Gregory Freeman: Who Will Fight Good Fight Now? P-D 3/15/1994

Headline: WHO WILL FIGHT GOOD FIGHT NOW?
Reporter: By Gregory Freeman

Publication: ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Last Printed: Tues., Mar. 15, 1994
Section: WAR PAGE, Page: 9B, Edition: FIVE STAR

BLACK WOMEN in this country have a reputation for being strong, dating back at least to the days of slavery, when many of them had to fend for their families after their husbands had been taken away, beaten or sold to others.

Yet Marian Oldham displayed a special strength that all too many of us took for granted during her lifetime. Oldham, who died Saturday at the age of 66, could easily have settled back and left the civil rights battles to others. A real estate saleswoman with A.K. Feinberg Real Estate Co., she led a comfortable life and was married to successful attorney Charles Oldham, himself a soldier in the battle for civil rights.
Oldham, a charming woman who could be firm when she had to, was a civil rights pioneer in St. Louis. She was one of the founders of the St. Louis Committee of Racial Equality, the local chapter of the national Congress on Racial Equality. She refused to acquiesce to laws that segregated St. Louis and Missouri.
There was a certain poetic justice for her in 1977 when then-Gov. Joseph P. Teasdale appointed her the first black woman on the Board of Curators of the University of Missouri - a university system that 28 years before had paid her tuition to an out-of-state university because it refused to enroll black students.

Throughout her life, she was willing to speak against injustices even when they did not affect her directly. In 1964, she was an early voice against government funding for projects that did not employ blacks. In a speech at Fontbonne College, she urged the federal government to "get out of the segregation business." In the same speech, she criticized the state.
"The state Highway Commission has about 6,000 jobs and fewer than 50 Negroes are employed, most of them as janitors, " she said.
The federal and state governments eventually came around.

It was during seven months in 1963 and 1964, though, that the dedication to civil rights by Oldham, her husband and others really paid off. In that year, she spent 11 days in jail as a result of protests against Jefferson Bank & Trust, demanding an end to employment discrimination.
   Jefferson Bank had refused to hire blacks in white-collar positions, and the protesters - black and white - chose it to push for equal opportunity here.
   In the end, the protests changed the face of banking and other service industries in St. Louis. It forced industries to recognize that blacks were intelligent, competent and able to perform exceedingly well, given the opportunity.
   By the time the demonstrations ended, most of the city's 1,000 companies had signed on to an equal employment program. They had hired 1,300 blacks in jobs never before held by blacks.
   Banks hired 84 blacks in white-collar positions. Four of those jobs were at Jefferson Bank.

In an interview five years ago, Oldham reflected on those demonstrations. "I don't know of any other single effort in this town that involved thousands of people black and white in the last 50 years, " Oldham said. "I think progress has been made since the 1960s."
But in the same interview, Oldham said that more progress was necessary, citing high black unemployment and the low annual median income for blacks. She also cited education, housing, crime and health care as areas that needed attention.

Who will battle those problems?
Many of the old warriors are still around - Frankie M. Freeman, Norman Seay, William L. Clay, Solomon Rooks and Margaret Bush Wilson among them.
But those warriors need successors to fight for civil rights.

In a way, though, anyone who tries to succeed them will pale in comparison to the original articles. People like Marian Oldham fought battles that none of us will ever have to fight. Their hard work has made St. Louis a better place for African-Americans.
And, to some extent, the civil rights movement here is a victim of their success. With more opportunities to succeed than were available to Oldham and her generation, fewer blacks here are choosing the civil rights route. Instead, the best and brightest are selecting other areas, such as business and politics.

It is because of people like Marian Oldham that those younger individuals have the opportunity to become successful in those other areas.
It will take devoted people like Oldham to tackle the new set of problems that blacks are encountering today.

Daniel Schesch - Webweaver

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