Angela Bates
Kansas Historical Foundation
Board of Directors
Elected to board: 1995
Elected to executive committee: 2007
Angela Bates’s ancestors were among the original settlers of Nicodemus in 1877. She grew up in Pasadena, California, but her family’s trips to Kansas drew her to relocate to the state. She received a bachelor’s degree in education from Emporia State University.
Bates has devoted much of her career to sharing the history of African American migration and the preservation of history and architecture in Nicodemus. She is a member of the National Parks Conservation Association and National Trust for Historic Preservation. She served as president of the Nicodemus Historical Society. She shares her stories through performances, documentaries, radio, and television.
She received the Kansas Sampler Foundation’s “We Can” award for her work in historic preservation. She received the Brown Foundation’s award for excellent for preserving African American history. She has been honored by the Kansas Humanities Council for outstanding contributions. The National Trust named her a “Preservation Hero.” She was named a woman of distinction by the Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Committee of Topeka.
Bates was first elected to the Kansas Historical Foundation Board of Directors in 1995 where she served until 2016.