Advocate knocks mayor for Troost renaming delay; calls slave owner tie KC’s ‘dirty laundry, reeking from the basement’

Kansas City can no longer whitewash its history to pretend Benoist Troost — an early KC doctor, slave owner and the namesake for Troost Avenue — was anything other than a monster, said Chris Goode, pointing blame at Mayor Quinton Lucas for a stalled effort to change the east side corridor’s controversial name. 

“There’s no distinction between, ‘Oh, he was a nice slave owner,’ no. Slave owner is synonymous with the following: Murder, castration, humiliation, branding, separating and stripping families apart,” said Goode, founder and owner of Ruby Jean’s Juicery at 3000 Troost.

The entrepreneur, advocate and local civic leaders has been pushing to rename Troost to “Truth Avenue” since 2022, having already surveyed Troost residents and collecting more than 1,000 signatures on a “TRUTH over troost” petition.

From the archives: Truth, not Troost: Ruby Jean’s founder wants East Side corridor renamed over slavery ties

 

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His work seemed near fruition until last week, when Lucas amended a proposal by Councilwoman Melissa Robinson to change the name. The mayor’s amendment would have made “Truth” the thoroughfare’s honorary name “in anticipation of a future permanent change” — but the wording appeared to stop short of calling for an immediate or definite switch.

Robinson objected to what she saw as a half-measure by Lucas, and her proposed ordinance was tabled, putting the renaming on hold. 

Lucas’ office said the mayor only wants to delay replacing street signs honoring Troost until 2028 to give business owners time to adjust to the change, and denied it was a move to stop the renaming.

“The street change would have been permanent [with Lucas’ proposal],” a spokesperson for the mayor told Startland News. “The amendment would have made the change effective in four years. Mayor Lucas heard no support for long-term retention of the name from any committee member.”

Street signs at 30th and Troost Avenue; photo by Taylor Wilmore, Startland News

Lessons from the recent past

In part, the amendment was an effort to build upon lessons from the past, Lucas’ office said, referencing a failed attempt to honor Civil Rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. by renaming The Paseo to “Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.”

KCMO Mayor Quinton Lucas speaking at an announcement event for Google’s new data center; photo by Nikki Overfelt Chifalu, Startland News

Community members objected to the process through which The Paseo was selected, and Kansas City voters ultimately repealed the change in 2019, bringing about a costly fix for the city.

“Having lived through the Paseo name change and change back, [Mayor Lucas] wants to make sure everyone impacted has time to change licenses, addresses, business forms, bills, and all the items and costs that are part of a street name change,” the mayor’s office said. 

The Ruby Jean’s Juicery owner voiced skepticism over Lucas’ concern for business owners who would have to update their addresses.

“That’s the tough part for me because I also own a business on Troost, and it’s not going to take me four years to change my letterhead or get a new ‘Truth’ sign up front,” said Goode.

He agreed, however, that The Paseo renaming provides a prime example of what not to do, but came away from the fiasco with a different take than Lucas.

Closed streets on the Country Club Plaza, not far from then-JC Nichols Parkway, in June 2020 after the shopping district was repeatedly hit with — at times — violent protests in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police; photo by Tommy Felts, Startland News

As a former KCMO Parks and Recreation commissioner, Goode successfully lobbied to remove JC Nichols’ name from the Country Club Plaza fountain and parkway in 2020. Nichols was a local developer who refused to sell the deeds to his properties to Black and Jewish people and is considered an architect of racist redlining practices in real estate that spread from Kansas City across the nation.

The effort to remove signs effectively honoring Nichols was successful, Goode said, because advocates aimed to avoid what Goode viewed as Lucas’ mistakes in renaming The Paseo without enough community input.

“He circumvented the voice of the people, and that got repealed. I learned from that when we approached JC Nichols in a way that was inclusive of everybody’s voice. There was no four year waiting period, it just changed,” said Goode.

Goode now believes he has no choice but to leave Troost Avenue’s fate up to the KCMO City Council to revisit, which may take months.

“We’re stepping back, it’s a painful thing,” he said.

A statue honoring Andrew Jackson — the controversial U.S. president, military leader and namesake of Jackson County — stands outside the Jackson County Courthouse in downtown Kansas City, facing KCMO’s City Hall; photo by Taylor Wilmore, Startland News

Positioning the future for truth

As Kansas City grows with new developments and game-changing community projects, Goode feels emboldened to be someone who removes and redefines controversial names in the city, no longer wanting perpetual hate to hide within symbolism, he said.

A street marker at 30th and Troost Avenue; photo by Taylor Wilmore, Startland News

“Our city is a symbol, it’s going somewhere and there’s a lot of big happenings. But, we got this dirty laundry that’s reeking in the basement,” Goode said.

With the Troost-Truth name change being so close phonetically to the original name of the street, Goode hopes to evoke conversation for Kansas Citians about the darker history of the city that’s too-often overlooked.

“It forces a dialogue, it forces us to connect on something that’s honest,” he said. “So then people have to teach each other. We have to congregate around the truth.”

It doesn’t stop with just Troost Avenue for Goode, he said, noting he wants to keep momentum going and recognizing that even Jackson county is named after controversial historical figure Andrew Jackson.

“If it’s attached to something that we are not anymore, even if it was the norm yesterday, if that norm is evil, it’s got to be eradicated,” Goode said.