This chapter, in its broadest terms, is an analysis of the Kansas City black community known as “Leeds”. Kremer breaks down the town; it’s social norms, demographics, schooling, occupations etc. Through this, he hopes to prove that “Missouri witnessed creative and energetic efforts by African Americans to achieve dignity and autonomy in the face of racial oppression during the so-called Jim Crow era.” This is very similar to the article we read on Pennytown; he is using Leeds as a case study for black success, in a time where society had stacked the deck against them. As the title would suggest, Kremer has a very positive view of Leeds. He quotes that in Leeds, “boys learned to be men”. He describes the community as “a large, close family”, where “everybody loved everybody. In short, his goal is the depict Leeds as a model of black ingenuity, generosity, and love in Missouri.
This article shares many of
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Questions like “what attracted you to the area?”, and “what were the houses like”, give you a nice picture of what moving to Leeds was like. He goes on to ask them how they tended to their gardens, their hunting habits, and questions about the community atmosphere of Leeds. Eventually he digs into what it was like to attend school and go to work in Kansas City, if you were from Leeds. Those questions in particular yielded some interesting stories. For example, how some Leeds children would change their shoes once they got to school, so that students wouldn’t be able to see the dust on their shoes, and thus know they were from Leeds. I would have asked a few more questions regarding their relationship with white people in Kansas City, particularly the people who sold them their houses, perhaps to find out if they were treated fairly. But in general, Kremer does a good job of asking interesting, informative questions in this