 |
 |
| Photographs by Whitney Curtis | |
|
|
(page 1 of 7)
For those under 40, the days of segregation seem absolutely faraway, unreal. But these seven St. Louisans between the ages of 61 and 92 remember the days when they risked arrest for sitting down inside a White Castle. Or watching a movie in a theater designated for whites only. Traveling outside the tightly circumscribed world of segregated St. Louis—which dictated every facet of life, including what house you lived in, what hospital you were treated in, where you went to school and what job you took—often meant more than arrest ... One risked suffering the violent reactions of those who wanted to protect the system of segregation.But change did come; the people below were instrumental in advancing the civil rights movement—often both locally and nationally. But as they point out, St. Louis is still very much a city divided. Though no one has any pat answers, they agree on this: Silence is poisonous. If our city is to move forward, we must move out of our insular circles and open ourselves to the medicine of hearing each others’ stories.
Frankie Muse Freeman
Last year, Frankie Muse Freeman was inducted into the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta along with 12 other inductees, including Sidney Poitier. Legendary for her work as a civil rights lawyer, Freeman had just moved to St. Louis to set up her own practice when she joined the team of NAACP lawyers handling Brewton v. Board of Education, a landmark 1949 case that preceded Brown v. Board of Education by five years. In 1954, she argued the class action lawsuit Davis et al. v. The St. Louis Housing Authority, which ended segregation in the city’s public housing; 10 years later, Lyndon Johnson appointed her as the first woman to serve on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, a post she held for decades, with reappointments by Nixon, Ford and Carter. At the age of 92, Freeman still practices law at Montgomery Hollie & Associates four days a week and serves on the Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights, a bipartisan organization which monitors the quality of the federal government’s civil rights policies.
What we had gone through for me to get through law school—I was married, I was a mother, I had a son my senior year—when none of the big firms would even consider me, I said, No, I’m going to have my own practice, I’m going to be a lawyer. I’m going to be a litigator, I’m going to try cases, I’ll handle civil rights cases or anything else that will come in. So my husband and I got together and bought some furniture, secondhand, you know, and I had an office on the second floor of the Jefferson Bank Building at Jefferson and Franklin Avenue. I opened my office in June 1949. I had been admitted to the bar in December of 1948. I had also been accumulating law books from the time I was in law school. I had a secretary, and I paid her $15 a week. I think that first week she made more money than I did! [Laughs] But my office was well-furnished, because you don’t have any problem finding secondhand furniture. And then I got somebody who could put my name up on the window in gold letters.
Advertisement
[At that time] schools were racially segregated in Missouri, just as in 16 other states. And the law, Brown v. Board of Education, which was decided in 1954, was what changed that. [On Brewton] I worked with Sidney Redmond, Henry Espy and Robert Witherspoon. They were working on the case when I met them—it was immediately after I got here and got myself situated in the practice of law. There were not a whole lot of lawyers who would handle those cases, so I told them that I would be willing to work with them, and they were very gracious and said, “Please come on in.” [Laughs]
The judge decided in our favor, but the Board of Education appealed it—in the brief, I think what happened was they listed the four of us lawyers alphabetically, and my name is first, but [laughs] that was the luck of the draw! The person who argued the case was Sidney Redmond. He was the senior counsel. I don’t mean that I didn’t contribute anything, ’cause I think that I did, but I was one of the associates. That was my first civil rights case, but not my first case.
I think I may have filed suit against them three times [laughs] on various things. Those other times I was the lead attorney. After that, one of the lawyers for the firms who represented the Board of Education asked me—because this was about the third time I had sued the Board—he said, “Frankie, if you have a problem with the Board of Education, before suing, will you call me?” [Laughs] Because in those cases, we prevailed.
