One of the cakes that I was most surprised by was the cake located at the Martin Luther King Jr. statue, located in Fountain Park. I never knew that St. Louis had a statue of Martin Luther King Jr., and there it stands a few blocks northeast of the intersection at Delmar and Kingshighway. I can't tell you how many times I have driven near that area, yet never knew it existed, and I've lived in St. Louis my entire life. That truly saddened me, considering that I am a strong supporter and advocate for the work that Dr. King sacrificed his life for, not to mention that I served as the President of my college's Martin Luther King Student Union (MLKSU) and won an award in his honor at my Alma mater. This brings me back to the exhibit I attended this weekend.
The 250 in 250 exhibit did a wonderful job of showcasing 50 people, 50 places, 50 objects, 50 moments, and 50 images that tell the story of St. Louis's 250 years. I was thoroughly impressed by the selections that were represented among these categories. It must have been a truly difficult process of narrowing the "candidates" of these categories down to 50. I enjoyed learning about the many men and women who have represented our city. The stories of the Shelleys, Homer G. Phillips, and many, many others were compelling to say the least. But probably the most shocking, and interesting things that I learned during my 2-hour time at the exhibit, were among the 50 places that were selected.
Of course places like Fort Bellefontaine, the Delmar Loop, and Schnucks are places that I have a recollection of, in that they still exist today. However, what I was not prepared for was learning about the places that no longer exist in St. Louis. Places like the Philippine Reservation, that was held at the 1904 World's Fair which showcased a living display of Filipino people in their "natural habitat" as a way to promote colonization, or the Social Evil Hospital, which served as a medical facility for the city's legalized prostitutes during the end of the 19th century. What was even more disturbing to me were Lynch's Slave Pen, Mill Creek Valley, People's Finance Building, and the infamous Pruitt-Igoe Housing Project.
Lynch's Slave Pen was a facility located in downtown St. Louis where slaves were sold. Yes, we all know that Missouri was a slave state, so the idea that there was a facility where slaves were sold is not surprising. However, the fact that the facility was not demolished until 1963 is what disturbs me the most! Slavery was abolished in 1863 so why did it take literally 100 years for this evil building to be torn down?! Something is not right about this.
I had also never heard of Mill Creek Valley, which was 450 acres of land west of downtown (approximately where Harris Stowe and SLU stand now) where about 20,000 residents lived (95% of whom were black people), and 800 business were located in 1959, when the City of St. Louis declared it a slum and ordered it to be completely wiped out. One of the businesses located there was the Peoples Finance Building (shown below), a 5-story office building which housed the local NAACP chapter offices, and other offices operated by African-American private practice doctors, attorneys, politicians, and retail stores. This along with all of the rest of Mill Creek Valley were demolished and bulldozed in 1959. The area was completely cleared out in the name of "urban renewal". It seems more to me like this was due to racism as much as making downtown St. Louis more commercially friendly and accessible. Below is a picture of Mill Creek Valley during its demolition, and a link to old footage describing its destruction.
Peoples Finance Building courtesy of Western Historical Manuscripts Collection
Mill Creek Valley during its demolition courtesy of www.nextstl.com
It is incredibly disheartening to think about all of those people who had to pack up and move elsewhere, many of whom were probably financially struggling, with no where to go. I read on the 250 in 250 exhibit website, http://250in250.mohistory.org , that many of the buildings were operational and cosmetically secure including homes, churches, and other buildings. So why couldn't the authorities just condemn and destroy the decaying homes only? Why did the entire community need to be destroyed, forced to evacuate, and close their businesses? What would have happened if Mill Creek Valley had just been rehabilitated rather than destroyed? We will never know. But during the 1950s, as this section of town was being cleared out, another part of town close by was being created, the Pruitt-Igoe housing projects.
The Pruitt-Igoe Housing Project courtesy of www.Wikipedia.org
Pruitt-Igoe has become synonymous with failure in architecture and failure in social housing projects. The homes were considered to be the next great thing in affordable housing for low-income families. These high-rises in North St. Louis were comprised of 33 11-story buildings, that featured rents as low as $40 per month. The homes were completed in 1956, and shortly after began to decline and became a symbol for crime and poverty. White-flight and the creation of the suburbs left the housing project in disrepair and without consistent maintenance. The welfare system in place during this time, which was enforced in many of these homes, forbid men from living within the same home as their families. I'm sure that the absence of male figures in the home destroyed families and created future familial issues for these people for generations to come. The scarcity of jobs led to poverty and crime. Pruitt-Igoe became notorious for its crime, and in 1972 the first buildings of the complex were demolished with explosives, which were followed by the remaining buildings until the mid-1970s. "The Pruitt-Igoe Myth: An Urban History" is a masterfully done TV documentary from 2012, which gives the history and collapse of the housing project. The project cost 57 million dollars to build, and yet it didn't survive 20 years. I'm sure that the plan was to put these low-income people in a high-rise so that the city's other urban renewal projects had plenty of room to be built in the central and downtown areas of the city. Today, there is overrun vegetation in the area where the Pruitt-Igoe complex once stood.
So why is all of this significant now that we are in the year 2015? I am a black 31 year-old woman. I was born in St. Louis and was raised in Ballwin, Missouri, where my family was the only black family on our street until I turned 20 years old and was away in college. At an early age, I was aware that St. Louis had a segregation issue. I could tell when I would go to school in the Parkway School District and white teachers would assume that I was bussed in from the city as part of the desegregation program. And yes, to readers who are unfamiliar with St. Louis, it is in fact still referred to as the Desegregation program to this day. St. Louis has a race and segregation issue. This goes deeper and further back than the day that 18-year-old Mike Brown was killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. That is what has been the most unsettling thing to me since attending this exhibit; the fact that it is one thing to know that St. Louis is segregated, but it is an entirely different circumstance to know facts as to how and when it happened. Yet, people don't want to confront that our fair city, which at one time was the 4th largest city in the country and now is the 58th largest, has a race problem. The fact that to this day, middle school students reenact the Dred Scott decision as a field trip, which was the case of a slave who sued for his freedom after being taken into a free state and then was brought back to Missouri, a slave state, and lost the case, further proves this fact! St. Louis and the events that took place last summer are a microcosm of the issues that plague our entire country today.
Many people slightly younger than me seem to believe that the 1950s and 1960s were so long ago, but that is within my parents' lifetime. Racism and the effects of racism have a trickle-down effect into future generations. Just as the effects of welfare, poverty, and systemic racism from decades ago can still be felt today. St. Louis needs jobs, which unfortunately many of the major headquarters that once flourished in St. Louis have left the city or have closed for good. With a decrease in jobs comes an increase in crime. The crime rate in the city of St. Louis has been steadily climbing and we have been considered in recent years to be one of the country's most dangerous cities. The population in St. Louis city is decreasing, although the greater St. Louis metropolitan area ranks as the 21st largest metropolitan area in the country. We can do better St. Louis, and we can be better. So how do we do this?
Young people love to use the phrase "I'm so St. Louis", but yet how many of those people will even bother to go to the exhibit at the History Museum before it leaves in a couple of weeks? I'm not going to lie, I want to leave St. Louis. The things that I learned at this exhibit did much to solidify that desire in me. However, if we all leave this town, then who will be left to help make it better? That is the quandary I am struggling with, but I have to do what is best for me. I have an MBA that I am currently not using at my present job, where I am underemployed. My parents did much to raise me to be a good citizen of the community and to have options. But it seems like the options here are few and far between. Whatever we as a city and community make plans to do to make our city better, I hope that we can come together to do it, and soon!
