A panel discussion on the historic and contemporary challenges faced by minority golfers in Kansas
City and around the nation

Panelists will include;
Don Kuehn, 2022 inductee into the Kansas City Golf Hall of Fame; member of the Board of Directors of Central Links Golf and winner of 56 local, state, and national tournaments;
Bob Drake, a retired teacher and former tournament director for the Heart of America Golf Club;
Dwayne Lewis, a former Center High School and Baker University basketball star who has developed a passion for golf and has played with several groundbreaking Black golfers, including Charlie Sifford and Jim Dent;
Judge Jon Gray, retired Circuit Court Judge and lawyer in private practice. His interests include the connection between amateur and professional sports, as well as the struggle for equal rights.
The moderator for the event is Lewis Diuguid, former columnist and vice president for community resources for the Kansas City Star.

The road to equal access in public accommodations for people of color, including on the nation’s golf courses, was fraught with numerous significant challenges. Not the least among them were the infamous Jim Crow Laws mandating racial segregation in public facilities and the PGA Tour’s ”Caucasians Only” clause. In Kansas City, access to the two Swope Park golf courses in the late 1940s was no exception. Whites were welcomed at Swope #1 (now Swope Memorial), but Black golfers were restricted to play at the unkempt, ill-maintained course “down the hill”: Swope #2. And then, only on Mondays and Tuesdays! The Black Archives of Mid-America is hosting a panel discussion/forum to explore the history of access to public golf and to look to the future to find ways to make golf more accessible.