The Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson, which held that racial segregation did not violate the U.S. Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment, was brought by African American activists to force the courts to address the injustice of Jim Crow. The deep-seated racist thinking of the court created an outcome that further reinforced Jim Crow segregation rather than ruling it in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Despite this setback, African Americans continued to push back against segregation and the ongoing dehumanization occurring across the United States.

W.E.B. Du Bois’ research challenged prevailing White “research” that argued it had scientifically proven Black inferiority. He introduced a more scientific method for conducing social research, becoming the father of modern sociology.

African American mathematicians and sociologists refuted White arguments of Black inferiority and tendency to criminal behavior utilizing many of the new methods established by W.E.B. Du Bois in the field of sociology.

The division of St. Louis into city and county became a tool for segregation in the twentieth century.

The ultimate goal of the City Beautiful movement was to “encourage inhabitants to become more productive and patriotic” (Campbell, p. 18). While most of the ambitious plans for the City Beautiful were not realized, St. Louis and the state of Missouri did invest millions of dollars clearing land, building temporary structures, and diverting waterways to prepare for the 1904 World’s Fair to celebrate the Louisiana Purchase.

African Americans moved north and west leaving behind the Jim Crow South with its sharecropping, convict leasing, and lynching. They upended their lives, hoping to build new lives of freedom and economic opportunity.

African Americans demonstrated their patriotism and commitment to the United States by serving in the Armed forces during World War I. For many, it represented the first time in their lives where they experienced equal treatment at the hand of White Europeans.

The pseudoscience of eugenics became the platform for White scholars to defend their racists ideas furthering segregation and the ongoing dehumanization of African Americans across the United States. Black scholars continued to refute this pseudo-science and assert the reality that race has and always will be a social construct not a scientific fact.

The East Saint Louis Riot of July 2, 1917 represented a national pattern of attacks by armed White people against Black workers, families, and their property.

As a result of the Great Migration and the changes that World War I brought to America, African American writers, poets, singers, and artists converged upon New York City with a different attitude toward life and their relationship to their country. What resulted was a great outpouring of artistic expression and Black pride.

As Black veterans returned from war and Black communities thrived despite the constant threat of lynching, White mobs attacked Black communities across the country leading to massacres and millions of dollars worth of destruction of Black property. Fighting to defend their lives and livelihoods, hundreds of Black men, women, and children lost their lives, businesses, and homes.

The use of lynching and other forms of violence to seek to intimidate and control the Black population was on national display in the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma when a White Mob attacked innocent Black men, women, and children - killing hundreds and burning down almost an entire section of the city. This attack highlighted the success that Black communities were generating and the ongoing White reaction to Black economic prosperity.

After the period of devastating massacres and rioting that destroyed countless Black businesses, homes, and sources of wealth, African Americans suffered more significant set backs during the depression. Understanding the economic drivers of the White world, Black men and women began to make their own economic wagers by refusing to buy at stores that did not hire Black workers.

While President Roosevelt launched his “New Deal” to aid Americans suffering as a result of the Depression, this deal did not extend to African Americans in equal measure. Black leaders continued to work in and out of government to further equal rights and equal support for Black communities.

“Redlining” was a phrase that described the color coding system developed by the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) and became one of the primary means of enforcing Black segregation in the housing market, which hindered African American generational wealth development.

The complex ramifications for such a racially driven pseudoscience went far beyond simply justifying prejudices and segregation practices, eugenics had negative impacts on health outcomes for African Americans in the St. Louis region.

Lloyd Gaines graduated from Lincoln University in St. Louis and applied to the University of Missouri Law School. He was denied entry because of his race. He sued and won his case, which helped set the precedent for overturning Plessy v. Ferguson’s “separate but equal” determination in Brown v. Board of Education.

The advent of World War II changed the landscape of the country and of St. Louis. African American families migrated northward. Fleeing lynching and looking for jobs and better living conditions, they also fought for increased rights to serve their country as equals to their White countrymen.

Ongoing Jim Crow laws that tacitly supported lynching led to another wave of Black migration. The Second Great Migration alongside the increasing public burgeoning of Black intellectuals, writers and artists created momentum, organized Black groups across the United States, and began to build the backbone for the Civil Rights Movement.

African American heroes of World War II returned from the battlefields in Europe and Asia to be confronted with the ongoing struggle for freedom at home. Most Black veterans were denied benefits offered to White veterans through the GI bill and as a result African American families continued to struggle to survive in an economic landscape determined to keep them impoverished.