kid,
you just do not care.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
It's just like, I'm just riding my bike and I'm
hanging with my friends.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
But as she got older, Nikia found herself drawn to
the photo of the man her family was always telling
stories about. She keeps it on display in her home.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
He's a a really young guy in the picture. He
had such a dignified smiling.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
The picture.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
I'm looking at the photo of Nikiya's fifth great grandfather.
Now he's a black man wearing a white dress shirt,
a bow tie, and a dapper blazer. It seems like
he's in his late twenties or mid thirties, and there's
an almost stately look about him.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
I just look at him, and he just looks like,
you know, life is well, and it's like, but life
wasn't swell for you.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Because Robert Monroe wasn't born a freeman.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
He was a slave in a corn plantation in Clay County, Missouri.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
But in the winter of eighteen fifty six, he hatched
a plan to escape slavery, a journey that would change
his life and shape the history of the city we
call home. Today, we're digging into the long, rich revolutionary
(02:56):
history of Quendero in Kansas City, Kansas, to hear about
native community who came together to help black people escape slavery,
the freedom seekers who carved space for themselves at the
start of a new age, and the people who call
Quandero home who are fighting to preserve our history and
create a better future. I'm Nicki Richardson from the teams
(03:23):
at Novel and iHeart Podcasts. This is the Girlfriend's Untouchable
Bonus Episode one, The freedom Seekers of Kansas City. The
township of Old Quandero sits on a hill. At the
(03:44):
bottom of that hill is the Missouri River.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Abandoned is the best word I could use to describe you.
If anyone was to go there today, you would just
see a bunch of trees. You would see a bunch
of just high tall grasses trees. Is really so like
a rancher lifestyle. The person at this house may have
some goats, is the person next door may have some horses.
There are a few signs, but those signs are so
(04:10):
old that they're faded and most people can barely read them.
They're like bullet holes through those signs. But the area
didn't always look so desolate. In fact, it was once
an oasis for black people on the path to freedom,
like her great grandfather Robert Monroe. Robert Monroe was an
(04:31):
enslaved man in his twenties, forced to spend long days
working at a corn plantation in Clay County, Missouri. Like
so many other black people in America, Monroe was desperate
to live as a freeman. In the eighteen fifties, the
abolitionist movement was picking up steam and rumors of change
(04:51):
were spreading across the country, but Robert was stuck in Missouri.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Missouri was a slave state, Kansas was a free state.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Clay County is close to the Kansas border, where Old
Quandero overlooks the Missouri River.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
At that time, there were a bunch of families seeking
freedom in Kansas, and there have been lots of talk about.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
This free port at the edge of the river.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
The Missouri River is the longest in America. Its waters
are filled with catfish and otters, and its banks are
surrounded by wild grass and leafy trees. It passes through
or along the borders of seven different states, including Kansas
and Missouri, and in the eighteen hundreds there was a
(05:39):
port on the river that separated them.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
There was an entry point there for steamboats and things
to bring food and goods for the people.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
In the winter, the river froze up, giving enslaved people
trying to escape to the free state of Kansas the
perfect opportunity to cross over. So in eighteen fifty six.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
D him and a couple of men wrapped cloths and
clothing around their feet in the winter, and they were
able to just walk across that river to get here
and get to really the mouth of what is now
Quindero Park. Because at the time slave catchers were allowed
to come into Quandero to bring slaves back, so they
(06:21):
had to get far enough away from the river to safety,
and then they had.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
To be hidden.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Robert's journey was aided by the Underground Railroad, a network
of abolitionists who used secret routes and safehouses to help
enslaved people escape to freedom.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
For instance, and Quandero, on the road to the Quandero Cemetery,
which is called Happy Hollow Road, there was a brewery
that was there and slaves could hide in the basement
of that brewery until they were able to let the
slave catchers pass over and then find their way to safety.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
The path to escape Missouri and pass over to Kansas
was a dangerous nye, but because the potential outcome was freedom,
people like Robert Monroe were willing to take the chance.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
It's like, wow, I'm this close, I might as well try.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
After successfully escaping slavery, the black people who made Kansas
their new home became known as the freedom Seekers.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
I don't one hundred percent believe I would have wanted
to be called an escaped slave either.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
You know.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
So it's like, what this looks like to us is
it's not so much about us escaping slavery, it's about
us seeking freedom.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
One of the groups who helped those seekers achieve freedom
were the Native Americans of the Windott Nation.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
They were the first here in the first to kind
of see the land and take over the land and
sort of initiate bringing all of these different groups of
people together.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Including Robert and the other members of the Monroe family
who escaped slavery.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Family was adopted by the Windote people, and that's how
we got into Quindero. My great great great grandfather came
over in eighteen fifty six, and he was actually adopted
by the Windte people to kind of make a space
for hisself and then.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Bring our family over later.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Working as a community was at the very heart of
Quandero's identity. It's right there in the name Quendero.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
It means bundle of sticks.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
One stick by itself is easy to break, but you
put a bundle of sticks together, and that's harder to break.
If we stick together, it's harder to separate us.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
It was a town founded on the basis of working
together as a community. So how did it become so unrecognizable?
What led Quindero to go from being an oasis for
black people seeking freedom to a place we now associate
with abuse and corruption inflicted on black women More after
(09:00):
the break in two thousand and eight, Nikia's uncle Jesse
Hope opened up Old Quandero House, a museum created to
(09:21):
preserve the history of their community. The museum is currently closed,
but when it was open, Nikia and her family stewarded it.
She loved showing people around its various rooms.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
My favorite space in the house was the room that
was dedicated to Western University.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Western University began as a freedman's school, an institution designed
to give formally enslaved people and their children the opportunity
to learn how to read, write, and study a variety
of subjects that would equip them to start a new life.
It was founded in eighteen sixty five, less than ten
(10:03):
years after Robert Monroe escaped to freedom in Quendero, and
its opening marked the start of a new chapter for
black people in the area.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
It's so cool to kind of have so many pictures
from when the school was operational, Pictures of women in
culinary class, men in shop classes. We have pictures of
the Jackson Jubilee, which was a singing group. They had
a really huge band that was really popular and they
traveled with the country. And for me to be able
(10:35):
to see pictures of my family members who went to
Western University who were direct descendants of Robert Monroe and
kind of just see that progression. It's probably my favorite
place in the house because it just it feels like
it's alive. It feels like real life history.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
But that's what it is. History. Because the university didn't last.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
It actually closed down in nineteen forty before, and I'm
so familiar with the date because when my grandmother was alive,
I remember her telling me how like sick she was
that she couldn't go to Western University because she had
just missed it. She had just graduated from high school
and they were closing down, so she couldn't go.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
The school lost some of its sources of funding and
enrollment dropped. Nikia says that the school had also gotten
into a lot of debt and couldn't maintain their buildings.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
There was a lot of loitering and people were vandalizing,
and I think a couple of the buildings even caught
on fire.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Things continued to go downhill in the community from there.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
In the sixties, they built the highway I think it's
six thirty five. Highway was built right through the town
of Quendero.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
The construction of the highway essentially cut Quandero off from
the rest of the city.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
We were kind of trapped. On one side, we're trapped
by the highway. On the other side, we're trapped by
the river. So a lot of families became displaced, a
lot of families moved. The community kind of just started
to die once the highway came into place.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
And that deterioration made the community lose value in the
eyes of the people who owned the land.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
By the time we get to the seventies, they're surveying
the land. They're saying, hey, there's some potential here is
riverfront property. Maybe there's some potential to build here. So
they had a surveyor come in and kind of tell
them what that would cost. And he's like, you know,
they can be fixed up, but it's gonna cost a
lot of money.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Then a trash service company came into the picture.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
They're like, it makes for a good landfield.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
But the people of Quandero refused to let that happen.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
They came together, they had a meeting, and they went
and found out what was going on. They found out
that it was going to become a landfill, and they're like,
that's a no for us. So they established Concerned Citizens
for Okquandero, which fought and provided. At that time, everyone
who lived in Corndero was a descendant of someone who
would escaped slavery, and in the seventies that history was
(13:09):
probably a lot better documented. People probably had a lot
better record to be able to say, hey, we have
proof that this is history, and you guys can't just
put a landfield here.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
From the outside, it looked like empty land, but there
was so much more below the surface.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Because of how the law was written at that time,
it required the city to do an archaeological dig before
they could move forward with trying to turn it into
a landfield.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Nicki's family didn't have great expectations when they went into
the dig. They were just hoping to find an artifactor too.
But when it finally happened, they unearthed the foundations of
entire buildings.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Some of them from Western University, some of them from
foundations that were at the bottom of the hill where
the town it was near the river, where homes were.
So they found a lot of items kind of buried,
you know, dishes and plates and things like that. And
so after that archaeological dig, they found that they couldn't
(14:13):
make it a landfill because it was indeed historical. So
just the community coming together is really what's saved the
complete erasure of the history.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
But while the community has a rich history, it's long
past it's golden days. The roads are filled with boarded
up buildings, businesses that have been forced to shut down,
streets that have gotten so dangerous that even I don't
feel comfortable walking down them. I hate to say it,
but as the years have gone by, I've seen the
(14:44):
area get progressively worse. It's painful to see a place
you love deteriorate. But like me, the kid can see
past what the community currently is, for what it was
and could still become.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Because of what I know so about it, I can
acknowledge that it needs work. But to me, I just
see history everywhere. Like one person could be looking at
this empty lot, my eyes can see the buildings they
used to be there, so my eyes can see the history.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Nikiya understands how hard it can be to convince people
to invest in preserving history when their immediate worries or
keeping their families safe, paying rent and putting food on
the table, so she was glad to see that rather
than closing the area off and separating people from their past,
(15:40):
the area became a hub for the community.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
I kind of feel like Quandero Park has become an
entryway into redeveloping old Quandero, and so to see groups
of boys playing basketball at the park now, I hadn't
seen that since I was a little girl in elementary
school to see you know, kids up there having picnics
and having food and throng birthday parties, and people are
(16:05):
starting to use it for baby showers and graduation celebrations.
So to kind of see life get breathing back into
it from the park, I think is a cool thing,
especially since I have like pictures at home of like
my grandparents picnicking in the park. You know, it's like
it kind of looks full circle to me, so it
gives me a little bit of hope of like this
(16:26):
could be good.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
In twenty nineteen, Quandero was designated a National Commemorative Site
for its role in the city's history. It was a
real cause for celebration, but what should have been a
moment to amplify the northeast side of ksey K's rich
history was soon overshadowed in the media by something else,
(16:51):
someone else, the man who'd been targeting and praying on
people in Quandero for decades.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Breaking news you begin with here, the man accused of
heinous crime spanning over three decades is dead.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Roger Gulupski, a man who would change our perception of
what should have become known as the home of the
freedom seekers.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
I got you, I got you, I got you.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
I don't know where you're from. Maybe you live in
a big city, small town, or tiny village. Regardless of
the place you call home, I think you probably understand
what it is to have a complicated relationship with the
place you grew up in. I know I do. Quen
Daro's the place that shaped me, so I'm happy to
(17:56):
talk about it honestly and critically. Nikki is the same.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
I am a person who understands that things can be
like mutually exclusive with one another, like two things can
one thousand percent be true at the same time. So
while I can see Quindero the way I can see it,
I also can see it the.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Way that other people can see it.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
I understood growing up that drugs were a problem. I
have family members who had gotten into drugs and were
living on the street.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
It's one thing for us to criticize our hometown, but
it's strange to hear people who've never been here or
understood what it's like to call this place home reduce
it to the headlines. Because modern day Quandero's story is
more than just how people find themselves on the wrong path.
It's about a community that bundles together to see each
(18:50):
other through the tough times too.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
So if we've seen a cousin or an uncle who
had now gotten into drugs to the point where they
become homeless or lost their home, we didn't treat them
like an outsider. It was like, Hey, go take your
cousin this, play the food. Hey, such and such. We
see him standing on the corner, roll down the window
and give him some money, or go up the street
to that store and let's buy him some stuff and
(19:13):
go take it back to him.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
But I won't lie. Sometimes it was scary growing up
in an area where so many people were in crisis.
I didn't always feel safe, and neither didn't Akiya.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
I saw the crime because I lived there.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
I was.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
It kind of flew right over my head. Literally.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
There were times where I would be in my house
as a little girl, sleeping and there are.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Gunshots outside at night.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
We had come out to my mom's car some mornings
and like her windows were shot out. I could one
thousand percent acknowledge that there was violence, and so I
could one thousand percent see and understand how other people
viewed Quindero. If you never knew the history of Old Quandero,
(20:00):
you wouldn't have an appreciation for what it could be again.
You would assume it's been this way forever. It's never
gonna get better. It has no potential to get better.
And a person like me who knew how it started,
is like, Okay, this is where we are, but there's
so much possibility, Like I know what this was.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
There's so much room for growth.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
And one of the areas for growth Nikiya can envision
is improving the community's relationship with law enforcement. But first
they need to acknowledge all the ways that the police
department and local government eroded the trust of the area's
black residents by failing to stop Roger Gallupski. Like so
(20:45):
many other people in the area, Nikia's family had negative
interactions with him.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
My dad had been harassed by Roger Gallupski several times,
stopped for no reason, thrown on the.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Hood of his car.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
I had a few cousins who had been violated by
Roger Glubski on my mom's side, So he was sort
of like this monster in the closet in the community.
Like you knew he was there, you probably weren't going
to escape him, So you just kind of did your
best to stay out of his way.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Really, for a generation of people living in Kuandero, Glupski
was just the problem they had to live through, a constant, oppressive,
but ultimately untouchable presence. News of his rest and trial
opened up a glimmer of hope, but a lot of
that hope died with him when he decided to take
his own life. It was difficult for Nikia to reckon
(21:43):
with after.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
I found out that he died.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
I think my biggest hope was that people wouldn't give up,
because in my mind, where there's one Gallupski, there's two,
maybe three, maybe four, And so I was hoping that
it would re energize people to fight harder, re energize
them to say, we need to actually go harder because
if there's him, who else is there that we haven't
(22:09):
talked about?
Speaker 2 (22:10):
It's not just him, you know.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
But that's not what happened when he died.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
For a lot of the black community, it kind of
reinforced like we never get the justice we deserve, we
never get the happy ending that we're looking for. And
I think for people in Wandae County, the police department
is kind of like the same as him.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
It's kind of like a monster in.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
The closet, and a lot of people have either decided
I'm just gonna live with it. I'm gonna move out
of the city, you know, I'm gonna go somewhere else.
I'm just gonna be quiet. We're never gonna get justice,
so why is it worth it? And I've heard that
amongst people like, oh, it happened, how do we move forward?
And that's kind of scary to me because I don't
(22:52):
feel like enough people are kind of sitting in how
big of a deal what he did was.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
So I find that scary a little bit.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
It's hard to get people to believe that change is
possible when cynicism and apathy start to creep in. But
Nikia still hopes the community will recover from their disappointment
and come back to fight for their city.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
What I'm still hoping is that people internalize and say, hey,
he kind of had a system that ran relatively smooth.
How was it able to run this move? Who's backing him?
Who's being quiet? It kind of goes back to kind
of breaking down those systems.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
And looking back at our community's radical history to inspire
us to fight for a better future. Our ancestors crossed
frozen rivers, hidden safe houses, and risk their lives for
a chance at freedom. Nikiya hopes that remembering where we've
come from will give people the courage to fight for
(23:52):
the city we want to see Casey K become.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
It is really hard to get people to buy in
to the idea that what I do and people like
me do is important. And I understand that to an extent,
because life is really hard in America right now.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
There's so much going on.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
People are having to work more, be away from their kids, more,
make ends meet.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
So I get it.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
But I think my biggest fear is by the time
people realize what's there, it'll be too late.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Because who do we become when we're so desperate to
move on that we forget where we came from.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
I kind of hate this whole like let's start overthing
that the country is doing and that the administration is
doing is like a let's just pretend it's never happened
and let's just build new nice things. I think so
much about children, and there are so many children who
live in Quindero who don't know that famous people went
to college at Western University who don't know that Tuskegee
(24:59):
is men went to college at Western University, who don't
know that there were doctors and lawyers and fire chiefs
and engineers and chemists. And it's like, it really is
sad to me. And so my hope is that we
can in some way ignite people to say, hey, we
(25:23):
need this, we need to see this, we need to
know this was here.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
And to the question that so many people have asked her,
why don't you just leave if there are so many
bad things happening in the community, Nikia has a simple answer.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Why can't we just fix the bad thing?
Speaker 3 (25:43):
My father is gonna be buried in the old Ndero Cemetery.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
I'm always gonna go there.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
So as she looks ahead to the future, she hopes
that people keep sharing the story of their neighborhood, both
the rich history and the sometimes painful reality, because knowing
what happened is essential to understanding what needs to be
done for the community to move forward, especially those affected
(26:11):
by Gelupski's abuse.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
I think it was really courageous.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
He had gone like unchecked for so long that I
thought it was extremely courageous for people to just start saying, hey,
what do you know? You know what happened to you?
It's courageous for people to share that, but also for
people to decide we're gonna do something about it. And
I think it's core that is quendero, like we're gonna
(26:36):
be a bundle of sticks for each other.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
In the next episode of The Girlfriend's Untouchable, my friend
Khadija will be taking the reins as we discuss how
to heal in the aftermath of trauma.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
I got a ton of cause and it's just like,
I'm not Jesus' baby, I'm not Moses.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
I don't know what you want me to do ye
all of this?
Speaker 3 (27:01):
How do you set these boundaries that don't retraumatize yourself
while you're trying to help other people.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
The Girlfriend's Untouchable is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcast.
For more from Novel, visit novel dot Audio. The show
is narrated by me Nicki Richardson. It was written and
produced by Rufaro Masarua. The editors were Leona Hamid and
Joe Wheeler. Our assistant producer is Mohammed Ahmed. The researcher
(27:34):
is Zaiana Yusef. Production management from Shari Houston and Joe Savage.
The fact checker is Findel Fulton. Sound design, mixing and
scoring by Daniel Kimpson with additional engineering by Nicholas Alexander.
Music supervision by Rufro Masarua, Nicholas Alexander and Joe Wheeler.
(27:55):
Original music by Amanda Jones. The series artwork was designed
by Christina Limpol. Novel's Director of development is Selena Metta.
Willard Foxton is Novel's creative director of Development. Max O'Brien
and Craig Strachan are executive producers for Novel. Katrina Norvell
and Nikki Etour are the executive producers for iHeart Podcasts,
(28:17):
and the marketing lead is Alison Cantor. Special thanks to
Will Pearson and his special thanks to Carley Frankel and
the whole team at w ME
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