Gary Kremer, director of the State Historical Society of Missouri, is a fifth-generation Missourian who has spent much of his adult life researching and writing about the history of the Show-Me State. No one, perhaps, has written more about the state’s African-American history.

In a discussion of his book Race and Meaning, a collection of his scholarly articles, Kremer examines the journey of Missouri’s African-Americans – from their transition from slavery to freedom to life in all-black rural communities and the search for new opportunities in the state’s cities. Among those featured is Kansas City’s William J. Thompkins, who was a superintendent of the all-black General Hospital No. 2 and served as a major local and national Democratic political operative.