StoryCorps In Kansas City — Living Through The Trauma Of Integrating America

Rebecca Liberty and Necia Gamby call themselves "sister friends" because their bond is so tight. But the women came from very different environments growing up.

Gamby remembered when her family moved to 55th and Garfield in Kansas City in the early 1960s. The area was predominantly white, and the few black people, including Gamby, were treated with open disdain and violence. She remembers starting middle school and being called the N-word on the bus every day.

"I had things thrown at me, bricks thrown at the bus at me. I was greatly traumatized," said Gamby.

Several years later, white families began to flock west of Troost Avenue and to the suburbs, flipping the demographic of the area from almost all white to almost all black.