Diane Charity learned street-level advocacy in 1962 at the age of 12.
It was the Civil Rights era, and her grandmother “volun-told” her to canvass door-to-door with Kansas City’s powerful, political-action group Freedom Inc.
“We learned how to talk to people about who to vote for,” Charity says. “We learned how to build relationships.”
Charity — who turns 75 this year — continues that fight. What began with her grandmother was ramped up when her teenage son was shot and further evolved into co-founding KC Tenants, a grassroots organization that has grown from 12 original members to 10,000 and reshaped Kansas City politics.
A Mother’s Turning Point
In 1991, Charity’s 14-year-old son was walking through a park when two teenagers shot him in the stomach. He survived, but worried neighbors began calling.
“I ain’t moving,” said Charity. “I’m gonna start straightening this [expletive] up.”
Charity began working to make her neighborhood safer. She started with the drug dealers living next door. They were undeterred by the police, so Charity tried another tactic.
“I called these kids and said if you don’t stop, I’m gonna call your mama,” says Charity.
Within a week, they weren’t causing any trouble.
Building Experience
For the next several decades, Charity worked multiple fronts, advocating for civil rights, political power and housing issues, including an active role fighting for tenants’ rights as a member and president of the Parade Park Homes Board of Directors. She served as neighborhood association president in Manheim Park despite being a renter in a homeowner-dominated space. She did community outreach for a number of organizations, including Aim4Peace, and worked for the city planning department, conducting assessments.
The experiences revealed systemic inequities. In her own neighborhood, 78% of residents were renters with no voice in neighborhood decisions.
“Tenants don’t feel welcome, even if they’ve lived here 20 and 30 years,” Charity observed.
Data Meets the Experience
On her birthday in 2018, Charity attended a local health department meeting about evictions. The presenter was Harvard-educated researcher Tara Raghuveer, whose data revealed that Kansas City’s typical eviction victim was a 49-year-old Black woman living east of Troost.
“Everything I’d been screaming about for 40 years about housing, she had in data,” said Charity. “Data is the language of today.”
The veteran organizer and young researcher later connected over lunch, bridging lived experience with academic findings. Their partnership — along with co-founders Brandy Granados and Tiana Caldwell — would soon reshape Kansas City’s power dynamics.
KC Tenants Emerges
In February 2019, 12 people gathered for the first KC Tenants meeting. Charity brought decades of organizing wisdom, while Raghuveer contributed research and strategic vision.
Today, KC Tenants is a grassroots multiracial coalition of renters that has become one of the most powerful tenant unions in the Midwest.
The organization operates on the principle that “the people closest to the problem are closest to the solution” and has become a national model for tenant organizing, advising 50+ similar groups across the country.
The group uses a combination of direct action, policy advocacy, and electoral organizing to fight for renters’ rights. Charity calls the organization’s results-driven tactics “going from green to red” — polite requests before direct action.
“Before we raise hell, we ask nicely,” says Charity. “When they dismiss those emails and calls, then we escalate.”
Their tactics have worked. During COVID-19, when a Jackson County judge ignored the federal eviction moratorium, KC Tenants shut down eviction court. The group has since advocated for and helped get passed a comprehensive Tenant Bill of Rights, secured free legal representation in eviction court for Kansas City tenants, and elected tenant-friendly candidates to the city council through the organization’s political arm, KC Tenants Power.’
Still in the Fight
Charity remains one of KC Tenants’ most recognizable faces. She serves as board secretary and attends weekly meetings, mentors younger organizers, and wears the signature yellow shirts — her favorite color — that symbolize tenant power across Kansas City.
“Oh, God, here comes the yellow shirts,” Charity laughs, mimicking officials’ reactions. “Then I act grandmotherly and say, ‘Hi baby, how are ya?'”
From a 12-year-old canvasser to a co-founder of the Midwest’s most powerful tenant union in her 70s, Diane Charity proves that age amplifies rather than diminishes the power to create change.