Municipal Auditorium

On Sunday, November 4, 1962, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke to an audience of approximately 8,000 people during the annual Protestant Reformation service in the arena of the Municipal Auditorium. "Too many live by the rule that something is all right because everyone else is doing it," Dr. King said. "Today something is wrong if you get caught. And ‘right’ is not to get caught. It's a philosophy of survival of the slickest."

Prior to Dr. King’s address, marchers gathered in front of the Auditorium, including Wayne A. Morse, Rev. Cecil Williams, and Dr. John Swomley. Williams, African American, and Swomley, white, wore signs defending the purpose of the meeting in answer to a sign being worn by Morse, also white. “I love this racist Morse, even if he and other commies oppose equality” was written on Swomley’s sign, according to the Kansas City Times on Monday, November 5, 1962. The Municipal Auditorium opened to the public on December 1, 1935, designed to meet the needs for a 20th century city’s functional, multi-use space, and was built with funds raised with the help of the political machine of Tom Pendergast as well as federal WPA assistance money.

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