History
U.S. House passes Wounded Knee memorial bill
The U.S. House approved by voice vote Wednesday a bill that would help protect land at the site of the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre in South Dakota, where an estimated 350 Lakota were killed by U.S. soldiers. The site is within the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Cheyenne River […]
Congress and nonprofit working to put women’s suffrage monument on National Mall
As Congress considers a bill to place a women’s suffrage monument on the National Mall, a nonprofit is working to raise the estimated $50 million needed to build it. The Women’s Suffrage National Monument Foundation, the nonprofit backing the effort, launched a donation campaign Tuesday in an effort to raise funds for a memorial honoring […]
Juneteenth events grow statewide, as advocates celebrate progress on reparations
As Missourians go out to celebrate Juneteenth this weekend and commemorate the end of slavery in the United States, local advocates say they may feel a new sense of hope brewing. In the past year, the state’s two major cities, St. Louis and Kansas City, have established reparations commissions. These groups of community members are […]
‘World War II hasn’t stopped’: St. Louis residents want relief for radiation sickness
Kim Visintine said her son had his first chemotherapy treatment at three weeks old. A year later, Visintine and her husband had $100,000 in medical debt. Six years later, their son died. But it wasn’t until she found hometown friends on Facebook that Visintine connected her son’s cancer – a rare form of brain tumor called […]
Former nurses at historic St. Louis hospital file trademark lawsuit against developer
The name “Homer G. Phillips Hospital” is still spoken with reverence, not only in St. Louis’ Black community, but across the country. Opened in 1937, it was the only public hospital for Black St. Louisans until 1955. It was also a training facility, where Black doctors and nurses from around the world came to complete […]
Will Juneteenth have broader, enduring meaning as a national holiday? | Opinion
In June 2021, Congress, with a unanimous vote in the Senate and support of all but 14 Republicans in the House of Representatives, passed legislation designating June 19th as Juneteenth National Independence Day, commemorating the end of slavery for Black Americans. But what does it really mean? In the years to come, will it be […]
Juneteenth celebrates just one of the United States’ 20 emancipation days | Opinion
The actual day was June 19, 1865, and it was the Black dockworkers in Galveston, Texas, who first heard the word that freedom for the enslaved had come. There were speeches, sermons and shared meals, mostly held at Black churches, the safest places to have such celebrations. The perils of unjust laws and racist social […]
‘A piece of history for your house’: Missouri auctions stone salvaged from Capitol Building
On Friday morning, stones quarried more than 100 years ago performed one last service for Missouri. Until recently, the dense white Burlington limestone pieces were part of the state Capitol Building completed in 1917. They provided surfaces for sidewalks and staircases, and formed rims for the three fountains that have attracted thousands of art students […]
Missouri could become the seventh state to recognize Black History Month
Missouri law doesn’t officially recognize Black History Month — a fact that surprised several Black state lawmakers this week. “I had to double and triple check it because I thought I was seeing things incorrectly at first,” said Rep. Mark Sharp, D- Kansas City, during a Monday meeting of the House Special Committee on Urban […]
DeVerne Calloway’s legacy in Missouri politics celebrated during Black History Month
In June 1961, DeVerne Calloway sat down at her typewriter to write a column about the uncertain future of the Freedom Rides organized by the activist group Congress of Racial Equity (CORE). For almost two months, the Freedom Riders had faced severe beatings and harsh arrests in their efforts to challenge segregated interstate buses. Calloway, […]
Anguish of Hyatt Regency Hotel collapse reverberates 40 years after catastrophe
TOPEKA, Kansas — Trauma still grips survivors and first-responders exposed to the nightmare collapse of concrete, steel and glass skywalks in the atrium of the Hyatt Regency Hotel during a popular Friday evening big-band dance contest in Kansas City. As many as 2,000 people were in the one-year-old hotel lobby for the weekly Tea Dance […]