110 Years Ago St. Louis Made Racist History

Last week, advocacy groups, Fix Our House and New America released a poll showing that Americans have grown increasingly frustrated with the current two party electoral system. Decades of gerrymandering, corporate funding of elections, and persistent party antagonism have largely fueled their anger.  This disdain has shined a bright light on the growing inadequacies of American democracy, which does not always equate to justice.

These sentiments are definitely felt by African Americans who have historically pointed out the contradictions of American democracy.

One glaring example occurred in St. Louis at the beginning of the twentieth century. Although St. Louis has been called a “northern city with southern exposure,” it was one of the major destinations of the Great Migration where millions of Blacks relocated to the North and West to escape the racial exploitation of the American South. In 1900, there were roughly 35,000 Blacks in St. Louis. By 1920, that number nearly doubled to just under 70,000.

Despite St. Louis’s “gateway” reputation, it functioned in many respects like an impenetrable wall to the new migrants. The most spectacular form of white resistance occurred in East St. Louis in 1917, where an attempted massacre by white residents resulted, according to some estimates, in nearly 200 Black deaths.

Though uniquely spectacular in its violence, the fury of the East St. Louis Race War was not an isolated event. According to historian Carol Anderson, “White rage is not about visible violence, but rather it works its way through the courts, the legislatures, and a range of government bureaucracies. It wreaks havoc subtly, almost imperceptibly.”

Such was the case in St. Louis two years earlier. In 1915, the United Welfare Association, an ad hoc committee of St. Louis realtors hellbent on stemming the residential spread of African-Americans, set out to create a referendum that would make housing segregation enforceable by law.

According to the ordinance, Blacks would not be able to move into neighborhoods that were 75% white. In like manner, Whites would not be able to move into Black neighborhoods with a similar racial composition.

The Universal Welfare Association attempted to sell the proposal as mutually beneficial: “Our ordinance protects both the Negro and white man where he lives now.”

However, the proposed law appealed to the baser elements of St. Louis’s white population. Its boosters extolled its ability to counter the impending “Negro invasion” and a means to protect white “widows and dependents.”

With this framing, the ordinance easily passed in 1916. Despite the recent surge in population due to the Great Migration, Blacks were still grossly outnumbered by white St. Louisans.

Though similar laws were passed across the country, this was the first time that a housing segregation law was passed by direct voter referendum. 

Missouri passed its first referendum in 1908 as part of a larger national movement to strengthen the country’s democratic institutions. Referendums were viewed as a purer form of democracy as it gave voters direct input on legislation. Yet the 1916 segregation ordinance shows how democracy has always been an elusive, wanting, and many times inadequate concept and practice for African-Americans.

Fortunately, the law was overturned the same year. In the Louisville, Kentucky based Buchanan v. Warley case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled such laws unconstitutional.

Still, other means were employed to achieve the same end. The violence of East St. Louis is just one example. Other means such as housing covenants, urban removal, and the destruction of Black neighborhoods not only segregated, but displaced African American residents in St. Louis. Unfortunately, this is a trend that still persists to this day.