Headline:  RACE-CONSCIOUS AREA HAS FALLEN SHORT OF KING'S IDEAL
Byline: By Gregory Freeman

Publication: ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Date:  Sun. Mar. 29,1998
Section: NEWS ANALYSIS, Page: C1, Edition: FIVE STAR LIFT


And so today I still have a dream.  People will rise up and come to see that they are made to live together as brothers and sisters.
 - Martin Luther King Jr. ***

When Daniel Waters moved into the then-integrated Penrose neighborhood in 1965, he believed he was living the dream so eloquently articulated by Martin Luther King Jr.  "We were middle-class black folks living next to middle-class white folks," Waters said.  "We were so proud to have finally made it.  We proudly cut our grass, trimmed our hedges, did everything we could to make sure that our homes looked wonderful."
    
And then the whites left.  One by one, until finally only an elderly white woman lived on the block.  "It was because we're black," Waters said.  "That's all it could be. There wasn't any more crime than before we came, we took good care of our property, we did all the things you'd expect a homeowner to do.  And still they left."
     
Their leaving saddened him.  "One reason I moved here was because I thought it would be good for my kids to have experiences with white kids, to make them well-rounded," Waters said.  The Waters' three children are all grown and have moved away.  But Waters still lives in the same house, still cuts his hedges and trims his lawn, keeping his house in shape.  "I don't think Dr. King's dream was realized," Waters said.  "We got close, but it didn't happen."

Don't tell that to Mike O'Brien.  O'Brien, who's white, lives in a subdivision in Florissant with black and white neighbors.  "We all get along," he says.  "We have barbecues together, visit each other's homes for dinner, do all sorts of things together."  The best friend of O'Brien's daughter is a black girl who lives a couple of houses away.  O'Brien has lived in this neighborhood for five years and has no plans to move.  "This is a great place," he said. "Nice neighborhood, good schools, good neighbors.  What else could I want?"
  
To O'Brien, King's dream has been realized.  "I can't imagine living in this kind of an area 40 years ago," he said.  "I think Martin Luther King had a lot to do with that."

Clearly, the question of whether King's dream has been realized depends on whom you ask.  In fact, King had many dreams: a dream of economic parity, which has yet to be fulfilled; a dream of a fair society, where blacks and whites could fairly compete for the same jobs; and a dream that blacks and whites could live, work and play together.

In the St. Louis area, the last dream has been difficult to achieve.  Ours is a highly segregated region.  With the exception of desegregated schools and integrated workplaces, rarely do we associate with one another.  There are restaurants and bars in the St. Louis area that would m ake me uncomfortable should I walk in them.  Conversely, there are black-owned establishments here that would make whites feel uncomfortable.
    
We are very conscious of race here. Is that what Martin Luther King would have wanted?  Probably not.

Housing segregation remains a significant problem in this region.  There are plenty who would suggest that their reasons for moving were purely economic.  Research of the 1990 census, however, shows that if family income were the determining factor, housing patterns in the region would be 83 percent more racially integrated. The statistics contradict a popular misconception that housing cost is the main reason for the high levels of segregation in our communities.  Housing segregation in St. Louis breaks down along racial lines regardless of family income.
    
Meanwhile, a 1992 report in USA Today ranked St. Louis the 12th most segregated of 219 metropolitan areas.  University of Chicago research showed the level of housing segregation in the St. Louis region is consistently above the national average for large, racially diverse metropolitan areas.
   
That makes Waters' experience common for this area and O'Brien's experience less common.  Still, King wanted to see more situations like that of O'Brien.

While integrated communities exist throughout our region, they are often few and far between.  O'Brien's experience in Florissant is an example; so is the Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood, near Forest Park.  The Westminster Place area near midtown is certainly diverse, and who could forget the diversity that is University City?

Still, while some St. Louisans have learned and appreciate the value of diversity, others are unwilling or unable to take advantage of it.  Yet until we learn to live together, to know one another, to take advantage of what each other has to offer, we're doomed to suffer from racial polarization.

Somewhere, Martin Luther King is watching, with his head hanging low.


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