This month’s article, detailing Kansas City’s Black gospel legacy, first appeared in the Jackson County Historical Society Journal in 2013.
Ten years later its author, Paul Wenske, a journalist and filmmaker, debuted the documentary film that grew out of his research.
“I’m So Glad: Kansas City and the Roots of Black Gospel Music, The Untold Story,” since has been exhibited at many locations across the Kansas City area.
Wenske is a principal in Electric Prairie Productions, a three-person collaborative that includes his son Chris Wenske, who served as videographer and editor on the project, and his wife Nancy Meis, who served as co-producer.
The three spent much of the past 10 years visiting historically Black churches to document more than 200 gospel music performers. They also interviewed archivists, historians, pastors, choral directors and authors.
Wenske long has been active on both sides of the state line.
As a journalist he served as a national and investigative reporter for the Kansas City Star. As an educator, he taught at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas.
He also served as a senior community development advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, where he supervised neighborhood revitalization programs across the bank’s seven-state Tenth District.
“I’m So Glad” is narrated by Isaac C. Cates, an internationally renowned local gospel composer, conductor and performer.
Two more showings of “I’m So Glad” are scheduled in the coming weeks.
At noon on Friday, February 23, the documentary will be shown at the Cleaver Family YMCA, 7000 Troost Ave., in Kansas City.
At 4 p.m. on Saturday, April 6, it will be shown at the Englewood Arts Center, 10901 E. Winner Road, in Independence.
To learn more about the film and Kansas City’s Black gospel music legacy, go to ImSoGladProject.com.
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