Article 2: Challenging Jim Crow Segregated Housing in St. Louis Through Community Education: The Narrative of Ruth Harris and Ruth Porter

As the early twentieth century’s restrictive social policies and poor economic conditions relegated African Americans in St. Louis to high poverty neighborhoods, parents were forced to enroll their children in substandard segregated schools. Meanwhile the African American population increased in size from 108,765 (11.4 percent) in 1940 to 153,766 (17.9 percent) in 1950 to 214,377 (28.6 percent) in 1960 and beyond (United States Census Bureau 2018). Though St. Louis Public Schools (SLPS) desegregated its schools after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, the existing African Americans’ neighborhoods continued to dictate where children attended school. Therefore in St. Louis, housing and education shared an inextricable connection because of the use of the neighborhood borders as school boundaries.