St. Louis History in Black and White

St. Louis has the dubious distinction of being one of the most racially polarized cities in the nation. However, it would be unfair not to acknowledge that many other cities also have had, and still have, problems with race relations.Three black African Americans of separate generations sat down together at the St. Louis History Museum to talk about their experiences growing up black in St. Louis, and their impressions of how the black experience changed for them here over the years. Mariah Richardson is a playwright, actress and teacher. She attended desegregated schools in St. Louis. Donn Johnson is a retired broadcast journalist who grew up on both sides of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision. Percy Green is a lifelong civil rights activist. He was in the vanguard of the civil rights movement in the late fifties through the early sixties, and ever since, primarily as a civil disobedience strategist.

St. Louis attorney David M. Grant found ways to break barriers to equal rights. His daughter, Gail Milissa Grant, wrote about his life and her own in St. Louis in her book At the Elbows of my EldersOne Familys Journey Toward Civil Rights.

One of the great athletes of the second half of the 20th century was Bob Gibson of the St. Louis Cardinals. He was a Hall of Fame pitcher known for his aggressive approach to the game. He is still revered as one of the greatest Cardinals players ever. His career took him from the late '50s, through the '60s, and into the following decade. He pitched through the important years in black Americas struggle to win equal rights. These were the days of Martin Luther King, Kings assassination, bloody clashes between blacks and whites in the South, and violence directed at black, and white, youth involved in attempts to integrate. Blacks were becoming more militant. Gibson was not blind to any of it, nor to his own role. He talked about it in the fall of 2009, after a raucous summer of Tea Party political demonstrations, criticism of our first black president, and social reform legislation--which some saw as evidence of overt racism.

Much has been written about black military units in this country dating back to the days of the Buffalo Soldiers after the Civil War through the Tuskegee Airmen of World War Two. Less has been written about the experience of individual black soldiers who played a significant role in Europe and the Pacific in World War Two before the Armed Services were integrated in 1948. University of Iowa Professor Jeffrey Copeland has written about one such soldier, Inman Perkins, a teacher at Sumner High when he was drafted at the start of the war. Copeland recounts Perkins experiences, which mirrored those of many black servicemen, in his book, Inmans War: A Soldiers Story of Life in a Colored Battalion in World War Two.

For two decades before she was born, Gail Milissa Grants father and mother had been actively involved in fighting the barriers of segregation and discrimination in St. Louis. David Grant had been closely associated with national leaders in the movement and was close to numerous celebrities who also played a role. He and they fought successfully on many fronts, but progress was slow. A de facto racial isolation was part of their everyday life. His decision to move his family to South St. Louis, which was virtually all white, was based on economics, not the need to break that particular geographical barrier. But, it put his two young children into a potentially hostile environment. This period is reflected in Gail Milissa Grants personal account of the period At the Elbows of my EldersOne Familys Journey Toward Civil Rights.