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They Did It in St. Louis:
One Man Against Folklore
- Abstract
The city of St. Louis lies at the geographical center of the United States. It has a strain of French blood from the Louisiana adventurers who went north in search of river plantations. Many New Englanders abandoned their covered wagons there on the good hunch that the place had a future. The Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers keep the town refreshed with travelers and trade. It is the metropolis for Ozark Mountain people and prairie farmers. Every eighth person in St. Louis is a Negro. More than a million inhabitants are proud of the Cardinals. St. Louis is about as American as they come.
In more than a local sense the St. Louis area is a proving ground for race relations. On the border between North and South, it contains conflicting viewpoints on the status of its 125,000 Negroes as citizens and as workers. From the South it had adopted many customs toward Negroes. Unlike the Deep South, segregation here is challenged and, what is more, is considered debatable.
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