Memorial To Loyal Women of the Old South (1958-2017)

Between 1958 and 2017, this Ward Parkway intersection was home to a Confederate monument. The United Daughters of the Confederacy dedicated the memorial "To The Loyal Women of the Old South" in 1934. The monument was originally located near the entrance of the Country Club Plaza and was moved to this location in 1958. The monument's design differed from typical Confederate monuments centered on soldiers or generals. Instead, this memorial featured two benches on either side of a headstone with a United States flag and a Confederate flag. The memorial was vandalized in 2017, and within a week, the United Daughters of the Confederacy removed the monument to an undisclosed location.

The United Daughters of the Confederacy dedicated the monument at an entrance to the Country Club Plaza in 1934 to honor women who supported the Confederacy during the Civil War. The monument featured two benches on either side of a large headstone with the inscription, “In Loving Memory of the Loyal Women of the Old South.” Above the inscription was a Confederate Battle flag and a wreath with the name of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The monument stood at 46th Street and Mill Creek Parkway (later changed to J.C. Nichols Parkway and then back to Mill Creek Parkway) from 1934 to 1958, when it was moved to Ward Parkway and 55th Street.

Founded in 1894, the United Daughters of the Confederacy was established by white Southern women who wished to shape the historical memory of the Civil War in a manner that lauded those who took up arms against the United States. Members sought to vindicate the ideology of the “Lost Cause,” an idealogy that minimizes the evils of slavery and suggests that Confederate soldiers were defenders of the Constitution. One of the UDC's strategies was to dominate the monumental landscape. They also attempted to shape school curricula with books and other materials that minimized the harms of slavery and presented those who took up arms against the United States as similar to the American colonists who took up arms against England. The UDC installed hundreds of Confederate monuments, with at least one in every state.

To counter the narratives put forth by the UDC, the NAACP protested Confederate iconography on government property from 1980 to 2015. In the 1987 Southeast Regional Conference of the NAACP, they passed a resolution calling for the removal of Confederate Flags from the Alabama and South Carolina state houses and petitioned the Georgia and Mississippi flags to remove the Confederate Flag imagery. Beyond removing existing monuments, the NAACP and other local activists across the country have proposed "counter monuments" that further contextualize and fact-check the UDC narratives.

Kansas Citians called for the removal of this monument for many years, but with national events centered on protests against monuments, greater attention was placed on the effort to remove this monument in 2016 and 2017. A letter dated August 14, 2017, from a local resident pleaded for the removal of this monument. Within a week the monument was vandalized with spray paint in the shape of a red hammer and sickle. After that, the UDC volunteered to have the monument removed to an undisclosed location. Early morning on August 20^th, the monument was removed.

Cox, Karen L. . No Common Ground: Confederate Monuments and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice. Chapel Hill. The University of North Carolina Press, 2021.

Cox, Karen L. . Dixies' Daughters: The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Preservation of Confederate Culture . Gainesville. University Press of Florida, 2003.

Palmer, Kyle. Confederate Monument In Kansas City Dismantled For Removal To 'Secure' Location, NPR in Kansas City. August 25th, 2017. Accessed July 26th, 2024. https://www.kcur.org/community/2017-08-25/confederate-monument-in-kansas-city-dismantled-for-removal-to-secure-location.

Morris, Frank. Confederate Memorials Also Under Scrutiny In Kansas City , NPR in Kansas City. August 17th, 2017. Accessed July 26th, 2024. https://www.kcur.org/community/2017-08-17/confederate-memorials-also-under-scrutiny-in-kansas-city.