A downtown memorial will honor enslaved people who sued for freedom
Before emancipation, and before the Civil War resolved slavery’s questions with bloody finality, enslaved men and women turned to the courts. It wasn’t just Dred Scott. The courthouse in St. Louis saw an estimated 400 “freedom suits” in the half-century between the Louisiana Purchase and the Emancipation Proclamation.
Two decades ago, handwritten records of that litigation were stumbled upon almost by accident, said St. Louis Circuit Judge David Mason. For Mason, who is himself the descendant of enslaved people, that discovery set off a quest for knowledge — and action.
“That really took my interest,” he explained on Tuesday’s St. Louis on the Air, and led him to a realization: “We have to memorialize this. We have to pay attention to this.”
Now, thanks to Mason, those lawsuits are being commemorated with a memorial at St. Louis Circuit Court. In the past two years, a committee of lawyers has been raising funds through the St. Louis Bar Foundation. It's commissioned a new work by Preston Jackson, a sculptor based in Peoria, Illinois. His memorial is expected to debut this June, part of a $1 million project just east of the Civil Courts Building at Market and 11th streets in downtown St. Louis.
https://news.stlpublicradio.org/show/st-louis-on-the-air/2022-02-15/a-downtown-memorial-will-honor-enslaved-people-who-sued-for-freedom