The Missouri History Museum and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Jefferson Bank demonstrations with various public events to be held August 28- 30.
Many of the jailed demonstrators from around the country will be present for the programs at the Missouri Historic Museum and at a commemorative reenactment of the historic demonstration and picketing that will be held 4–6 p.m. August 30 at the present Jefferson Bank location, 2301 Market St.
The History Museum programs are:
• “A Report Card to the Community: A Look at Banking Practices, Then and Now,” 7 p.m. Wednesday, August 28, AT&T Foundation Multipurpose Room
• “Civil Disobedience Training,” 2-4 p.m. Thursday, August 29, AT&T Foundation Multipurpose Room
• “Jefferson Bank Protests: Looking Bank, Looking Forward,” 7 p.m. Friday, August 30, Lee Auditorium.
All events are free.
In the protests 50 years ago, members of CORE, which constituted nearly all of the youthful African-American leadership in St. Louis, and nearly 100 black citizens were arrested, jailed and fined by the downtown business establishment for protesting racial injustice in employment and in business practices.
The leadership of the protests included Congressman Bill Clay, Robert Curtis, Raymond Howard, Charles Oldham, Marian Oldham, Norman R. Seay, Herman Thompson and Ken Webb. Their main legal representative was attorney Margaret Bush Wilson, who was also president of the St. Louis Branch of the NAACP.
“The arresting of these individuals was preceded by years of peaceful protest, sit-ins, informational picketing and on-going negotiations that focused on the racial discrimination policies and employment at the downtown department stores and the separation of services based on race in their female attire, shoe departments, and food services,” said Ken Webb, of CORE and the NAACP.
“Black women were not allowed to try on many of the same hats, shoes and other female apparel items as white women for it was considered to be too intimate, and blacks were not served food at the same counters visited by white patrons in some stores.”
After years of blatant racial discrimination and the failure of negotiations, African Americans decided to focus their efforts on a thriving, white-owned business that had existed for years in the heart of their community. Negotiations with Jefferson Bank officials had failed while they continued to discriminate in their employment practices and policies. They hired African Americans to fill janitorial positions only.
When the bank protests led to mass arrests, activist Percy Green assisted in organizing citywide efforts to raise funds for bail and fines for the demonstrators. They were joined by attorneys from the St. Louis NAACP and the Mound City Bar Association that included their president, James Wilson, and Hugh White, a retired former fighter pilot who had flown in Europe with the Tuskegee Airmen.
A small group of African-American women, including state Senator Gwen Giles, Margaret Bush Wilson and Pearlie Evans, worked behind the scenes to organize additional informational demonstrations for the jailed demonstrators and fund-raising events,
Among the public figures who came to speak in St. Louis on their behalf was Stokely Carmichael, then under F.B.I. surveillance, and the Modern Jazz Quartet performed at one fundraiser.
After months of negotiations by St. Louis NAACP lawyers and the payment of their fines from funds raised within the black community, the jailed demonstrators were released.
Webb said, “These protests led to a beginning of dismantling of overt racial employment discrimination policies by the major financial power brokers in St. Louis.”
For History Museum information, visit www.mohist.org. For information on the demonstrations, call Ken Webb at 314-355-6254.