Informal History Podcast St. Louis Speaks

Hosts Stefene Russell and Liz Wolfson visit in this special episode with Rev. Hubert Schwartzentruber and Mary Rittenhouse Schwartzentruber. Rev. Schwartzentruber was one of the three co-founders of the community organization JeffVanderLou Inc, which sought to retake the neighborhood from the clutches of blight and work through grassroots efforts and rehabilitation, block by block. Schwarztentruber shares his story of moving to St. Louis in the late 1950s from a rural upbringing in Zurich, Ontario, and starting a Mennonite Mission in the midst of Pruitt Igoe. Topics include Schwartzentruber's embrace of a social justice ministry not simply in St. Louis but across his career which would take him from St. Louis to Germantown PA, where he oversaw a shocking schism which pitted a diverse, LGBTQ friendly congregation versus a socially conservative Mennonite Church. Integral however in the development of Schwartzentruber's impassionned embrace for social justice issues was his work in St. Louis, which stretched from 1957 to 1972 and involved his participation not simply in mission building but community building with the help of legendary neighborhood organizers like Florence Aritha Spotts and Macler Shepard, co-founders with Schwartzentruber of the JeffVanderLou community organization. Guiding the conversation between Stef, Liz and the Schwartzentrubers is a memoir published by Rev. Schwartzentruber, "Jesus in Back Alleys," which is available for purchase from amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Back-Alleys-Hubert-Schwartzentruber/dp/1931038074

In today’s episode we will hear from Rebecca Rivas. Rivas is a video producer and reporter for the St. Louis American Newspaper. She speaks on her experiences reporting on the Ferguson uprising in 2014, as well as her current work covering the fight for black lives amidst a global pandemic.

Links:
http://www.stlamerican.com/
Article on the Stockley Protests: http://www.stlamerican.com/news/local_news/123-arrests-made-sunday-night-stockley-verdict-protests-continue/article_ee7699f8-9cf0-11e7-a9fc-7fd39f6f9b5e.html

Music from Pixabay

In this episode we will hear from Mariah Stewart. Stewart is a St. Louis-based journalist who currently covers diversity and inclusion in higher education for INSIGHT Into Diversity, the oldest and largest national diversity magazine and website.
In 2014, Stewart plunged into the journalism industry following a crowdfunded campaign for her continued coverage of Ferguson, Mo and the St. Louis region where she covered social justice for The Huffington Post and community news for The St. Louis American.
Stewart's work has been published in multiple outlets including, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Crisis Magazine, St. Louis Public Radio, and The Guardian. Her stories on protests, the justice system, and local courts have been nominated for the ArchCity Defenders 2017 Excellence in Poverty Journalism Awards and the National Association of Black Journalists 2016 Salute to Excellence Awards.
Her reporting has led her to speak at the 2017 SXSW interactive panel and keynote at the 2014 Online News Association conference.
You can contact Stewart via email at mstewart@insightintodiversity.com or mariah.reporter@gmail.com

Links:
https://www.clippings.me/mariahstewart

Music from Pixabay

In today’s episode of the Ferguson Project we will hear from Mallory Rukhsana Nezam. Nezam is a cross-sector culture-maker who loves cities and believes that we have the tools to make them more just and joyful. She specializes in creative placemaking/keeping/knowing, systems change and the public domain. Through her cross-sector practice, Justice + Joy, she engages government, artists, advocacy groups, elected officials, community members and urban planners to de-silo the way we run cities and build new models of interdisciplinary collaboration. She has helped build inaugural arts & culture teams in non-arts organizations at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council of Boston, Transportation for America and PolicyLink. Raised in St. Louis, MO, she is the founder of St. Louis Improv Anywhere, and collaborating founder of the St. Louis Artivists. Through her art practice she disarms and disrupts public space norms using play and participatory performance. She holds a Master of Design from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and her research focuses on the racial equity impacts of artists residencies in local government. She’s currently a 2020 Monument Lab Transnational Fellow and a 2019-2020 inaugural Practices for Change Fellow at Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute of Design & the Arts.

Links:
https://mirrorcasket.com/
https://www.mallorynezam.com/

Music from Pixabay

In this episode of the Ferguson Project we will hear from De Nichols, a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, a Transnational Fellow at Monument Lab, and Principal of Design & Social Practice at Civic Creatives. She speaks on her participation in the 2014 Ferguson uprising and her role as an activist and artist in the movement.

Links:
Design as Protest: https://www.dapcollective.com/ and https://www.instagram.com/designasprotest/
www.denichols.co
https://loebfellowship.gsd.harvard.edu
https://monumentlab.com/bulletin/announcing-the-2020-monument-lab-transnational-fellows https://www.civiccreatives.com
https://www.facebook.com/denichols.co/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/deandrean/
https://twitter.com/de_nichols
https://www.instagram.com/de_nichols/
https://www.youtube.com/user/befreeknowthyself
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pA6at4WqxPj7ctKjwWiS7itGyBVPkED7

Music: Music from Pixabay

Hello and Welcome to The Ferguson Project on The Informal History Podcast. I’m Chelsea Offiaeli, a rising junior at Harvard University, studying Women, Gender, and Sexuality and African American Studies. I’ve created a series of interviews called “The Ferguson Project” in which I take a look into the 2014 Ferguson uprising after Michael Brown Jr., an 18-year old unarmed black teen, was murdered by officer Darren Wilson on August 9, 2014. I will be interviewing reporters that covered the uprising as well as protesters, organizers, artists, and local residents to hear their stories, with a main focus on the black and brown women involved in the movement. In the upcoming episodes you will hear from various members of the movement as they reflect on their participation. I thank you ahead of time, for giving their stories the attention they deserve.

Music: Music from Pixabay