As the Black Ancestors Awareness Campaign prepares to host their spring fundraising event, BAAC founder, Angela Hagenbach, a fifth-generation descendant of Weston, says it will ‘put the fun in fund raising.’
This free event is suitable for family viewing and will be centered around two short documentaries.
“As this is a fund raiser, there will be classy, curated raffle baskets,” Hagenbach said. “In addition, we will launch FRIENDS of BAAC, an annual gift-giving opportunity for friends and supporters. All funds raised go directly to BAAC to enable the continuation of our annual Juneteenth Heritage Jubilees, the Weston Black Heritage Walking and Driving guided tours, an expansion of Museum Without Walls projects, launching our Weston Black History Archive, help fund a downtown mural, documentaries, and collaborative programs throughout the region exploring Weston’s history, and more.”
The Black Ancestors Awareness Campaign is a nonprofit, volunteer-based organization and a permanent committee of the Weston Historical Museum. The office space overlooking the Dinah Robinson Courtyard is provided by the Weston United Methodist Church. BAAC events are funded solely by fund raisers, contributions, cash, in-kind donations, grants, BAAC merchandise sales, speaking engagements, and the soon-to-launch Weston Black Heritage Walking and Driving guided group tours.
Hagenbach, who was born and raised in Kansas City, Mo., discovered her link to Weston in 1998 when she was researching her family history.
“It is difficult for African Americans to trace genealogical lineage back more than a few generations,” Hagenbach said.
She was shocked and pleased to learn her mother’s ancestors had come to Missouri through Weston, just miles away from where she grew up.
“After 17-plus years of researching my maternal ancestors, and two or three failed attempts to launch a Weston Juneteenth, I gathered my sister Joyce Johnson, three girlfriends, Marilyn Carpenter, Rebecca Ehrich, and Phyllis Becker, plus three new Weston friends, Louis Smither, Michael Goentzel, and Jennifer Lowman, and a lot of help from the City of Weston,” Hagenbach said. “We put on the first annual Juneteenth Heritage Jubilee on June 19, 2021.”
The Black Ancestors Awareness Campaign’s mission is to excavate Weston’s Black lineage from obscurity and meticulously reintroduce the lives, histories, and contributions of Weston’s resilient Black community by increasing permanent exhibits and yearlong programs, while promoting Weston’s Black forebears, whose unpaid labor, talent, and industry still resonate and enhance the value, legacy, and charm of historic Weston.
Juneteenth is BAAC’s signature event and has helped grow their brand as a new committee of the Weston Historical Museum and a partner to Weston’s long and storied history.
The fund raiser will be centered around two short documentaries. “In Slavery and In Freedom, our 40-minute, second annual Juneteenth Heritage Jubilee, features highlights about York, the first Black man to step foot in what would become Weston, Platte County, Mo. in 1804; the enslaved guide of the Lewis & Clark expedition,” Hagenbach said. “First, we’ll see an authentic West African Libation summoning the Ancestors to join us in praise, song, and lessons of our collective past by a Ghanaian BAAC member in her native tongue.”
Next, we’ll learn about Weston’s most lucrative crop, hemp, from a native Westonian hemp farmer’s descendant. Next, we’ll pay homage to the hand-hewn antebellum bricks of Weston’s long history and what they may have witnessed in this sturdy historical town. Brilliant poetry bridging yesteryear with today sprinkled throughout, and the seven-minute Dinah Robinson Courtyard Dedication and Ribbon Cutting, all filmed June 18, 2022. Finally, we’ll gather for a social hour with complimentary sparkling adult beverages, non-alcoholic beverages, and popcorn while listening to live Kansas City jazz, of which I will proudly join in for a pre-show performance before viewing the documentaries.”
Formally enslaved, Dinah Robinson was Hagenbach’s maternal great-great-grandmother and is the standard bearer of the Black Ancestors Awareness Campaign. Born in 1817, Dinah Wright arrived from Virginia enslaved in the 1840s in Weston’s rich, black Missouri River bottomland in Fancy Bottom. Her enslaver, Presbyterian minister, Rev. J.B. Wright, called upon the Rochester, N.Y.-born Rev. Fred Starr to relocate from St. Louis to minister at Weston’s Presbyterian Church from 1850-1856.
“It is quite possible Rev. Wright was unaware of his abolitionist leanings,” Hagenbach said. “On July 6, 1851, Rev. Starr’s diary entries state he baptized Dinah’s husband Thomas, their children Moses, and the deceased infant Leann. Rev. Starr inducted Dinah and Thomas into the church on April 1, 1854, which was highly frowned upon. It would appear the Wrights began paying Dinah for her labors soon after Starr’s arrival because she had the wherewithal to purchase her freedom on Feb. 16, 1859, then that of Thomas and their children Moses and Eliza Jane’s (my second great-grandmother). On Jan. 3, 1860, Dinah bought the lot on which the Dinah Robinson Courtyard now stands. As a free woman of color, Dinah Robinson acquired additional lots extending from the courtyard to the other side of Mill Creek. She played a significant role in fostering the Colored school and church. On June 15, 1867, she purchased Thomas Street Alley for the Second Missionary Baptist Church Trustees, established in 1865. The alleyway runs alongside the Weston School for Colored Children. It was later named the Mary McLeod Bethune School for Colored Children around 1900 until its closure in the late 1950s. The church’s ownership of the alley secured safe access to a section of Mill Creek where Colored baptisms and community social gatherings occurred, the school and Dinah’s neighbors. On March 27, 1887, the Kansas City Times article headlined her as ‘An Example of Industry’ on the society page, listing her achievements and ransom for her family. Dinah Robinson, a prominent civic leader of Weston’s Black community, died on Feb. 22, 1895. She and her family are buried in unmarked graves at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Weston, Mo.”
The Juneteenth celebration this June will be themed, ‘Grace, Grit and Ingenuity – In Slavery and in Freedom: Honoring Weston’s Historic Black Ancestors.’ It will be from 10 to 11:30 a.m. June 17, followed by a free BBQ luncheon (while supplies last) provided by the Weston Rotary Club and a live jazz concert from noon to 2 p.m. at Bee Creek Shelter, Weston Bend State Park 16600 Hwy.45, Weston. The goal for each Juneteenth celebration is to Engage, Educate, Enlighten, and Entertain.
The event will feature African drumming and dancing, live jazz, and a traditional, though obscure Juneteenth beverage. “In this multi-media event at Bee Creek Shelter, we’ll explore intergenerational labor industry trades passed down from parent to child, and the Laundress and the Importance of Alleyways, the arteries of a town,” Hagenbach said. “Yet, with grace, grit, and ingenuity, these forebears’ skill sets enabled them to earn a living, plan their lives, and work those plans for a brighter future. First, we’ll meet a Buffalo Soldier from 1898. Then, honoring Sankofa, we’ll go back and fetch the story of a Weston Black family whose roots go back beyond 1860.”
Hagenbach noted that Ten Thousand Villages on Main Street in Weston states, ‘We’re all in this Together,’ and they have offered to champion this year’s Juneteenth Heritage Jubilee fund raising efforts in their ‘Shop Global, Give Local’ campaign the entire weekend of June 16, 17, and 18. They will donate 15% of any and all transactions when the customers mention BAAC, Black Ancestors Awareness Campaign, or Juneteenth to benefit BAAC’s fund raising efforts.
“In addition to free admission, parking, sparkling wine, popcorn, a live jazz concert, and two documentaries, there will be opportunities to get in on the ground floor of our FRIENDS of BAAC campaign with fun, but significant levels of giving,” Hagenbach said.
Dinah Robinson: $2,500 and up
Mabel Emery Bell: $1,000-$2,499
York, the Explorer: $500-$999
George Washington Ellis: $250-$499
Rev. Frederick Starr: $100-$249
Mariah Dayton Vaughn: $25-$99
BAAC has just received word that they have been awarded a MAC (Missouri Arts Council) Grant to offset the cost of JHJ musicians and poets. After more than two years and many hurdles along the way, their proposal to create a downtown mural to gain acceptance, has also been OK’d. Any additional funds raised at the fund raiser and not needed for Juneteenth will go toward the mural, which they hope to launch the summer of 2024.
These are exciting times for the Black Ancestors Awareness Campaign.
“I love researching Weston’s rich and shadowed history, then bringing the lives and stories of these resilient Black people alive by creating programs centered on their contributions, presented by outstanding actors, poets, musicians, storytellers, artists, and historians, and the significant Weston community involvement,” Hagenbach said. “We reach out, say their names, grow smarter, and learn how much we have in common.
The fund raiser will be at Green Grass Cattle Company at 17985 Hwy 45, Weston, (next to New Deal and The Bunkhouse) from 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 29. Rather than an admission, charge, they are accepting donations. They will be launching the FRIENDS of BAAC campaign, where friends can offer sustaining or annual financial support.