The Westport Center for the Arts and former residents of the Steptoe neighborhood are inviting the community to celebrate the renaming of Steptoe Street and the history of the area at a Juneteenth Eve celebration on Sunday, June 18. The activities are set to begin at 4 p.m. at the St. James MBE Church, 508 W. 43^rd Street. Activities continue at 6 p.m. at the Westport Presbyterian Church.

Steptoe Lives is a grassroots coalition of former Steptoe residents, former Penn School students, local neighborhood groups, and institutions with an interest in commemorating the African-American Steptoe community. It includes the Plaza Westport Neighborhood Association, Historic Kansas City, the Westport Presbyterian Church, the Santa Fe Area Council, the St. James MBC Church, St. Luke’s Health System, and other individuals who lived in Steptoe, have ties to it, live in the neighborhood today, and are interested in keeping its memory alive.
Steptoe Lives successfully requested that the city return the name of W. 43^rd Terrace to Steptoe Street to honor the legacy of the area. Steptoe was once home to freed slaves and the oldest school for African Americans west of the Mississippi.
The new street signs will be officially unveiled at the Juneteenth celebration as part of a larger celebration of the history of the area. Other activities will include stories, poems, dances, and original music all specifically created to honor Steptoe. Following the activities in Steptoe, the celebration will move to the Westport Presbyterian Church, 201 Westport Road, where the film about Steptoe called A Step Above the Plaza will be shown at 6 p.m.
The Steptoe neighborhood centered around 43^rd Street Terrace and Pennsylvania Avenue just south of Westport. After the Civil War, it became a unique place in Kansas City where former slaves could live and buy property. It included St. James Missionary Baptist Church which was founded by freed slaves and which celebrated its 152^nd anniversary last year. This area was also served by the Penn School, the first school west of the Mississippi built for the express purpose of educating Black children. The school was established in 1868 and after being closed in 1955 was destroyed by fire.

Steptoe Lives has identified a number of short-term goals in addition to returning W. 43^rd Street Terrace to its original name. Other items on its to-do list include replacing markers that once pointed out the former location of the Penn School, creating physical historical markers to broaden awareness of Steptoe, and collaborating with walking trails and online tours such as the city’s African American Heritage Trail.  In the long term, the group would like to see a park commemorating Steptoe in the area where many of its homes once stood.