Kansas City  -- The Black community is highly ghettoized, as is typical of U.S. cities. The 18th and Vine area (yellow dot) was the historic heart of the Black community before the Civil Rights movement. Today, one block has been restored and renovated with two museums -- American Jazz Museum and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum -- a visitor center, Charlie Parker Memorial, and the 1912 Gem Theater. Four nights a week, jazz is performed in the smoke-free Blue Room, which is part of the American Jazz Museum. From the 1920s to the 1940s, the jazz greats played here. A bit farther east along 18th street is Arthur Bryant's, by most reviewers the best and certainly the most famous barbecue restaurant of the hundreds in Kansas City. Despite Murals to Martin Luther King, the residential areas generally reflect the poverty and neglect of inner city communities, where often religion is the only comfort. Yet, some urban renewal is taking place.

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