On a recent Saturday afternoon, longtime supporters and leaders of the Close the Workhouse campaign gathered in O’Fallon Park to celebrate the end of an era.
For those who invested years of effort and energy to defund and demolish the Workhouse, this was an opportunity to celebrate a clear win: There was a jail at 7600 Hall St. that caused tremendous suffering for thousands of people over decades, and now it is a pile of rubble.
Just blocks from the place where we marked that seemingly impossible victory, residents of North St. Louis are living a hellish nightmare. At this point, we can recite the facts from memory: Thousands of homes damaged or destroyed, dozens killed or injured, neighborhoods awash with debris and unlivable structures. This has been a true description every day since the May 16 tornado, and it remains true with little change in sight.
Two things must be stated clearly. First, there is no version of full reconstruction that does not require the estimated $260 million of remaining Rams settlement funds. Second, there is also no version that relies solely on those funds.
But now the machinery of “official” action is in motion. A Recovery Office created, advisory committees formed, consultants hired, spending updates released, public meetings convened — local leaders caught unprepared and ill-equipped are starting to do the sorts of things that we expect them to do. There is nothing inherently wrong with any of this. The question is: To what end? What is the material commitment to the North St. Louis neighborhoods leveled by the storm and what political will exists to make sacrifices in the interest of those neighborhoods?
Process is nice — critical, even. But we need a clear, audacious and unprecedented demand to reconstruct North St. Louis. And that demand must be articulated in dollars and cents.
Two things must be stated clearly. First, there is no version of full reconstruction that does not require the estimated $260 million of remaining Rams settlement funds. Second, there is also no version that relies solely on those funds. We must demand that other public dollars be directed to this mission, in addition to major funding from abundantly well-resourced private institutions in St. Louis.
I am neither best positioned nor best informed to calculate precisely what the final local commitment should be. But with the economic damage in these communities exceeding $1 billion, anything less than $500 million of local investment in recovery is an insult to the people of the Northside. And we need to commit this level of resources now, even as we continue to press the state and federal government for the balance.
We know St. Louis can do this because it has done it before. In 1923, our city made history by passing an $87 million bond to develop citywide infrastructure. That may not sound like much but it’s the equivalent of $1.6 billion today and was the largest such municipal bond ever issued at the time. It funded infrastructure projects across the city: roads, bridges, plazas, municipal buildings and the historic Kiel Auditorium. Homer G. Phillips led a community effort to secure funds for a Black teaching hospital in The Ville that would ultimately be named in his honor. Together, these investments transformed the St. Louis landscape for generations.
We have a chance, if not a moral obligation, to do something in St. Louis that can be similarly transformative. Full recovery for the places and people of North St. Louis won’t come through thoughts and prayers, but through cold, hard cash to provide safe and affordable housing, renewed infrastructure, community healing and more. Beyond serving our collective self-interest, it also happens to be the just and decent thing to do. But we have to start with bold expectations and be unwilling to settle for less. Here’s where a scrappy grassroots campaign may serve as a guide.
When the Close the Workhouse campaign launched publicly in 2018, it was met with dismissal and mockery. Some public officials literally laughed at the idea of closing the jail. Various commentators and supposed experts called the campaign and its members unrealistic, naive and irresponsible. One early editorial agreed with city officials that “a shutdown isn’t feasible,” adding that emptying and closing the jail as demanded “wouldn’t be rational.” These “expert” assessments were sincere, even understandable. But they were wrong.
Genuine crises require bold action. Now is the time to demand the impossible for North St. Louis. And mean it.
Blake Strode is an attorney who lives in St. Louis.
The premise AND the alarm of the article are correct. The practical implementation(s) required to make solutions work will require a level of aggression and commitment. That energy must be considerable, supported locally and focused. Jobs is the obvious component. Jobs of various skill sets is essential. A high frontier vision is essential. The ‘little fix’ approach is destined for failure.
Critics are a dime a dozen because all they do is criticize, and sadly, there are those who exploit their fancy titles and college degrees to lend credence to their opinions and criticisms as if they are facts. The reality is they seldom offer, and you haven’t, any solutions. You speak an endless rant of what cudda, shudda and outta to have been done yesterday, but in complete disregard of the processes involving long existing laws and policies that have evolved and been put forth by many countless people and elected officials over a period of many generations.
Mr. Strode, I willingly acknowledge your ability to write well and use big words, normally attributed to an educated person, because it taps into what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. refers to as every individual’s “drum major instinct, the inherent human drive to be important, recognized, and lead the parade, and to be first because at something.” I give you that pat on your back, but you remind me of my late elderly father in law whom I affectionately called “Pops,” who came to visit my spouse and me years ago when we lived in Mesa, Arizona.
This uneducated elderly man had served 40 years as a Deacon and volunteer treasurer of his small, country Peeks Chapel Baptist Church in Conyers, GA. We knew how important it was for him not to miss Church on Sunday, so we proudly took him to the church we attended even though his visit with us for only a couple of days. The more formal services stood in stark contrast to the little country Baptist Church my husband grew up attending. This one was quiet and orderly, and the minister and services prompt. The minister who he called the “preacher” was a well spoken, college educated man who spoke briefly and delivered a meaningful message. There was no jumping, shouting or prancing from side to side in the pulpit as he spoke. When it ended, I proudly asked “Pops, how did you like the minister?” He responded point blank, “I didn’t. “The preacher was too polluted.” I didn’t understand Pops, but it became apparent that this sermon had fallen on deaf ears. This long time, dedicated Deacon, well known throughout the Church community in Covington, Georgia, explained that the preacher had used too many big words, words he didn’t understand.
Mr. Strobe, your statements of what outta be cannot help the people who don’t understand what you are saying. They need solutions. A hungry man not need to be told what it feels like to be hungry because he lives with hunger pains every day. A man in desperate need of adequate housing for his family or a good job knows the agony of insufficient food or the comforts of a warm home when it is cold. They learn little even if he could read “your high polluted opinions” you express as facts. Tell them how to escape that hunger, how to acquire that job, or to escape their poverty stricken circumstances. Use your education to propose solutions. Your mere opinions, expressed as the solutions for all that ails the poor living in the inner City of St. Louis, is too “high polluted.”
Pops, rest in peace. You may have been formally uneducated, but I learned a great deal from you and old folks long lived just like you. When embraced, your words of great wisdom, however broken, has made a tremendous difference in the lives of your son and those who knew you.