Category: General

All posts filed under General

“Each Crueler Than the Last”

Notes on Christopher Columbus and Henry Shaw for the Destruction of Their Honor Last month, a crowd tore down a Confederate monument in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, continuing a tradition of iconoclasm initiated in nearby Durham a year ago after the clashes in Charlottesville. Now, as we approach Columbus Day 2018, a panel of experts is debating the fate
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Sneaky Cop Haters in late 1970s St. Louis

During this period of time, which is of no more significance than any other 5-year period, some rather important-feeling officers of the law became the fortunate victims of the timeless urge to “pull the chair from beneath your bully.” March 1976: The RIT wire basket factory in Rock Hill caught fire because someone wanted it
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George Caleb Bingham and The Verdict of the People

Trigger warning: This article contains details of lynchings and other graphic violence necessary in maintaining slavering. This article is written in response to the petition attempting to halt the St. Louis Art Museum from loaning The Verdict of the People to Donald Trump’s inaugural luncheon. The petition reads, “George Caleb Bingham’s 1855 painting ‘Verdict of
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What Mound Have Been

What Mound Have Been is a petite, personal history of the curious earthworks of North St. Louis. The text explores the mysterious origins and unexpected transformations of the city’s monumental earthen mounds from the burial grounds of Native Americans to the platforms of early St. Louis colonialists for their self-aggrandizing fountains; from a hideout for delinquent youths
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St. Louis Draft Dodger, 1969-1974

Vietnam was one of a number of countries that private and state capitalists fought over during the Cold War. In the decades leading up to the war with the United States, Vietnam’s struggle for self-determination was comparable to Barcelona in the 1920s and ’30s in terms of strikes and social unrest. By the 1960s, authoritarian
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St. Louis, 2006-2007: Anti-Development Fires

From 2006-2007, a series of fires tore through the construction sites of some of St. Louis’s largest and most expensive housing developments. These arsons took place in the centers of what today are still zones of tension between gentrifiers and all those whose lives they affect. The following is an article from the 2006 issue
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Columbia, Missouri, August 2003: Mob Burns U. S. Flag

The following article is from the Columbia Daily Tribune, August 4, 2003. Though the world saw some of its largest protests ever leading up to the U. S. invasion of Iraq, the anti-war movement largely fell-apart shortly after the March 2003 start of the war. Members of this mob likely had many reasons for burning
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Johnson County, 1840s: John, the fugitive slave

The following is from a forth-coming history of Missouri slave resistance. 30-year-old John was a runaway slave from Kentucky living in the woods of Johnson County, Missouri. For as many as five or six years John lived free in the wilderness. During that time, he successfully hid and outsmarted his former master, E. L. McLane.
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St. Louis, 1910: Brown Family Moves to Forest Park Heights

In the summer of 1910, the Brown Family moved to Forest Park Heights, an all-white suburban neighborhood southwest of Forest Park. Immediately, residents protested their arrival. Louis Brown had bought the house on the 7500 block of Wise Ave (modern-day Richmond Heights) for himself and his family—including Lela Warwick, a school teacher, four cousins, and
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