Upcoming Events

Essay Contest Award Ceremony

February 26, 2024

The essay contest closed on December 9, 2024. EJI will evaluate the essays and announce the awardees in early 2025. RJCSTL will host an award ceremony on February 26, 2025.

John Buckner Historical Marker

TBD, Expected Spring/Summer 2025

We will work with local community leaders and Equal Justice Initiative to erect a historical marker acknowledging the lynching of John Buckner near the site where it happened, near the Route 141 bridge over the Meramec River.

Francis McIntosh Historical Marker

TBD, Expected Spring/Summer 2025

We will work with local community leaders and Equal Justice Initiative to erect a historical marker acknowledging the lynching of Francis McIntosh near the site where it happened, in present-day Kiener Plaza Park.

Past Events

Essay Contest

September 16 - December 9, 2024

Francis McIntosh Soil Collection

April 30, 2022

A public ceremony commemorating the lynching of Francis McIntosh in the vicinity of the site where Mr. McIntosh was lynched in 1836. Coalition and community speakers will reflect on the lynching and how that event and those that followed are still affecting the present. Attendees will fill glass jars with soil, to be displayed in various memorial exhibits: in EJI’s Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, at the Griot Museum here in St Louis, and in the Missouri Community Remembrance Project Exhibit at the Black Archives of Mid-America in Kansas City, MO.

A community event remembering the January 1894 lynching of John Buckner. We collected soil from the site of the lynching and placed the soil in jars provided by the Equal Justice Initiative. These jars of soil will be displayed in various memorial exhibits: in EJI’s Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, at the Griot Museum here in St Louis, and in the Missouri Community Remembrance Project Exhibit at the Black Archives of Mid-America in Kansas City, MO.

The event program is archived here: Event Program for January 17, 2022 John Buckner Soil Collection

Francis McIntosh Vigil

April 28, 2021

We worked with EJI to organize an essay contest that was open to public high school students in the City of St Louis and St Louis County. The contest occurred from September 16 through December 9 of 2024, with judging and prizes to be awarded in early 2025.

The McIntosh Remembrance committee held a small community remembrance & candlelight vigil in Kiener Plaza, in the vicinity of his abduction and lynching on that date in 1836. The coalition chose to hold a small private event in light of the pandemic and other safety concerns. The event included a reading by Cheeraz Gorman of the Requiem for Francis McIntosh prepared by Cory Lovell, brief reflections on the history of the event and the work of the coalition, and a silent vigil.