From a stage near Woodland Avenue and East Truman Road, a group of spectators listened intently to the young voices of the Kansas City Girls Choir and Kansas City Boys Choir. “We shall overco-o-ome. We shall overco-o–ome. We shall overcome some-day.” The notes of the old Civil Rights Movement anthem drifted over tents and food trucks as the crowd erupted in cheers. Hundreds filled the streets of the historic 18th and Vine Jazz District Saturday for the 12th annual Juneteenth KC Heritage Festival. Juneteenth marks the occasion in 1865 months after the Civil War when Black enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, were informed that President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation, the order which freed enslaved people in the states that joined the Confederacy. The passage of the 13th Amendment formally ended slavery in December 1865. The holiday has been celebrated since the 19th century, but it officially became a federal holiday in 2021 after years of advocacy by Blac...