Entrepreneur TeByron Graham thriving during pandemic
@stlouisamerican
Serving, empowering and advocating for equity in St. Louis since 1928
Vol. 93 No. 36
@stlouisamerican
St. Louis American See page B1
The
CAC Audited DECEMBER 2 – 8, 2021
stlamerican.com
‘There is no greater French woman’
COMPLIMENTARY
More protests headed McKee’s way Activist meeting on Thursday
By JoAnn Weaver The St. Louis American
and braved the chilly weather for the solemn event. French President Emmanuel Macron remarked of the St. Louis native, “There is no greater French woman than you.” I was not yet born in 1952, when Baker gave a homecoming concert at St. Louis’ Kiel Auditorium Convention Hall for any patron who could buy a ticket. She refused to perform inside segregated venues. As a youth, I reveled, reading about Baker in Jet and Ebony magazines in the 1960s. Following her death, I combed the archives of the Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Courier, the Amsterdam News, and the NAACP’s Crisis magazine, reading accounts on Baker chronicled by
Developer Paul McKee’s stubbornness will soon be met with more protests as the battle to force a name change for a medical facility carrying the name, Homer G. Phillips Hospital continues. A community meeting is scheduled for 2 p.m. on Thursday at Southside Wellness Center to discuss tactics and also pressure St. Louis Board of Aldermen members to support a city resolution condemning use of Homer G. Phillips Hospital on McKee’s small, three-bed facility. Community organizer Walle Amusa said the group that held the public hearing at City Hall n State also supported the protest at the Sen. Steve medical facility on Jefferson Avenue. Roberts “We are meeting again to Jr. said he basically launch a petition “needed drive,” said community organizer Walle Amusa. to review” “The meeting will gather the highly community support, sentiment publicized and call on leadership in the resolution community. It’s a simple request (asking) Paul McKee and the and call for a name medical facility’s board of directors to change the name.” change on The group, which held a the conprotest outside the facility at Jefferson and Cass on Nov. troversial 13, worked with Alderwoman facility Sharon Tyus of the 1st Ward to before create Resolution 138, which making a has passed from the Board of comment. Aldermen health committee to the full board. “Our hope is that many other aldermen will support the resolution and pass it along so Mr. McKee and his private clinic board of directors can understand that the name Homer G. Hospital is not theirs to take,” Amusa said. “The name was originally granted by the aldermen in the 1930s, and it is kind of preposterous that a private developer of a three-bed clinic would appropriate it to himself. It’s a simple case of
See BAKER, A7
See PROTESTS, A7
Photo by D. Michael Cheers / St. Louis American
French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a final tribute to Josephine Baker at the Pantheon in Paris. Macron called Baker a “war hero, fighter, dancer, singer, and civil rights activist.”
Native St. Louisan Josephine Baker receives France’s highest honor n ‘France gave me everything. I will give my life for France.’”
By D. Michael Cheers Special correspondent The St. Louis American PARIS - Journalists hailed Josephine Baker’s April 16, 1975, funeral cortege as a final curtain call when thousands lined the streets of Paris to catch a glimpse of the hearse carrying her body to L’église de la Madeleine (the Church of Madeleine). Throngs stretched their arms toward her casket outside the church, rubber-necking to see her hearse and a motorcade draped in floral arrangements meandering through the theatre district where she performed in Paris during the early 20th century. Now, present day, like many, I travelled to Paris for Baker’s encore performance. I sim-
– Josephine Baker
ply had to attend, and not even the latest strain of COVID-19, Omicron, spiking the pandemic’s stats around the globe, could keep me from Baker’s final bow at the grand Panthéon monument atop Montagne Sainte-Geneviève in the Latin Quarter. This is France’s most hallowed resting place for French luminaries. Black expatriates who live in the City of Light were joined by many from the U.S., like me, who boarded Thanksgiving weekend flights
Fight against ‘food apartheid’
Pandemic has pushed more Black Americans into urban farming “I was looking to do … something beneficial, productive with the land. And that’s how I came up with the community garden.” As Patrice Preston Rogers planted colJust as the coronavirus laid bare health care lards, cabbage, and cauliflower this year in inequities decades in the making, it exposed a once-vacant lot in East St. Louis, she was gaping holes in society’s food safety net. prepping for a harvest of hope and better Across Metropolitan St. Louis, in neighborhealth for the area hoods where livable her dad called home. wages and tradiTwo years ago, tional grocers are in before the COVID-19 short supply, Blacks pandemic took hold, already in urban agriSecond in a series Ronald Preston died culture are expanding at age 75 after sufand new recruits have fering from “hypertension, high cholesterol, joined in. other dietary issues from residing in a food Each aims to create home-grown solutions desert,” said Preston Rogers. to the redline-induced problem of limited “I inherited this land, and I wanted to do access to healthy foods. something productive with it,” she said of the That focus on access, along with the broadplot on North 11th Street, blocks from the er racial reckoning wrought by the videotaped Katherine Dunham Museum and steps from a murder of George Floyd, has given food juswide swath determined by the USDA in 2019 See FOOD, A6 to have low access to healthy foods. By Karen Robinson-Jacobs The St. Louis American
Jamie Edwards tends an urban garden that was a vacant lot in North St. Louis on Nov. 12, 2021. Edwards said she’s had to overcome escalating costs and accidental demolitions as she tries to feed the community.
Photo by Wiley Price / St. Louis American