Man Opens Fire on Kirkwood, Missouri City Council

I live about 5 minutes from Kirkwood, Missouri. Kirkwood is your typical St. Louis County bedroom community. Kirkwood was established in 1853 and comprises about 9-square miles with a population of some 27,324 at last count. It was the first planned suburb west of the Mississippi and really owes its existence to the railroad. The city is even named after James Pugh Kirkwood, the engineer in charge of locating, surveying, and building the railroad. There are still a lot of railroad tracks that run through the city and there is a historic old train station in the heart of the city that was built in 1893. Since the late 1800's, Kirkwood has been called the "Queen of the St. Louis Suburbs." Kirkwood boasts high property values, quality public and private schools, and a large central park that includes an aquatic center, ice rink, outdoor amphitheater, ball fields, tennis courts and playground areas. But over the past few months, this idyllic community has been rocked by violence and racial tension that has gained national attention. (www.kirkwood.mo.us/history.htm)

It might be enlightening to look at the history of Kirkwood from the "other side of the tracks." Not all blacks who lived in Missouri prior to the Civil war were slaves. In 1860, there were 3, 572 free Negroes in the State of Missouri compared to 114,931 slaves. Free Negroes tended to live in the cities because of the greater opportunities there. About one half of the state's Negroes were located in the city of St. Louis at the time. Since 1817 paranoia ran so high in the state that the fear of free Blacks revolting caused the legislature to pass a law forbidding them to assemble for any reason. Then in 1835, the Missouri General Assembly cited its constitutional authority to "pass such laws as necessary...to prevent free Negroes and mulattoes from coming to, and settling in this state, under any pretext whatsoever." Free Negroes who presided in any county in Missouri had to post a bond and obtain a license to do so. (www.umsl.edu/blackstudies/)