Segment 29 Johnny Waller guest

One-on-one with Swope Health: Johnny Waller Jr.
Swope Health announces a new edition of its podcast, One on One with Swope Health, featuring Johnny Waller Jr., a community activist.
Eric Wesson, founder and publisher of The Next Page KC, a newspaper focused on the Black community, hosts the show’s conversations with Kansas Citians about issues of importance to the community’s health and wellbeing.
In this episode, Waller talks about how he came to Kansas City following a period in prison in Nebraska in 2001. His lived experience includes guns, violence, and gangs.
He cites the extraordinary amount of violence, coupled with the lack of investment on the East side, as the city’s largest issues. He notes the significant developments in the Riverfront, the Crossroads, and downtown - yet no development in the city’s East side. In some tracts on the city’s East side, the average household income is listed at $15,232.
He traces the root cause of the violence to poverty, lack of education and the lack of livable wages for jobs. We struggle to address the root causes of violence and the culture of violence, and mass incarceration is not the answer, he said.
“Kansas City has gotten used to failure,” he said. "That shouldn’t be normal. Don’t normalize failure.”
Waller calls on the city, businesses, private organizations, nonprofits and individuals to do more to break the cycle of failure and hold leaders accountable for the violence, poverty, and poor health outcomes in the community.
Listen to the full conversation here.