In March of 1928, Jefferson and Market streets were the financial centers of Black St. Louis, and The St. Louis American was about to open an office on the ground floor of the Peoples Finance Building, a modern, five-story office building at 11 North Jefferson In the heart of the Mill Creek Valley.
Peoples Finance was among the first commercial buildings in the U.S. built entirely with Black money by mostly Black merchants. The building housed 81 offices (mostly Black doctors, lawyers, and insurance brokers), a drug store, the St. Louis offices of the NAACP, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the Colored Motion Picture Operators and most important to well dressed Black professionals, Lola Wallace’s Beauty shop and Kelly’s Barbershop. The building had a rooftop garden and an assembly hall. According to its advertisements, it was home to the Peoples Finance Corporation with assets of $700,000 in 1923 while paying 5% interest on savings accounts. The ads also boasted that “Peoples is the only Colored member of the Better Business Bureau and the largest capitalized company among Colored people in the country.”
According to the memoir “At the Elbow of My Elders” penned by Gail Milissa Grant – daughter of famed civil rights attorney, David M. Grant, who had an office in the Peoples Finance building-, “it carried such cachet that many Black St. Louisans still say that,’ Anybody who was anybody had an office in the Peoples Finance Building.” The St. Louis American was at home in this place.
Through the wide eyes of a precocious seven-year-old son of a newspaperman, I have vivid memories of my father, N.A. Sweets in the office of The St. Louis American which we shared with the Inge Realty and Accounting firm, meeting with his best friend and colleague, editor N. B. Young (wearing a green visor) and the reporting team of Bennie G. Rodgers and Larry Still. My mother, Melba Sweets, and her best friend, Thelma Dickerson wrote the award-winning ‘Mel n ’Thel,’ the popular “We’re Tellin’ gossip column. They would meet with the staff in what seemed to me to be a party filled with friendly arguments and discussions about what was news and what was entertaining gossip. People would pass through the office seeking out their favorite newsperson. I remember the speedy clackety-clack of the typewriters while everyone carried on with conversations.
I later learned that some of the famous folks who came through our office included Langston Hughes, A. Philip Randolph, Cab Calloway, Ethel Payne, Jack “Jack the Rapper” Gibson, jazzman Nat Adderly, and many others. As a 17-year-old, I had the honor and pleasure of driving my father, David Grant, and Cab Calloway to the Cahokia Downs racetrack for an evening out. I’ll never forget the laughter, the stories, and the camaraderie they shared. I also remember the freedom my father gave me to wander the Peoples Finance Building and the neighborhood of Mill Creek while he met with visitors in his office. I would ride the elevator to the fifth floor and walk down the steps. I would study the various cars parked at a 45-degree angle on the “short Market” and make sure I could identify the makes and models. I couldn’t cross either Jefferson or Market without holding someone’s hand. But when I did, it was a trip across Jefferson to the Deluxe Cafe for either a hamburger or an ice cream cone and a big hug from Aunt Edith (owner of the Deluxe) while admiring the big beautiful red streetcars.
From there we would cross over to 2314 Market for another big hug from my father’s friend, Nannie Mitchell Turner, publisher of the St. Louis Argus, the other Black weekly. Founded in 1912, The Argus was The American’s friendly competition. They had a larger circulation, but we had the punch. Back in the day, everybody seemed to get along. What I loved most as a very young guy and would later appreciate as an adult was having all the positive experiences with Black men and women from all walks of life.
In a single day in the Peoples Finance building, I met Black men and women who were journalists, educators, doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, barbers, activists, cab drivers, business owners, and most important to a seven-year-old, an elevator operator who let me run the elevator. Through those various experiences, I knew I was fortunate to be born into a newspaper family and that it was a profession for me.
Fred Sweets is a contributing editor at the American. Sweets has worked at the St. Louis American, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and the Associated Press.
See the entire St. Louis American’s 95th Anniversary Special section.
