Informal History Podcast

Hosts Stefene Russell and Liz Wolfson visit in this special episode with Rev. Hubert Schwartzentruber and Mary Rittenhouse Schwartzentruber. Rev. Schwartzentruber was one of the three co-founders of the community organization JeffVanderLou Inc, which sought to retake the neighborhood from the clutches of blight and work through grassroots efforts and rehabilitation, block by block. Schwarztentruber shares his story of moving to St. Louis in the late 1950s from a rural upbringing in Zurich, Ontario, and starting a Mennonite Mission in the midst of Pruitt Igoe. Topics include Schwartzentruber's embrace of a social justice ministry not simply in St. Louis but across his career which would take him from St. Louis to Germantown PA, where he oversaw a shocking schism which pitted a diverse, LGBTQ friendly congregation versus a socially conservative Mennonite Church. Integral however in the development of Schwartzentruber's impassionned embrace for social justice issues was his work in St. Louis, which stretched from 1957 to 1972 and involved his participation not simply in mission building but community building with the help of legendary neighborhood organizers like Florence Aritha Spotts and Macler Shepard, co-founders with Schwartzentruber of the JeffVanderLou community organization. Guiding the conversation between Stef, Liz and the Schwartzentrubers is a memoir published by Rev. Schwartzentruber, "Jesus in Back Alleys," which is available for purchase from amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Back-Alleys-Hubert-Schwartzentruber/dp/1931038074

In today's episode we will hear from Rebecca Rivas. Rivas is a video producer and reporter for the St. Louis American Newspaper. She speaks on her experiences reporting on the Ferguson uprising in 2014, as well as her current work covering the fight for black lives amidst a global pandemic. Links: http://www.stlamerican.com/ Article on the Stockley Protests: http://www.stlamerican.com/news/local_news/123-arrests-made-sunday-night-stockley-verdict-protests-continue/article_ee7699f8-9cf0-11e7-a9fc-7fd39f6f9b5e.htmlMusic from Pixabay

In this episode we will hear from Mariah Stewart. Stewart is a St. Louis-based journalist who currently covers diversity and inclusion in higher education for INSIGHT Into Diversity, the oldest and largest national diversity magazine and website. In 2014, Stewart plunged into the journalism industry following a crowdfunded campaign for her continued coverage of Ferguson, Mo and the St. Louis region where she covered social justice for The Huffington Post and community news for The St. Louis American.Stewart's work has been published in multiple outlets including, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Crisis Magazine, St. Louis Public Radio, and The Guardian. Her stories on protests, the justice system, and local courts have been nominated for the ArchCity Defenders 2017 Excellence in Poverty Journalism Awards and the National Association of Black Journalists 2016 Salute to Excellence Awards.Her reporting has led her to speak at the 2017 SXSW interactive panel and keynote at the 2014 Online News Association conference.You can contact Stewart via email at mstewart@insightintodiversity.com or mariah.reporter@gmail.comLinks: https://www.clippings.me/mariahstewartMusic from Pixabay

In today's episode of the Ferguson Project we will hear from Mallory Rukhsana Nezam. Nezam is a cross-sector culture-maker who loves cities and believes that we have the tools to make them more just and joyful. She specializes in creative placemaking/keeping/knowing, systems change and the public domain. Through her cross-sector practice, Justice + Joy, she engages government, artists, advocacy groups, elected officials, community members and urban planners to de-silo the way we run cities and build new models of interdisciplinary collaboration. She has helped build inaugural arts & culture teams in non-arts organizations at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council of Boston, Transportation for America and PolicyLink. Raised in St. Louis, MO, she is the founder of St. Louis Improv Anywhere, and collaborating founder of the St. Louis Artivists. Through her art practice she disarms and disrupts public space norms using play and participatory performance. She holds a Master of Design from Harvard's Graduate School of Design and her research focuses on the racial equity impacts of artists residencies in local government. She's currently a 2020 Monument Lab Transnational Fellow and a 2019-2020 inaugural Practices for Change Fellow at Arizona State University's Herberger Institute of Design & the Arts.Links:https://mirrorcasket.com/https://www.mallorynezam.com/Music from Pixabay

In this episode of the Ferguson Project we will hear from De Nichols, a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, a Transnational Fellow at Monument Lab, and Principal of Design & Social Practice at Civic Creatives. She speaks on her participation in the 2014 Ferguson uprising and her role as an activist and artist in the movement. Links: Design as Protest: https://www.dapcollective.com/ and https://www.instagram.com/designasprotest/www.denichols.co https://loebfellowship.gsd.harvard.eduhttps://monumentlab.com/bulletin/announcing-the-2020-monument-lab-transnational-fellows https://www.civiccreatives.comhttps://www.facebook.com/denichols.co/https://www.linkedin.com/in/deandrean/ https://twitter.com/de_nicholshttps://www.instagram.com/de_nichols/https://www.youtube.com/user/befreeknowthyselfhttps://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pA6at4WqxPj7ctKjwWiS7itGyBVPkED7Music: Music from Pixabay

Hello and Welcome to The Ferguson Project on The Informal History Podcast. I'm Chelsea Offiaeli, a rising junior at Harvard University, studying Women, Gender, and Sexuality and African American Studies. I've created a series of interviews called “The Ferguson Project” in which I take a look into the 2014 Ferguson uprising after Michael Brown Jr., an 18-year old unarmed black teen, was murdered by officer Darren Wilson on August 9, 2014. I will be interviewing reporters that covered the uprising as well as protesters, organizers, artists, and local residents to hear their stories, with a main focus on the black and brown women involved in the movement. In the upcoming episodes you will hear from various members of the movement as they reflect on their participation. I thank you ahead of time, for giving their stories the attention they deserve. Music: Music from Pixabay

Vivian Gibson was raised on Bernard Street in Mill Creek Valley—454 acres in the heart of downtown St. Louis that comprised the nation's largest urban-renewal project beginning in 1959. She started writing short stories about her childhood memories of the dying community after retiring at age 66. Her memoir, "The Last Children of Mill Creek," was published by Belt in the spring of 2020. Miranda Rechtenwald talks to her about her new book, St. Louis history, and more. Vivian's websitehttps://www.vivian-gibson.comBELT Publishing Author's Pagehttps://beltpublishing.com/products/the-last-children-of-mill-creekSt. Louis on the Air interview https://news.stlpublicradio.org/show/st-louis-on-the-air/2020-04-15/in-the-last-children-of-mill-creek-vivian-gibson-portrays-a-vanished-st-louis-neighborhoodSt. Louis American on "The Last Children of Mill Creek"http://www.stlamerican.com/entertainment/living_it/author-and-st-louis-native-vivian-gibson-to-discuss-new-memoir-on-left-bank-books/article_1081609a-951a-11ea-a28e-37b09b39b132.htmlSt. Louis Magazine review of "The Last Children of Mill Creek"https://www.stlmag.com/history/vivian-gibson-the-last-children-of-mill-creek/

Co-editor Liz Wolfson speaks with local St. Louis artist and educator, Clayvon Welsey Ambrose for this special episode of Informal History's Podcast. A child of Mill Creek Valley, Ambrose has been everywhere from Vietnam to St. Louis in Senegal where he leads the sister city program with St. Louis, Missouri. The topic at the center of this chat is Ambrose' "The Artists' Journey," a three panel exhibition that is also the topic of a photographic essay shared with us for Volume I of the Informal History Zine (anthology).

In this episode, we talk to Brittany Breeden of Project Augustine, a nonprofit restoring the former St Augustine Catholic Church in the St. Louis Place Neighborhood. For the next three years, the goal is to stabilize and restore the building, eventually opening it as a community center offering arts and educational programs, a community garden, a wellness center, and administrative/entrepreneurial spaces. Project Augustine https://www.projectaugustine.orgVideo tour of St. Augustinehttps://youtu.be/ODE12XPZUoMFox 2 News/News 11 feature on Project Augustinehttps://www.projectaugustine.org/post/fox-2-news-news-11-dive-deeper-into-project-augustine-s-goal-to-repurpose-st-augustineChris Naffziger's St. Louis Magazine story on Project Augustinehttps://www.stlmag.com/history/architecture/project-augustine/Chris Naffziger on the history of St. Augustine Catholic Church https://www.stlmag.com/history/architecture/tragic-decline-gothic-revival-church-non-an-anomaly-st-louis/

Informal History editor and podcast cohost Liz Wolfson interviews University of California, Santa Barbara professor George Lipsitz about a range of topics including his scholarship in Black Studies as well as his time spent in St. Louis as both a community organizer and a young academic. The conversation touches topics including spatial and racial politics here in St. Louis and nationally.

Historians Marvin-Alonzo Greer, Lindsey Manshack and Nick Sacco join Informal History's Liz Wolfson and Stef Russell to talk about public monuments, including confederate statues and Tower Grove Park's recently removed Columbus statue. Does removing them “erase history?” What do we do with complicated figures like Grant? What's the difference between a monument and a memorial? This episode, which streamed live in front of an audience on June 30, is the second installment in our series on public monuments. For info on past and future episodes, as well as info on our print zine, go to http://www.informalhistorystl.com. If you want to help support the work we do, go to https://www.patreon.com/Informalhistory. The Panelists:Marvin-Alonzo Greer is an historical interpreter and public historian concentrating on using immersive history to begin community dialogue.Twitter: @magthehistorianInstagram: @magthehistorian++ Nick Sacco is a public historian and writer. Twitter: @NickSacco55Exploring the Pasthttps://pastexplore.wordpress.com/about/St. Louis Anthologyhttps://beltpublishing.com/products/st-louis-anthology++Lindsey Manshack (Choctaw Apache Tribe of Ebarb) is a Research Manager at the Buder Center for American Indian Studies at Washington University in St Louis. Twitter: @LindseyManshackIlluminative Native Education for All Initiativehttps://illuminatives.org/native-education-for-all-2/ Alliance for Native Programs and Initiativeshttps://www.nativealliance.org/about Lindsey's Speakers Bureau page, where orgs can request the “Then and Now: American Indian Representation in Missouri” presentation: https://shsmo.org/speakers-bureau/speakers/lindsey-kaye-manshack

In the first installment in our series on public monuments, filmmaker Bill Streeter moderates a discussion featuring Rabbi Susan Talve, Informal History's Umar Lee, restauranteur Ben Poremba, preservationist/historian Michael Allen and St. Louis Journalism review founder Charles Klotzer. The topic of discussion is St. Louis IX of France — the king, the statue, and the city that bears his name. This critical discussion of Louis IX talks about his antisemitic and anti-Muslim philosophies and actions, what the implies for statuary in public places and whether or not St. Louis should remain .... well, St. Louis. St. Louis Archdiocese responds to calls to remove statue of city's namesakehttps://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/st-louis-archdiocese-responds-to-calls-to-remove-statue-of-citys-namesake/article_c436119b-52c9-5245-9222-fd939822c178.htmlArchdiocese responds to calls for removal of King Louis IX statue, city to be renamedhttps://www.kmov.com/news/activists-religious-community-clash-over-push-for-st-louis-to-be-renamed-statue-removed/article_91f3ad72-b87e-11ea-a865-972000f8ea41.htmlProtesters rally both for and against removing King Louis IX statue in Forest Parkhttps://www.ksdk.com/article/news/local/protesters-rally-both-for-and-against-removing-king-louis-ix-statue-in-forest-park/63-77120fb1-833e-4442-b197-6b81b3fd37a4Photos: Protest over statue of St. Louis' namesake comes to a headhttps://www.stltoday.com/news/multimedia/pictures/photos-protest-over-statue-of-st-louis-namesake-comes-to-a-head/collection_23d40b35-1b7c-5f86-8cf2-4714ab95ca57.html#tracking-source=home-trendingCatholic Church Opposes Activists' Call To Remove Iconic Statuehttps://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/catholic-church-opposes-activists-call-remove-iconic-statue#stream/0The Problem With King Louis — and the Statues of a Few Other Statues of Guys We've Admiredhttps://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/arts-and-theatre/the-problem-with-king-louis-and-a-few-other-statues-of-guys-we-ve-admired/article_0ce0e135-9c4d-58c9-b874-f928d2e1ffcf.htmlAimee Leavitt: Down with Louis IX! https://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2009/07/29/down-with-king-louis-ix

Randy and Jeff Vines talk with artist Robert Fishbone about his career of painting large-scale murals throughout St. Louis. He began that work in 1974 with his wife, Sarah Linquist, and continues today with daughter Liza. From the iconic (and long-gone) “Lindy Squared,” mural downtown to his present work in hospice, the talk covers every aspect of Fishbone's long career. Robert Fishbone's websitehttps://www.onthewallmurals.com/aboutLiza Fishbone's websitehttp://lizafishbone.comRiverfront Times: This Family Has Been Painting St. Louis' Streets for 40 Yearshttps://photos.riverfronttimes.com/family-painting-st-louis-streets-40-years/

Aja Corrigan sits down with civil rights icon and hell-raiser Percy Green for what is nothing short of a blend between oral history and podcast discussion of everything from life in the 1960s to activism of the present day and political struggles facing African Americans in 2020.

Nick Sacco is a public historian — he explains exactly what that is during this episode — as well as a writer and National Park Service ranger at the Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site. He's been involved with public history since 2010, and has worked for the National Council on Public History, the Indiana State House, and the Missouri History Museum Library and Research Center. He's an expert on 19th century American history, but like all good historians, his writing and research always make it plain why what happened then informs what's going on now. Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Sitehttps://www.nps.gov/ulsg/index.htmNick's blog, Exploring the Past https://pastexplore.wordpress.com/about/Twitter@NickSacco5St. Louis Anthology https://beltpublishing.com/products/st-louis-anthology

From Top of the Towers to Jamestown Mall, Umar and Toby Weiss Place North County at the center of St Louis history post world War II. From its mid-century modern architecture to Old Town's famous donuts, Toby and Umar Lee share memories of North County and discuss it's future as one of the region's most diverse settings.

Washington University Adjunct Professor Taylor Desloge joins podcast host Mark Loehrer to continue the conversation around public health in St. Louis, with a focused historical look towards the near-northside--specifically Carr Square. There, in the densely packed tenements of St. Louis at the turn of the century, progressive reformer Charlotte Rumbold uncovered the truth about St. Louis' looming public health crisis. Desloge's work on St. Louis' "Lung Block" is the subject of this conversation as well as his published dissertation, "The Tortured Pre-History of Urban Blight: African American St. Louis and the Politics of Public Health, 1877-1940"https://digital.shsmo.org/digital/collection/mhr/id/59119

Liz Wolfson speaks with Dr. Ezelle Sanford III, a medical historian and post-doctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, and Chelsey Carter, a medical anthropologist and PhD/MPH candidate at Washington University in St. Louis, about the novel coronavirus known as COVID-19. Topics discussed include: how Sanford and Carter are thinking about historical precedents for COVID-19, such as the 1918 "Spanish Flu" pandemic and the ongoing HIV/AIDS pandemic; their recent co-authored article addressing the role of race, class and other social identities in responses to COVID-19, with particular focus on the St. Louis region; and what, as social scientists and historians, they're paying attention in the media coverage of the virus.Find Chelsey at: @AudreTaughtMe2 (Twitter)Find Ezelle at: @ezellesandford3 (Twitter) and ezellesanford.com Link to their co-authored article, "The myth of black immunity," in the STL American: http://www.stlamerican.com/news/columnists/guest_columnists/the-myth-of-black-immunity/article_856a576c-7f86-11ea-b39e-cb879ea778bb.html

Writer and historian Chris Naffziger talks about his recent articles for St. Louis Magazine, including two pieces about STL's Beaux Arts architecture; "the Area 51 of the St. Louis caving scene"; his research on the Lemp family; and yes, a little bit on the 1918 flu pandemic (which, as he explains, was also the 1919/1920 flu pandemic). Chris' long-running blog, St. Louis Patina http://stlouispatina.comChris' St. Louis Magazine articleshttps://www.stlmag.com/topics/chris-naffziger/Twitter https://twitter.com/naffzigerSt. Louis On the Air interview: 1918 Flu Pandemichttps://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/st-louis-response-1918-spanish-flu-pandemic-was-lauded-rightly-soPhoto by Jennifer Silverberg, https://www.jennifersilverberg.com

Historian Walter Johnson, author of "The Broken Heart of America: St. Louis and the Violent History of the United States," joins local civil rights icon, Percy Green, founder of ACTION and the man who climbed the arch--to talk about a range of issues pertinent to Johnson's new book including racism, labor organizing and civil rights activism. The interview was conducted with two hosts from the Informal History editorial board, Umar Lee, veteran podcaster and St. Louis activist and Miranda Rectenwald, historian and archivist at Washington University.