The History Behind the Arch Why the Arch is not just a regular monument, but a symbol of activism.
ISABELLA BAMNOLKER | PAGE EDITOR CHARLIE MILLER | PAGE EDITOR
The last piece of the Gateway Arch being put in October 28, 1965.
POST DISPATCH ARCHIVES | PHOTO BY LESTER LINCK
P
ercy Green dangled from the Gateway Arch to protest the exclusion of black workers from the construction, a policeman attempted to talk him down. Green, a St. Louis raised social worker and black activist, protested the exclusion of black workers from federal contracts and jobs related to the construction of the Arch. President Lyndon B Johnson had just signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, the Arch protest was led from a similar picketing of The Jefferson Bank and Trust in 1963, to convince the bank to hire black people for white-collar jobs. To understand Green’s protest, one must understand the history behind the construction of the Arch: how did the Arch come to be? Why is it important for us to understand the history of it? The arch was designed by Eero Saarinen in 1947 for a nationwide competition in 1948. Saarinen is also well known for designing the Washington Dulles International Airport outside of Washington D.C., and the TWA Flight
Center in New York City. “He was born in 1910 and died in 1961 before the Arch was completed” said park ranger Jenny Burney. In terms of shape, most people had designs similar to the Washington Monument, but Saarinen’s stood out. “His was so unique and different from anybody else’s design,” said Burney. “It makes a shape of a gateway and [St. Louis] is the gateway to the west,” she added. “All the pioneers came through here, and Lewis and Clark started their core of discovery through here.” “The Louisiana Purchase was [also] made here,” said Burney. “The area that is now the Arch was the world’s largest public parking lot for about 25 years, and before that it was a 30-block mixeduse district with commercial, industrial, and a smaller proportion of apartments” said Clayton High School history teacher Daniel Glossenger. “The residential displacement for the Arch was relatively small compared to other larger renewal efforts in the 20th century. The majority of people in the area were renters, and absen-
tee landlords and low quality apartments were a problem in the area in the 1920s and 1930s”. On October 9, 1939, mayor Bernard F. Dickmann ordered demolition of the district, eventually creating the largest public parking lot, and later transformed into the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, now called Gateway Arch National Park. This $7.5 million land clearance project needed six years of negotiations and agreements for the mayor to have a crowbar in his hands. It wasn’t until 26 years later, after the demolition, when the last piece of the arch was installed. The demolition of the commercial, industrial town was somewhat minuscule in comparison to the problems of economic justice. “The building of the Arch-- separate from the demolitions, which happened 25 years earlier-- didn’t dramatically change race relations in the area. There were some protests by ACTION and Percy Green that related to economic justice, and in particular, getting Black men jobs on the site. But aside from raising the profile of economic justice, there weren’t major shifts that
