Doris J. Kerr Larkins was born in 1938 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and moved to Wichita, Kansas as a child. She graduated from Wichita State University with a bachelor's degree in Musical Education; she later attended Lane College (Jackson, Tennessee), earning a degree in Humanities, and Friends University for a degree in Human Resources Management. Larkins worked in a number of community organizations throughout Wichita such as the YWCA and Volunteers in Services to America in the 1960s. She also worked on various civil rights issues, including the development of Kwanzaa and Juneteenth celebrations, and issues of African-American history.

When the congregation of Calvary Baptist Church moved to a new location in 1972, Kerr-Larkins, her sisters, and the community, fought to save the old church building. Their efforts paid off and in 1974 she co-founded (along with her sisters Ra'Shualaamu Beruni and Barbara Kerr) the First National Black Historical Society of Kansas. In 1993, the Society became a non-profit organization and placed the original Calvary Baptist Church building on the National Registrar of Historic Places. The Society's name changed to The Kansas African American Museum, Inc. in 1999. At the time of her death on February 17, 1994, Doris Kerr Larkins also worked as a home health aide. In 2005, Sedgwick County designated November 12th as Doris Kerr Larkins day.