Columnist Jamala Rogers
Sixty years ago, a race riot broke out at Fairground Park swimming pool, located in a then predominantly white neighborhood. Several unsuspecting black youth, trying to escape the summer heat, walked into what appeared in retrospect to be a racist ambush.
Robert Gammon was one of those black kids who got the word that they could swim in the once segregated Fairground pool. By the time he and others finished their swim session, the pool was surrounded by a mob of angry whites.
A white custodian corralled the black youth while their lockers were inspected to make sure they did not have any weapons. Once the inspection was complete and it was absolutely clear that the youth were unarmed, the police led them through a roped off path to Natural Bridge Avenue. Along the way, a mob of men, women and children armed with bats, knives, bricks and clubs shouted racist epithets, threw objects and even spat at them.
When the kids reached Natural Bridge Avenue, white City cops told the terrified youth they were now on their own. Gammon and his friends ran like hell, unsuccessfully dodging some of the flying rocks and sticks being hurled at them from a violent crowd who dared them to return. The boys ran to St. Louis Avenue, where the boundaries of the black neighborhood began and their safety was assured.
It is these same angry faces and hateful words that show up again and again throughout America’s ugly racial history. They can be seen in the numerous photos of lynchings. They can be seen in Rosewood, Georgia, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in East St. Louis, in Tyler, Texas, at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. They can be seen in the responses to online coverage about Reggie Clemons.
Clemons barely escaped a scheduled execution date of June 17 for the 1991 drownings of Robin and Julie Kerry. Since the announcement of the execution date, there has been renewed interest in the case and a growing chorus of voices calling for further investigation. His case joins other similar cases which amplify a corrupted judicial system.
“This animal should be shot and his carcass hung from the Gateway Arch… Hang the scurvy dog by the yard-arm… Kill the SOB… He should be hung by the neck until dead in a town square statewide broadcast”: These are just a few of the virulent reactions to recent demands for Reggie’s clemency that can be read online.
Most don’t even know the details of the case; they are merely responding to the alleged violation of white women by black men. From the beginning, the Chain of Rocks Bridge case was used as red meat for white supremacists. The recent online rantings echo the vile sentiments about the defendants expressed back in the early 1990s.
Human rights activist Bill Ramsey reminds us that “news coverage that shapes public perceptions of the nature of a crime and its alleged perpetrators and victims prior to the selection of a jury can affect the prospects for a fair trial.” His assessment of the media coverage during the trials was captured in his recent Human Rights Media Watch article, “Reggie Clemons: Did Coverage Influence Jury?”
There was nothing fair about the grounds during those tense, summer nights in 1949. There was nothing fair about the trial that Reggie Clemons received in 1991. The white power structure had a chance to show leadership in both cases and do the right thing. Instead, it capitulated to the most racist sector of the community.
Mayor Joseph Darst immediately put a clamp on integration and closed Fairground Park pool. Although a federal judge ordered the pool to be integrated, by 1956 the pool was closed permanently because of a white boycott. Blacks were never allowed to swim in that pool ever again. A new pool was built and opened to the growing black community around Fairground Park. A point scored for white supremacy.
In Reggie’s trial, the travesty began with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department’s coercing a confession and was aggressively facilitated by prosecutor Nels C. Moss, who employed every trick in his unethical bag to get a conviction. Judges along the way – save for Judge Catherine Perry – rubber-stamped the unjust process.
Around the time of the Fairground race riot, an unpublished St. Louis Urban League report criticized the lack of aggressive leadership by blacks and progressive whites in fighting racism and injustice. The names of the white men in power have changed, but the fundamental relationships between blacks and whites have seen only incremental change. The Urban League was on point 60 years ago: The actions of progressive whites and blacks must outweigh the divisive impact of backward whites and complacent blacks.