Don't forget to sign up for our mailing list to be notified of future events, and become our very best friend on Facebook.

Freedom Rider “Rip” Patton Gives Keynote Address at "Seeking Our Past, Creating Our Future"

Saturday, February 11, 8:30 am to 12:30 pm at Christ Church Cathedral
51 years ago, Patton boarded a bus in Birmingham, AL bound for Jackson, MS as part of the "Freedom Rides" … a nonviolent student-led movement to desegregate public transportation in the Deep South that was an important early stage of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Patterson will relate stories of the “Freedom Rides” and bring the early civil rights movement to life.

Christ Church Cathedral is located at 13th Street between Olive and Locust in downtown St. Louis. All events are at Christ Church Cathedral and are free and open to the public. Click here to download a PDF flyer for the event.

Caught Blackhanded: Race and Crime in America, Focusing on Reggie Clemons and Troy Davis

February 15 at The Missouri History Museum
The Black Leadership Organizing Council presents this panel discussion of the role skin plays in the criminal justice system.

Missouri History Musuem
3rd Floor, Millennium Student Center
Century Rooms A and B
For more information, contact Aleshia Patterson, President of Black Leadership Organizing Council at 314-516-5286.

Documented Rights Exhibit Illustrates Struggle for Human and Civil Rights

Lecture on February 16

At 7 pm, the National Archives at St. Louis will feature Emancipation Proclamation 150 Years: Pre and Post, a free public panel discussion at the new National Archives facility at 1 Archives Drive (1829 Dunn Road), St. Louis, MO, 63138 (next to Hazelwood East Middle School on Dunn Road). This program is held in conjunction with the Documented Rights exhibition (see below).

Award-winning journalist and community advocate Bonita Cornute will moderate the evening's panel and field questions from the audience.

1. Dr. Louis S. Gerteis, University of Missouri: Dr. Gerteis will examine the border states, which were exempted from the Emancipation Proclamation, and Lincoln's plan for compensated emancipation in the Border States and on emancipation in the Border States.
2. Mr. James A. Vincent Sr., St. Louis African American History and Genealogy Society: Mr. Vincent will discuss African American response to the Emancipation Proclamation.
3. Dr. Priscilla A. Dowden-White, University of Missouri St. Louis: Dr. Dowden-White will examine efforts by former slaves to obtain an education in her paper, "Educating Missouri's Black Citizenry from Emancipation to Brown."
4. Dr. Gerald Early, Washington University: Dr. Early will examine Jackie Robinson's court marital and explore how Robinson's activism impacts the larger struggle for civil rights.

Exhibit through May 31 at The National Archives at St. Louis

The new National Personnel Records Center (an office of The National Archives) in St. Louis has a special exhibition illustrating this nation’s continuing process of defining human and civil rights. Including the Emancipation Proclamation, Jackie Robinson's court martial, Brown v. Board of Education, James Meredith's struggle to enroll in the University of Mississippi, and much more, Documented Rights features a sampling of documents from all regions of the National Archives. Other exhibit highlights include:

• Holding The Line - a special section appearing exclusively in St. Louis that features documents from the St. Louis holdings, including letters and telegrams pertaining to James Meredith’s dramatic attempts to integrate the University of Mississippi (“Ole Miss”);
• Examples of efforts waged by Native American organizations in the fight for Indian rights;
• A glimpse into the 1940s treatment of Japanese Americans by the War Relocation Authority;
• An early Montgomery Improvement Association booklet written by Martin Luther King Jr.; and

There is also a supplementary Documented Rights website, which offers historical thematic summaries and images of the documents featured in the exhibit. The St. Louis exhibition includes sections three through five.

The exhibit The exhibit runs through May 31, 2012 and is open Monday through Friday (except Federal holidays) from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. For special tours call Wanda Williams at 314-801-9313 or e-mail wanda.williams@nara.gov.