JEFFERSON CITY – Jefferson City author, Michelle Brooks, held a book signing Sunday afternoon at Quinn Chapel A.M.E Church for a story that covered lost Black history in mid-Missouri.
Brooks, a former reporter of 20 years with the Jefferson City News Tribune, delved into history she said had been altered or dismissed in the Mill Bottom and The Foot near downtown Jefferson City. She highlighted the many untold stories of families and businesses that she said were pushed out of their neighborhoods.
The early-release signing for “Lost Jefferson City,” took place on Sunday at Quinn Chapel on the corner of Lafayette Street and East Miller Street.
Quinn Chapel is one of the oldest Black entities in Jefferson City.
It was started by a group of free and enslaved Black individuals in 1850. The Ramsey family was one of the founding families that was included in Brooks’ book. Its story held the background of a community that confronted urban renewal efforts in the 1960s that Brooks’ said wiped out their culture in the Lafayette interchange neighborhood.
The Foot is an area at the base of Lincoln University bordered by East McCarty, Chestnut, Atchison and Jackson streets.
Brooks said she utilized primary sources by professional archaeologists and historians to discover how The Foot was lost during urban renewal efforts. She wanted to tell the recorded histories of individuals who are no longer living to tell it.
“Their stories weren’t recorded on a statue, or they don’t have a plaque somewhere, but they contributed to their community especially in The Foot and The Mill Bottom,” she said.
Jefferson City resident, Glover Brown, was one of the characters in Brooks’ book who shared his experience.
“I didn’t know what racism was, until urban renewal came in the late 50s and 60s,” Brown said.
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He said he along with his brother and father were pushed out of their home on Elm Street in Missouri’s capitol.
Brown served as a civil rights investigator and is currently developing a building site plan for the corner of Lafayette and McCarty.
He said he’s glad to see some change since more people are learning about the history of his neighborhood.
“As long as we can talk, I don’t care what color you are, as long as we can talk,” Brown said.
Continuing the conversation to learn from one another helps members from different communities understand how history has helped shape the present, said one of Quinn Chapel’s officers, Lori Simms.
Quinn Chapel was once a part of The Foot neighborhood when it was a vibrant and bustling center for Black-owned businesses like hotels, restaurants and laundromats, Brooks said. That was before Black families were moved due to forced segregation, said Simms.
She accepted Brooks’ book with open arms because she wanted the chapel’s connection within the historic black community to be kept alive. She said it’s important to know history – regardless if it’s your own – to ensure that the bad parts don’t get repeated.
Simms said, “It’s there, even if you can’t see those threads. And if you learn a little bit about your history, as you study, you start to connect the dots.”
Brooks said her book is meant to stitch together the missing fabrics in history to create one big, continuous story, where people can find common ground.