Citizens of St. Louis, especially those of African-American descent were reminded of their city’s racially charged history as protests and looting in the North Side suburb of Ferguson followed the shooting of 18-year old Michael Brown (via The Atlantic). 

Though he was apparently unarmed, Brown was shot and killed by an unnamed police officer during an arrest. The chaos that followed Brown’s shooting is reminiscent of a week-long race riot that occurred more than a century ago in the Illinois city of East St. Louis, precipitated by the rumor that a white man had been killed by a black man.  

No other large city in America is arguably as burdened by racial tension and mutual suspicion as St. Louis. Unsurprisingly, the root cause of it all is segregation - the thousands of African American families that migrated from the Deep South to St. Louis during the Great Depression lived mostly in downtown slums, while whites fled to the suburbs. And though the hub of business activity remained downtown, black people were routinely denied equal service at restaurants, shops, movie theaters, even amusement parks. Education was (and remained) segregated. 

African-Americans have since moved out of the inner city into the surrounding suburbs. But to see the historical pattern of de facto segregation, one still has to look no further than the rigidly monochromatic racial makeup of those communities. In Ferguson, blacks represent two-thirds of the population, but only three of its 53 police officers.

Does the black community’s outrage seem so outrageous now? 

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