Sharp End once pulsed along Walnut Street between Fifth and Sixth—a Black business district inside Columbia’s Douglass neighborhood built from dignity, hustle, and genius. Barbers kept the chairs full, cafés like Elite and Vi served meals with respect, Green Tree Tavern booked nights, and McKinney Hall drew legends. Then came two words that always sound like progress until the bulldozers arrive: urban renewal. Condemnations, razing, parking lots. In this episode, we walk the footprint, say the names, and read the receipts—so memory outlives erasure. We also trace today’s efforts to honor the past and support new entrepreneurs on the same ground.
If your family holds photos, menus, letters, or stories from Sharp End, please share them—details in the notes. Follow, rate, and pass this on to someone who needs to hear it. This is That Doesn’t Make Sense: where we mark the places, name the people, and make sure the story doesn’t end where the bulldozers began.

At 75th & Prospect, Kansas City’s summer playground promised “family fun”—but for decades, Black families were turned away except on “private” days. This 20–25 minute episode walks you from the rides and bandstands to the picket lines: youth-led protests at the gates, the push that led to 1964 public accommodations, and the park’s final years after storms and new competition. We visit the jazz ties (Charlie Parker played here), the policy choices behind exclusion, and what stands on the grounds today. I open the door—you walk through it. Names, places, receipts… then go look them up.

Hop Alley—steam from laundries, lanterns over doorways. How St. Louis erased its Chinatown for a downtown stadium—and what remains today, from Alla Lee to On Leong Way and the archives keeping the story alive.