The residents of Mill Creek Valley deserved better than what the City of St. Louis and its government gave them. While the city stood by and watched the neighborhood decay, hungrily waiting on the sidelines to snap up prime real estate in the name of urban renewal, the African American inhabitants of the Mill Creek Valley neighborhood concentrated on raising themselves up.
Education offered the promise of a better life for themselves and their children. Though the colored schools of Mill Creek Valley faced numerous disadvantages that didn’t touch the white schools that dotted the city and county, like overcrowding and underfunding, Mill Creek Valley was able to offer a fine education at all levels.
Mill Creek also served as the city’s hub of civil rights advocacy. Here, black professionals like lawyers thrived, fighting to ensure the rights of their clients were respected in court. In addition, the community came together in large numbers again and again to call for better work and better pay.
Time and time again, the black citizens of Mill Creek Valley found ways to uplift themselves