Black History Month: Joe Person and the fight for equal housing
In celebration of Black History Month, the Johnson County Museum is exploring the history of a local businessman who fought for housing equality in his neighborhood. Joe Person, a resident of the Fairview neighborhood of Olathe, helped his neighbors keep their homes during an era of urban renewal.
The Person family and urban renewal in the 1960s
Joe and Mary Person met while Joe, a Navy service member, was stationed at the Olathe Naval Air Station.
A veteran, a businessman, a husband and father, Johnson County resident Joe Person also played a role in the fight for equal housing in his Olathe neighborhood.
The neighborhood, a historically and predominantly Black community near Santa Fe Street and S Parker Street in Olathe, was home after World War II to Person (Joseph C. Person Sr.) and his wife, Mary Catherine Berry. A Navy service member, Joe was stationed at the Olathe Naval Air Station when he met Mary.
Joe Person was a respected member of the Fairview neighborhood, located on the city’s northwest side near downtown Olathe, and a local small businessman. As a Navy veteran, Person used $50 of his $300 discharge pay from the war to purchase a 54-by-140-foot lot near Fairview Park, where he built his small home and expanded it as the family grew.
When urban renewal came to Olathe in the 1960s, Joe Person joined the neighborhood battle against potential financial hardships that would force Fairview households to move.
“Implemented across the nation, urban renewal projects sought to modernize communities, but the improvements often fractured communities of color,” according to Johnson County Museum.
Under the Olathe Urban Renewal Project, the first phase redeveloped most of downtown Olathe in the mid-1960s, including demolition of more than 100 historic buildings. Beginning in 1967, the second phase targeted redevelopment of a designated 12-block area in the Fairview neighborhood.
OURP’s goal was to remove the “blighted” Fairview houses, many occupied by Black families, and replace them with new, modern houses. Residents worried that they would not be able to afford the new homes and would have to relocate.
“From what I understand, they were going to come in and remodel the neighborhood, but there was a resistance from the people who lived there because they did not have a voice in what was going on,” Mary Person said in an oral history interview with her husband on Dec. 20, 1995. The interview is part of the museum’s collections.
Joe Person agreed. “It wasn’t resistance, we just didn’t know about it. We knew that they were coming to town with urban renewal, but we didn’t know that we were included,” he added in the interview.
Helping Fairview residents rehabilitate their homes
Joe Person with his wife, Mary, and children (left to right) Delphine Fortner, Joe Person Jr. and George Fortner. James Fortner stands behind the couch.
Joe Person was a member of the Fairview Neighborhood Council, which approved the project to improve the neighborhood. He and Ruth Shechter, a proponent of equal housing in Johnson County and a white Jewish woman, had the difficult role of mediating between Fairview residents and the OURP to “modernize” their homes.
Person and Shechter also teamed up with others to create the non-profit Homes Evaluation and Rehabilitation. H.E.R.E. bought homes deemed “sub-standard” by the OURP, made the needed repairs to the structures and sold them back to the original owners with low-interest, long-term FHA loans, according to Johnson County Museum.
The rehabilitation costs were far less than building a new house. The program helped many Fairview residents continue to live in their homes.
In the oral history interview, Joe Person said his home was valued at $8,000. The new modern house to replace their residence had an estimated cost of $70,000. Although the planners intended Fairview residents to be able to purchase the new housing, most residents’ incomes had not changed.
“Can you picture going from $8,000 to $70,000 with the same job?” Joe Person asked.
However, the Olathe Urban Renewal Project resulted in the demolition of 57 structures and displacement of 33 Black families from Fairview, including the Persons. Ironically, Joe Person was prohibited from participating in the H.E.R.E. program because of his membership on the neighborhood council approving the project.
After moving from Fairview, the Persons stayed in Olathe, “went in debt” to purchase a larger home and raised their family of 11 children. The couple were married for 50 years until Mary Person's death in 1996. Joe Person passed in 2010, leaving behind an important legacy for equal housing in the county he called home.
Explore more black history by reading these Black History Month articles about other figures who played a role in Johnson County history: