On March 5, the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis became a kind of modern-day village square as Black women gathered for Save Our Sisters’ Women’s History Month program, “How We Navigate Together.” What followed — two intimate conversations led by Carol Daniel — stitched past to present. Vivian Gibson opened with the story of Mill Creek, the community that shaped her childhood. Later, Rebeccah Bennett brought the focus to today’s St. Louis, where thousands of Black families face upheaval in the tornado’s aftermath.
Remembering Mill Creek’s village
Daniel’s conversation with Gibson felt like a collective exhale. Gibson’s memoir, The Last Children of Mill Creek, has become a touchstone for St. Louisans seeking to understand what was lost when the neighborhood was razed in the 1950s.
“When people called it a slum,” Gibson said, “that doesn’t describe what it was.”
She painted a picture of a community that outsiders were never allowed to see – partly because of the negative coverage by mainstream media. Gibson offered a different narrative. Working families lived alongside teachers and doctors. Children weaved through blocks filled with churches and corner stores, neighbors who watched over one another with the quiet certainty of people who shared the same dreams.
“You had beautiful homes,” she said. “Some of them were mansions.”
After decades of being labeled blighted — despite the fact that nearly 80 percent of its housing was owned by white landlords who collected rent but rarely invested — the neighborhood was seized through eminent domain. Homeowners received payments. Renters, who made up the majority, received nothing.
“People say, ‘Well, you got paid for your house,’” Gibson said. “Not when you rent.”
The memories she shares through her book are not defined by loss. They are shaped by the adults who shielded children from the harshest realities of racism. Many had migrated north during the Great Migration, carrying with them a determination to protect their children’s futures at all costs.
“They were protecting us,” she said. “Making sure we got an education, making sure we went to church.”
At its height, Mill Creek was home to 43 churches. Today, only one remains.
Gibson spoke of the cultural closeness that segregation, for all its brutality, inadvertently created.
“Sometimes when I tell these stories, it sounds like I’m talking about how great it was to be segregated,” she said. “But there was something to be said for the support, the shared aspirations, the shared culture.”
She laughed as she described her “compartmentalized” friend groups — golfing friends, gardening friends, cooking friends, book club friends. For nearly 40 years, she has met monthly with the same book club.
“Sometimes we agree, sometimes we disagree,” she said. “But those conversations create understanding.”
At 77, Gibson still leads with curiosity — the same curiosity that carried her from St. Louis to New York, through a political coup in Liberia, and back home again.
“I’m still that same curious little girl,” she said.
Protecting community in real time
Gibson’s conversation was a window into what community once made possible. Bennett’s was a call to protect what remains.
Daniel opened their dialogue by acknowledging Bennett’s gift for speaking directly to the soul. And Bennett did just that — beginning with the scrutiny Black women face in public life, from elected officials like Rep. Jasmine Crockett to everyday women simply trying to do the work of dismantling dysfunction and creating a more equitable world.
“We have been inspected,” Bennett said. “When we hear those conversations,” she said, “we ask ourselves: how does this benefit the maintenance of white supremacy and patriarchy?”
Bennett repeatedly returned to the concept of protective factors — practices, traditions and relationships that help Black women endure.
Village, she said, remains the most powerful one.
“We cannot move through this trauma without being disabled by it if we don’t have village,” Bennett said.
Daniel pointed to the devastating May 16 tornado that tore through large portions of north St. Louis. . The storm damaged nearly 8,000 structures and affected at least 80,000 residents — most of them Black. Twenty-two of the 28 impacted neighborhoods were predominantly Black communities where generational wealth was already fragile.
“These weren’t just houses,” Bennett said. “These were inheritances.”
Many homeowners owned their homes outright. Renters paid around $750 a month — among the last pockets of affordability in the city. Now, with many homes uninhabitable, families earning around $41,000 a year face rents between $1,000 and $1,500.
“Suddenly you’ve got an $18,000 housing bill out of that $41,000,” Bennett said. “This is a recipe for permanent poverty.”
The city’s repair program offers up to $50,000 per household, but with only $13 million allocated, it can cover about 180 homes — a fraction of the need.
“How many structures were damaged?” Bennett asked. “Eight thousand.”
Meanwhile, more funding has been set aside for demolition.
“There is far more money for demolition than repair,” she said. “Enough money that we might end up with up to 1,000 demolitions. You want to talk about neighborhood stabilization?” What happens when you leave this Urban League building and look around, and there are thousands of empty lots? Who wants to live in that?”
Daniel voiced the question hanging in the air: “So what can we do?”
Bennett didn’t hesitate.
“We apply pressure,” she said. “We ask for the money. Not someday. Not eventually. Tomorrow morning.”