Lena Rivers Smith WDAF-TV

Journalist and civil rights activist Lena Rivers Smith has been celebrated for her tenacity, her dedication to Kansas City’s civil rights movement as well as for making history on and off the screen. While reporting for WDAF-TV, she was not only the first African-American reporter in Kansas City but also the first female on-air reporter in the city. Whether it was during her 15 years writing for the Kansas City Call newspaper or her short time in television reporting, she was respected for her ability to add a human element to her storytelling and for telling the truth about controversial issues while remaining fair. 

The Early Years

Lena Rivers was born in Kansas City, Missouri on March 15, 1922, and raised by her parents Ivan and Evadene Smith. Lena Rivers was one of seven children and her father Ivan worked for a coal company to provide for the family. Despite only five of the seven children living into adulthood, Lena Rivers had a close relationship with her siblings, according to her only sister, Mrs. Evadene Smith Bass. During a 1978 interview, Mrs. Bass shared that Lena and her brother Isaac purchased a home together and their reason was “They wanted a house so that anyone in the family would always have a home.” 

Lena Rivers attended segregated schools including Wendell Phillips School before graduating from Lincoln High School in 1938. She later graduated from Lincoln University in 1943 with a bachelor of arts degree in English and History. 

Though the degree qualified her to teach, Lena Rivers shared in a 1960s interview one of the reasons she chose a different career. “Teaching and nursing were about the only two jobs available to young negro girls then and I dreaded being a nurse more than I dreaded being a teacher.”

After graduation from Lincoln University, Lena Rivers completed one year of graduate studies at Northwestern University in Maryville, Missouri before working at the Kansas City Call newspaper.  

Her Start in Journalism

The Kansas City Call was the first Negro paper that Lena Rivers worked with after college but it was not the only one. After joining The Call staff, she was enticed by the opportunity to travel and took a writing job with the Negro paper The Houston Informer based in Houston, Texas. However, she eventually returned to Kansas City and worked as a reporter for The Call for 15 years. During her time there she worked as a society editor, crime reporter, and city editor. 

Mrs. Bass shared in the previously mentioned 1978 interview that Lena wanted more from her journalism career and decided to leave The Call in early 1965 for a position with WDAF-TV. She was hired later that year as part of the WDAF-TV news team as an editorial writer and staff reporter. Just two years after that, she had taken on the role of on-air reporter and later as weekend anchorwoman. 

Civil Rights Activist & Her Later Years

Lena Rivers met many frustrations and roadblocks being both Black and a woman working in television news. That didn’t stop her from using her platform as a journalist to speak out about issues facing Black citizens in Kansas City though there was often backlash. 

When interviewed about his time working with Lena Rivers, her former co-worker and local journalist Walton Bodine shared how she was subject to an inordinate amount of hate calls. “Lena, from the time she went on the tube, and especially after the local riots, was subjected to hate calls as part of every working day. Unlike most of us, she was listed in the telephone book. Unlike many, she took all phone calls.”

Still, Lena Rivers dedicated much of her time in and outside of the newsroom to Kansas City’s civil rights movement. Although she spent most of her life in Kansas City, she was known to have shared these words to describe the ongoing struggle most Black residents faced at that time.

"Most Americans don't realize what life is like for me. Discrimination is not a thing you can see. It's a thing I feel, like a hair or cobweb, across my face. It is distracting. degrading and destructive. I keep trying to brush it away.. and I can never feel at ease until I do."

Lena Rivers served on the Panel of American Women and was a member of the NAACP before her death of a heart attack on November 18, 1968. She was 46 years old.

Many of those who knew her and worked beside her wanted to keep her legacy alive. The Panel of American Women established the Lena Rivers Smith scholarship fund in her name to support young Black youths pursuing a career in journalism and to help with other expenses related to this pursuit. When the Linwood Elementary library opened on November 26, 1968, the teachers decided to name the reading center the Lena Rivers Smith Library in her honor. Lena Rivers is buried in the Blue Ridge Lawn Cemetary.

"Praise the bridges that carried us over" - A Local Celebration of Black History Month, January 28th, 2019. Accessed February 25th, 2023. https://kclibrary.org/blog/praise-bridges-carried-us-over-local-celebration-black-history-month.

Lena Rivers Smith: Two Decades on the Kansas City News Front, news article, 1960

Newman, Alice. Lena Rivers Smith: The Lady and the Legacy. November 1st, 1978.

Flynn, Jane. Kansas City Women of Independent Minds. Page 149-150, 1992.