Greg Freeman: Older Folks' Stories About The Past Can Teach Us Something. 11/8/2001

Headline: OLDER FOLKS' STORIES ABOUT THE PAST CAN TEACH US SOMETHING
Reporter: By Greg Freeman

Publication: ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Last Printed: Thur., Nov. 8, 2001
Section: METRO, Page: C1, Edition: FIVE STAR LIFT

How many of us -- even when we have the chance -- decline to take advantage of the knowledge that older people have?
I know I'm guilty. I have relatives who are seniors with whom I've been promising to sit down and listen to their stories, to learn about their lives.
Every so often, though, an opportunity falls into your hands. I had such an opportunity Wednesday, and I grabbed it with gusto.

Some readers may know that I also host "St. Louis on the Air, " a talk show on KWMU radio.
   On Wednesday, Margaret Bush Wilson was my guest. She's an attorney, the first female national chair of the NAACP and the state's second black lawyer.
   Also with me was Charles Oldham, an attorney and longtime civil rights activist here. He and his late wife, Marian Oldham, were pioneers in efforts to seek equal accommodations for African-Americans here.
   Rounding out the panel was Norman Seay, a longtime civil rights activist and a founder of the St. Louis Committee on Racial Equality in 1947.

For an hour I was mesmerized as the three recounted the city's racial history. While they noted that St. Louis had no laws requiring blacks to sit at the back of the bus, as was the case in the South, most institutions were segregated by custom. Those who dared to challenge those customs were often tossed into jail.
   Seay recalled a time when blacks could ride only the outside of streetcars.
   Oldham remembered a case where a black man who had very fair skin was taken to City Hospital, a whites-only facility. When hospital officials realized the man was black, they refused to admit him and sent him to Homer G. Phillips Hospital, which was for black patients. He died en route.
  Wilson vividly recalled the Shelley vs. Kramer case that was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1948. That decision effectively overturned racially restrictive housing covenants in St. Louis, opening housing markets to blacks. Wilson's father, James T. Bush, was a real estate broker who had mobilized other black brokers to legally challenge restricted agreements that barred the owners of property from selling or renting to "people not wholly of the Caucasian race."
   "I heard that being discussed at the dinner table for four years, " Wilson said.

While some believe that the idea of people conducting sit-ins at lunch counters to protest cafeterias that refused to serve blacks began with some hungry students in North Carolina in 1960, the panel noted that that was far from the truth. In 1950, members of the Committee on Racial Equality conducted sit-ins at the cafeteria of the old Stix, Baer & Fuller department store downtown.
None of the cafeteria boycotts was covered by the mainstream newspapers. The Post-Dispatch, Globe-Democrat and Star-Times all had policies against covering the sit-ins.

All three civil rights pioneers noted that both blacks and whites were involved in the effort to desegregate St. Louis' institutions. Wilson and Seay are black; Oldham is white.
"CORE was very integrated -- and that wasn't unusual, " Seay said. "There were many, many whites who helped pave the way for integrating many of our institutions."
Finally, after years of protest, the city approved a public accommodations measure in the mid-1960s.

Although it's far from perfect today, St. Louis has come a long way from the days described by these civil rights pioneers.
  That's why I chuckle when I sometimes hear young blacks complaining that nothing ever changes here.
  Young people are, by nature, impatient. That's a redeeming characteristic. But it's important to look at the overall picture, to talk to older people who have been through a great deal, who have seen so much.
  As for St. Louis, understanding our past can help us better understand ourselves.
  Older people are blessed with knowledge. Those of us who are younger should listen to them more often.

Daniel Schesch - Webweaver

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