Can saving a building save East St. Louis’ future?
EAST ST. LOUIS — A group of residents, advocates and history buffs is trying to save a historic school here — and turn the tide on the town's future, too.
The former Lincoln School, erected 138 years ago, was the city's first school for Black students. It survived the 1917 massacre that targeted East St. Louis' Black residents, and rode through the town's economic collapse in the second half of the 20th century.
But it's been at least 15 years since the two-story, white brick school building at North Sixth Street and St. Louis Avenue has seen life. Its future is tenuous. Overgrown brush suffocates the northeast wall. Windows are broken. The preservation group Landmarks Illinois named it one of the state's most endangered places this year.
Now the East St. Louis Historical Society is hoping to save it — and the town's history — before both are lost to time.
"Sometimes, when all you see is devastation," said society Executive Director Jaye Willis, "you don't understand that that isn't the entire story and that the story can be changed."
In recent years, residents have sought to rectify that. As interest in Black history, and in righting old wrongs, has surged across the country, local efforts have bloomed, too. St. Louis said last year it was setting aside money to repair Chuck Berry's former home and Tina Turner's Imperial Club, among other historic African American sites. In Valley Park, historians and activists want to erect a memorial in honor of a Black man lynched from a bridge spanning the Meramec River. And earlier this month, in nearby Brooklyn, Illinois, the oldest city in America incorporated by a Black majority, archaeologists are hoping to find artifacts of the town's founders to help it gain entry into the National Register of Historic Places.
"It's not just East St. Louis history," said resident Jerome King, who volunteers with the historical society. "It's American history."
East St. Louis, once an industrial powerhouse, was home to a list of celebrities, from Ike and Tina Turner to United Nations ambassador Donald McHenry to Olympic track star Jackie Joyner-Kersee.
It now has less than a quarter of the residents it had in its prime. Businesses are few. And it has gained a reputation for corruption and crime, becoming a punchline in discussions of urban decay on the region's east side.
The historical society wants to take one small step toward fixing that.
It's really just an idea right now. The historical society is in talks to acquire the school and will then determine then how much money it needs to raise to rehab it.
But the vision is clear: It hopes to house its museum there, and envisions teaching the community about East St. Louis, its residents, and how much they contributed to the growth of the country.
More than pride, the group says, the historical society wants young people here to gain hope and be inspired.
East St. Louis was booming
The Lincoln School, at 240 North Sixth Street, was born from activism. In the 1880s, a former slave and Civil War veteran led a protest to petition the school board to build a school for Black residents.
Industry in East St. Louis was booming then. Jobs in railroads, stockyards and factories here lured Black migrants from the South, and, for several decades, the town's Black neighborhoods grew.
East St. Louis' Black population, 6,000 in 1910, had almost doubled by 1917 .
But in the early 1900s, corporations were using Black replacement workers to bust up unions, including at a 1916 stockyard strike in Chicago.
In 1917, the Aluminum Ore Co. hired hundreds of strikebreakers to replace union workers. Union leaders demanded City Hall get rid of the newcomers. In May, white mobs rampaged downtown, stopping trolleys and streetcars, pulling out Black passengers and beating them on the streets and sidewalks.
Then, in early July of that year, white men in a Ford shot into Black homes, and Black men gathered at a street corner fired onto an oncoming Ford, killing two people who turned out to be police officers arriving to investigate. Tensions rose and the massacre, once known as the East St. Louis race riots, began .
Black people were beaten to death in the street. One was hung from a telephone pole . Rioters set fires in Black neighborhoods and took photos of themselves proudly standing by the carnage.
Officially, 39 Black residents and nine white people were killed in the violence, but experts believe a death toll of at least 100 is more likely.
Still, population continued to grow through the 1950s, peaking above 82,000.
It wasn't until the 1960s and 1970s that factories began closing in earnest, victims of a national shift in industry. Both white and Black residents left for better opportunities. Street violence became more prevalent.
East St. Louis now has fewer than 18,000 residents. Empty lots, where homes once stood, pock its neighborhoods. In some cases, entire blocks have been demolished.
But Lincoln School survived all of that.
The start of a 'historical avenue'?
After the board of education left in the 1970s, the former Lincoln School became a homeless shelter for a decade or so.
It's now been vacant for nearly two decades. A religious organization called the Ministers United Against Suffering, which currently owns the property, has said it has no plans for the school.
The historical society hopes to own the building by the end of the year.
The society wants to incorporate that local history into schools; it's currently in talks with the school district about it.
"Knowing that you can identify with someone that's similar to yourself, that's personalized in a sense that you don't have to look at the television to see this," said King, the East St. Louis resident. "That legacy is so important."
One day in July, more than a dozen residents gathered outside the old Lincoln to share stories of the town's legacy and emphasize why their work is important.
"Our history is under attack," said Reginald Petty, a civil rights activist and founder of the historical society. "There's so much history of our town a lot of young people don't know. But they should know it."
The historical society conducted an architectural survey a few years ago and learned that the building is in good shape. It hopes to use the first floor as the museum and the top floor as a community space.
Willis, head of the historical society, sees the school building as the first of many historic structures her organization can save and redevelop: Perhaps one dedicated to sports history, another to political history. Maybe even a "historical avenue" that residents and visitors can follow throughout town.
"We are trying to change the narrative of how our youth see the city in which they come from," Willis said. "So then, they can not only change that narrative but actually work to help us bring it back to the level that it was — or even better."
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