Mill Creek Valley may have been bulldozed off the map in 1959, but its people are now telling the truth about what was lost.
That truth will take center stage on Friday, February 6, when the St. Louis County Library hosts author Vivian Gibson and Missouri History Museum curator Gwen Moore for the 2026 Frankie Freeman Inspirational Lecture—its annual Black History Month keynote honoring the legendary civil rights attorney. The event, presented in partnership with the Missouri Historical Society and Ameren, will be held at the Clark Family Branch at 7 p.m.
For Gibson and Moore, the evening goes beyond a conversation. It is a reminder that Mill Creek Valley was not the “slum” city leaders claimed it to be, but—as Moore has said in earlier interviews—“a Black metropolis that thrived in spite of everything designed to contain it.”
Before the wrecking balls arrived, Mill Creek Valley stretched across 450 acres from 20th Street to Saint Louis University. Nearly 20,000 Black residents lived there—families, business owners, teachers, preachers, musicians, and everyday people who built a self‑sustaining community in the face of segregation.
It was a cultural engine. A civic hub. A place where Black newspapers, doctors’ offices, churches, schools, and social clubs stood shoulder to shoulder. Ragtime was born there. Josephine Baker spent her childhood there. And as Moore has often emphasized, “Mill Creek was the Harlem of the Midwest—vibrant, brilliant, and ours.”
But in 1959, the city declared the neighborhood “blighted” and razed it to make way for a highway and redevelopment that never fully materialized. Families were scattered. Businesses disappeared. And a thriving Black community was wiped from the landscape.
Vivian Gibson was one of those children.
Her bestselling memoir, The Last Children of Mill Creek, chronicles her family’s life in the neighborhood during the 1950s. Critics have called it “a love letter,” but Gibson has always been clear about what she set out to do.
“I wanted people to know that Mill Creek was not broken,” Gibson previously told The American. “It was broken apart.”
Her book captures the texture of daily life—shopkeepers who knew every child by name, church ladies who kept the block in order, teachers who demanded excellence, and neighbors who looked out for one another. It is a portrait of a community that thrived not because conditions were easy, but because its people insisted on dignity.
wen Moore has spent years making sure the city remembers what it tried to forget. As curator of urban landscape and community identity for the Missouri Historical Society, she led the creation of the museum’s landmark exhibition, “Mill Creek: Black Metropolis,” on display through July 2026.
The exhibit uses photographs, oral histories, rare film footage, and archival materials to reconstruct the neighborhood block by block. Visitors walk through the world that urban renewal destroyed—and meet the people who lived it.
Moore has said that curating the exhibit was both professional and personal. “Mill Creek wasn’t just a place,” Moore said. “It was a community that held people together. And when it was torn down, something in St. Louis was torn down with it.”
This year’s Frankie Freeman Lecture will also honor four community leaders—Ohun Ashe, Michael P. McMillan, Kayla Reed, and Michelle D. Tucker—with the Frankie Freeman Inspirational Award for their service following the May 2025 tornado. Their recognition underscores the throughline between Mill Creek’s story and the present: Black St. Louisans have always rebuilt, always organized, always cared for one another.
The evening will be a dialogue between two women who have dedicated their lives to documenting Black St. Louis—one through memory, the other through archives.
“We were the last children of Mill Creek—but we were not the last to love it,” Gibson said.
The St. Louis County Library’s Black History Month Keynote Address will take place at 7 p.m. (6 p.m. doors) on Friday, February 6 at The Clark Family Branch, 1640 S. Lindbergh. For more information, visit www.slcl.org.