Developer Paul McKee has arrogantly refused to honor calls from the community to not use the name Homer G. Phillips on a three-bed urgent care facility at Jefferson and Thomas Street.
Plaintiffs hope a federal lawsuit filed by Homer G. Phillips Nurses Alumni Inc., will get his attention, and cause him to rethink his plan, which is vehemently opposed.
Zenobia Thompson, who served as a head nurse at Homer G. Phillips, said the urgent care building can stay – but the name must go.
“Let us be clear, we are not against the facility. We want to protect the name and legacy of Homer G. Phillips by having the current named removed from the building,” she said during a press conference on Monday at the Thomas F. Eagleton Federal Courthouse.
“Keeping the legacy of the Homer G. Phillips location in The Ville, along with Annie Malone Children’s Home and Sumner High School is a must.”
Walle Amusa, a Change the Name Coalition member, said the organization stands with the lawsuit plaintiffs.
“Our community and allies overwhelmingly support the demand for Paul McKee to remove the name Homer G. Phillips from the clinic,” he said in a release.
“It was more than two years ago when community activists, civic, political, and religious leaders joined with the Nurses Alumni to organize and mobilize our community to demand McKee remove the name of Homer G. Phillips from the clinic.
Attorney Homer G. Phillips was prominent in both civil rights and politics and founded the Citizens’ Liberty League. The organization advocated for Black St. Louisans after city residents voted in 1916 to mandate segregation in housing.
During the 1920s, there were two public city-owned Hospitals, City Hospital
Number 1, which only whites could use, and City Hospital Number 2, a former medical college in the Mill Creek Valley neighborhood. It lacked resources, and Black residents were forced to use the subpar hospital.
In 1923, St. Louis decided to use money from a bond issue for a new hospital. Black residents wanted it in a Black neighborhood. White doctors and politicians wanted the new hospital next to City Hospital Number 1, which was located south of down-town.
Phillips persuaded city officials to build the new hospital at St. Ferdinand Avenue and Whittier Street, in the Ville neighborhood, which at the time was the home to many prominent Black businesses and residents.
From its opening in 1937 to 1979, the hospital primarily served the needs of St. Louis’ Black citizens. Until city hospitals were desegregated in 1955, it was the only hospital for Black St. Louisans. It became not only one of the best “Black” hospitals in the nation, but one of the highest achieving training hospitals in the world.
Community meetings and protests at the facility began in October and pushed through 2021. Alderwoman Sharon Tyus’ resolution calling for the name to be stripped from the facility was passed easily by the Board of Aldermen in December.
Congresswoman Cori Bush, who told The St. Louis American in December 2021 she considered the use of Phillips’ name “an abomination,” joined with Mayor Tishaura Jones in support of the Tyus resolution.
“Homer G. Phillips Hospital was a beacon of Black leadership in St. Louis, training an entire generation of Black doctors, nurses, and health care workers who would go on to serve communities not just across our city, but our entire country,” the women said in a joint statement.
“Profiting off Homer G. Phillips’ name on a small 3-bed facility that will fail to meet the needs of the most vulnerable in our communities is an insult to Homer G. Phillips’ legacy and the Black community. We urge the developers of this project to heed the call of former Homer G. Phillips nurses, advocates, health care workers, community leaders, and St. Louis City residents who are demanding respect by changing the name of this facility.”
McKee did not heed the call and now faces a lawsuit that contends the alumni group’s name is trademarked, and the new health center’s name will infringe on that trademark.
“Under our interpretation of the law, if the name of the health center is confusingly similar to or implies association with my client, then we believe our claim is valid,” Richard Voytas Jr., who is representing the group, told Missouri Independent.
According to the lawsuit, “the plaintiff requests that the Court find that Defendants engaged in trademark infringement, unfair competition, and trademark dilution.”
The plaintiff “requests that the Court permanently enjoin Defendants from using the ‘trademark’ or a name confusingly similar for any purpose, and from infringing on plaintiff’s right to the trademark.”
The Nurses Alumni also want McKee to “provide an accounting to Plaintiff of all monies gained by it from the use of the ‘trademark’ and all profits earned by it since the start of the use of the ‘trademark.’
Darryl Piggee, a McKee attorney, and apologist told The Independent that there is no plan to change the name. He had not yet read the lawsuit.
“As we continue this just and righteous struggle, the Coalition is overjoyed and happy to stand in support of the lawsuit challenging McKee’s right to steal the name of our beloved and respected hero Homer G. Phillips,” Amusa stated.
