‘We don’t just have to live with it’: KC business owner pitches new name for Troost Avenue

Chris Goode grew up near a Kansas City street that honors a slave owner and now owns a business along that street.

As a former member of the Kansas City Parks and Recreation Board of Commissioners, Goode pushed for J.C. Nichols’ name to be stripped from the fountain in Mill Creek Park and for the creation of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in the city. Now, he’s hoping to change the name of one of the city’s most well-known streets — Troost Avenue.

Goode created an online petition about two weeks ago that has gotten over 660 signatures as of Thursday afternoon in support of the renaming effort. He sees TRUTH Avenue as a more fitting name for the road, which he hopes will educate residents and passers-by of the city’s racist history without honoring a slave owner. Eventually, he hopes every building and monument recognizing a racist figure is changed or taken down.

“What I know is that the only way we as people, we as a city, we as a country can heal, we have to go through truth,” he said.

The nearly 11-mile stretch is named after Benoist Troost, a slave owner, Dutch physician and one of Kansas City’s founding fathers.

It’s one of the city’s longest and most well-known streets.

Troost is often known as the line that divides Kansas City racially. For years, housing ads in The Star specified whether listings were east or west of Troost.

A petition for TRUTH

Goode sent a memo about the petition to local government officials, but change won’t come right away. Before going through official processes, he wants to hear from the community.

He and Roosevelt Lyons, a former interim director of Kansas City Parks and Recreation who worked closely with Goode on past renaming and revitalization projects, plan to host a series of community listening sessions.

Those sessions will aim to educate community members on Troost’s history while allowing them time to process before deciding what steps they want to take.

“I want people to know that we don’t just have to live with these streets and monuments and memorials or anything that isn’t equitable or isn’t moving the city forward,” Lyons said. “We don’t just have to live with it and be OK with it.”

So far, Goode said the petition has mostly been met with positive feedback from business owners, city officials and community members.

And by finding ways TRUTH Avenue can educate visitors on Troost and other slave owners who were central to the city’s founding and development, Goode said he can combat critics who say renaming a street or monument will erase part of the area’s history.

“To tell the truth about the history but then move swiftly past it does not erase it,” he said. “It creates authenticity. It takes the Band-Aid off and opens up actual dialogue that can propel us, that can start to chip away at this darkness that we’re living.”

‘I see vibrancy’

From growing up on the East Side to owning Ruby Jean’s Juicery, a health-focused juicery and restaurant with a location at 30th and Troost, Goode said the community he knows is different from the one outsiders describe. When he drives down Troost, Goode said he sees growing businesses and thriving landscapes.

“I see vibrancy,” he said. “That name just doesn’t stand for that.”

Mary Esselman agrees. As director of Operation Breakthrough, an organization on Troost with programs for low-income kids and families, Esselman said there’s also been development, achievement and opportunity in the area.

“It’s something that allows us to really focus future-forward, and I think that’s really important,” she said.

This isn’t Goode’s first step toward changing the names of major Kansas City roads and destinations.

Troost Avenue intersects with the stretch Lyons, Goode and others worked to rename as Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard in 2020. It’s ironic, Goode said, that a slave owner is honored in the same manner as a civil rights leader.

“It’s such a juxtaposition that we have to explore,” he said. “There shouldn’t be an opportunity to see two sides in front of us. What Dr. King stood for versus what Dr. Troost stood for is night and day.”