Demonstrating Diversity: PV Diversity Committee to host town hall on Feb. 25

The Prairie Village Diversity Committee is hosting a town hall meeting at the Meadowbrook Clubhouse on Feb. 25, with a panel of speakers who will speak on diversity in Prairie Village. 

The committee is currently evaluating how to best increase and retain diverse residents and education among Prairie Village residents. 

This upcoming panel will address how best to continue the committee’s work. From the town hall, the committee will put together a strategic plan, outlining their goals and how they will accomplish them. 

Prairie Village Diversity Committee Chair Cole Robinson invited Roeland Park Racial Equity Committee Chair Haile Sims to moderate the meeting. Sims has worked for the Roeland Park Committee to create a more welcoming and diverse city, specifically looking to make sure that current governing policies are bias free and welcoming to a diverse range of citizens. 

“[Prairie Village] has this diversity committee similar to the Racial Equity Committee of Roeland Park and so our meetings are aligned,” Sims said. “We have similar goals, and so I’m excited to connect with them and be part of this event.”

The committee was formed in 2020 in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. Since then, racial covenants on the housing deeds have been removed. The committee has also been hosting events for all community members, partnering with local advocacy groups like Stand Up for Black Lives+ Prairie Village, Johnson County NAACP and the United Community Services of Johnson County. 

The committee hosted their I Have a Dream Home Action & Celebration Event Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Village Presbyterian Church on Jan. 14. They invited speakers from across the metro area to speak on King’s vision, which was organized by former East parent George Williams.  

In addition to speakers, singer sololists invited the audience to stand and sing along to “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” During the hour-long event, the audience watched a clip from the PBS documentary, “The House I Live in,” which details the rise of racial covenants in suburban communities. Poet Glenn North performed his original poems, “Overwhelmed” and “Check Cashing.”

The committee’s ultimate goal is to increase diversity and education among Prairie Village residents, however, it’s a difficult goal to measure, according to Robinson. 

The committee’s success is difficult to measure due to the gap between when the U.S. Census is collected. The Census only occurs every ten years, with a reading half-way between each collection, measuring aspects such as race, gender and income of the residents.  

“But I think that’s a big challenge, what do we do to try to encourage [diversity] and then how do we know if it’s working, which is fairly difficult,” Robinson said.

In addition to increasing diversity, the committee is focusing on rewriting the perception of Prairie Village. According to Robinson, many non-residents believe that Prairie Village is based on the historically racist actions of the city— shown by the covenants written into the housing deeds. 

“I think the outward perception of Prairie Village is a lot different than what’s actually happening in Prairie Village,” Robinson said. “I think [Prairie Village has] gone through a lot of change, especially in my generation and with younger residents moving in with different priorities, different desires of what they want their community to look like and be. Most people aren’t going to take time if you live in the Northland, Lee’s Summit, downtown KCMO or in Shawnee, like how often are those people going to take time to actually reexamine what their impression of Prairie Village is to them?” 

The committee is considering using social media to convey these shifts in perception, as well as hosting more town halls, bringing in more speakers or hosting more celebrations, such as Hispanic heritage and pride month to recognize groups in the Prairie Village community.