St. Louis is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It is located near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while its bi-state metropolitan area, which extends into Illinois, had an estimated population of over 2.8 million. It is the largest metropolitan area in Missouri and the second largest in Illinois. The city's combined statistical area (CSA) is the 21st largest in the United States.
The civil rights movement was a social movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement in the country. The movement had its origins in the Reconstruction era during the late 19th century and had its modern roots in the 1940s, although the movement made its largest legislative gains in the 1960s after years of direct actions and grassroots protests. The social movement's major nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience campaigns eventually secured new protections in federal law for the civil rights of all Americans.
The Gateway Arch is a 630-foot-tall (192 m) monument in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Clad in stainless steel and built in the form of a weighted catenary arch, it is the world's tallest arch and Missouri's tallest accessible structure. Some sources consider it the tallest human-made monument in the Western Hemisphere. Built as a monument to the westward expansion of the United States and officially dedicated to "the American people", the Arch, commonly referred to as "The Gateway to the West", is a National Historic Landmark in Gateway Arch National Park and has become an internationally recognized symbol of St. Louis, as well as a popular tourist destination.
The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States that played a pivotal role for African Americans in the civil rights movement. Founded in 1942, its stated mission is "to bring about equality for all people regardless of race, creed, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, religion or ethnic background."
The Deacons for Defense and Justice was an armed African-American self-defense group founded in November 1964, during the civil rights era in the United States, in the mill town of Jonesboro, Louisiana. On February 21, 1965—the day of Malcolm X's assassination—the first affiliated chapter was founded in Bogalusa, Louisiana, followed by a total of 20 other chapters in this state, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Alabama. It was intended to protect civil rights activists and their families, threatened both by white vigilantes and discriminatory treatment by police under Jim Crow laws. The Bogalusa chapter gained national attention during the summer of 1965 in its violent struggles with the Ku Klux Klan.
Greater St. Louis is a bi-state metropolitan statistical area in the United States with its core in both Missouri and Illinois. Its largest principal city is the independent city of St. Louis, and its largest employer is St Louis County, Missouri which lies immediately to the west. The pre-war city core is on the Mississippi Riverfront on the border with Illinois in the geographic center of the metro area. The Mississippi River bisects the metro area geographically between Illinois and Missouri; however, the Missouri portion is much more populous. St. Louis is the focus of the largest metro area in Missouri and the Illinois portion known as Metro East is the second largest metropolitan area in that state. St. Louis County is independent of the City of St. Louis and their two populations are generally tabulated separately.
The Greensboro sit-ins were a series of nonviolent protests in February to July 1960, primarily in the Woolworth store—now the International Civil Rights Center and Museum—in Greensboro, North Carolina, which led to the F. W. Woolworth Company department store chain removing its policy of racial segregation in the Southern United States. While not the first sit-in of the civil rights movement, the Greensboro sit-ins were an instrumental action, and also the best-known sit-ins of the civil rights movement. They are considered a catalyst to the subsequent sit-in movement, in which 70,000 people participated. This sit-in was a contributing factor in the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
Fair St. Louis is an annual festival held during the United States Independence Day holiday in downtown St. Louis, Missouri, at the Gateway Arch National Park. It is funded by the Veiled Prophet Organization.
McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973), is a US employment law case by the United States Supreme Court regarding the burdens and nature of proof in proving a Title VII case and the order in which plaintiffs and defendants present proof. It was the seminal case in the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework.
The Veiled Prophet Parade and Ball was a yearly civic celebration in St. Louis, Missouri, over which a mythical figure called the Veiled Prophet presided. The first events were in 1878.
The Iconography of St. Louis, Missouri is strongly informed by the city's French and German heritages, physical features, and place in American history.
George Raymond Jr. was an African-American civil rights activist, a member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, a Freedom Rider, and head of the Congress of Racial Equality in Mississippi in the 1960s. Raymond influenced many of Mississippi's most known activists, such as Anne Moody, C. O. Chinn, and Annie Devine to join the movement and was influential in many of Mississippi's most notable Civil Rights activities such as a Woolworth's lunchcounter sit-in and protests in Jackson, Mississippi, Meredith Mississippi March, and Freedom Summer. Raymond fought for voting rights and equality for African Americans within society amongst other things.
William R. Orthwein Jr. was an American businessman and philanthropist.
Joseph W. Postlewaite (1827–1889) was an American composer and organizer of bands and orchestras in the 1850s to 1880s.
Arthur Witman (1902–1991) was a news photographer with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and a distinguished spokesperson for his profession.
Mill Creek Valley was a historic neighborhood located in the central corridor between 20th Street and Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri. European settlement began in the 18th century with mills established along La Petite Rivière, now known as Mill Creek. It became an industrial and railroad center in the 19th century. Union Station was opened in 1894. The building was closed in 1978 and renovated for commercial use. Also a residential and commercial center, Mill Creek Valley was populated by German immigrants and African Americans, before and after the Civil War. More people moved into the area during World War II to support the war effort.
The Black Veiled Prophet Ball was an observance in St. Louis, Missouri, beginning in 1967 in which an African-American man was named the Black Veiled Prophet and a woman the Black VP Queen. It was seen as a lampoon or a mockery of the whites-only Veiled Prophet Ball of that era.
