A decade before the Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education of topEka, kansas (1954) helped launch the modern civil rights movement, a million African Americans were fighting overseas for the United States in World War II. In St. Louis, as in other American cities, their parents, spouses, and children at home were denied access to public accommoda- tions, equal education, fair pay, and decent housing. The last item was particularly problem- atic in St. Louis, as its African American population grew rapidly and black neighborhoods began to burst at the seams. As African Americans of necessity sought housing outside the restrictive racial barriers set up by the St. Louis Real Estate Exchange and its partners, legal confrontations between segregationist whites and African Americans in need of homes became inevitable.
This was the case with Lewis Place, a private place near St. Louis’s Central West End.