Category: Race

All posts filed under Race

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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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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University City, October 2008: Blood on the Tracks Poster

This poster was made in response to the sensational and racist news coverage of an influx of black youth hanging out in the Loop in the Summer / Fall of 2008. The title specifically references an RFT article about it. Dozens of the 15” x 20” posters were wheatpasted along the Loop, including one in
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Paolo, Kansas, 1883: Mob kills Child Molester

While running an errand in the early evening of February 7, 1883, 9-year-old Maud Bennington was abducted by Henry Smith. Smith beat and assaulted her and left her for dead in the freezing February air. A few hours later, Maud was found and by morning gained consciousness, telling of what Smith had done to her.
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City Jail Riot and Property Damage Following MLK Assassination

From antistatstl: In April 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King was murdered, and urban areas across the country erupted in riots. New York, Baltimore, D.C., Louisville, Chicago, Pittsburgh—in all, 125 cities burned in a collective venting of frustration and anger by those fucked-over all their lives by white, capitalist Amerikkka. Rebellions also occurred within prisons, including
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Lewis County, Missouri 1850: Slave Uprising

Late one night, members of the McCutchan Family awoke to the sound of passing wagons and oxen. John McCutchan went to his window and saw the wagons parking in a field next to his house. Shortly afterward, he heard the hushed voices of his slaves in their nearby room. Suspecting trouble, John woke his family,
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Mother Baltimore, 1801-1882

Around 1829, 11 families lead by Mother Baltimore left St. Louis, crossed the Mississippi River, and squatted a patch of land. Some of the families had bought their freedom, others were runaways. They called their settlement Freedom Village. The area they lived, the American Bottoms, was rich with fertile soil, trees, wildlife and fish, and
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