Friday, February 25, 2022 at 5:30 pm Central Time
Watch live or the recording on this web page, MTC’s Facebook Page, or MTC’s YouTube Channel
FREE

In conjunction with Metro Theater Company’s production of Last Stop on Market Street, MTC presents a virtual panel discussion exploring the stories of St. Louis’s own Market Street and the people who once lived in the thriving community of Mill Creek Valley which developed along Market Street. Hear from both historians and residents of the neighborhood, which was demolished starting in 1959, leaving 20,000 African American St. Louisans displaced in the name of urban renewal. Also, learn about the developing Brickline Greenway, its community partners, and how it will commemorate the Mill Creek Valley neighborhood in its former footprint along a one-mile stretch of Market Street between Compton Avenue and 22nd Street.

Lois D. Conley: Founder/President and CEO, Griot Museum of Black History
Vivian Gibson: Author of The Last Children of Mill Creek
Gwen Moore: Curator of Urban Landscape and Community Identity, Missouri Historical Society
Elizabeth Simons: Community Program Manager, Great Rivers Greenway

Moderator: Jacqueline Thompson, Director, Actor, Associate Professor of Theatre at University of Missouri-St. Louis and Metro Theater Company (MTC) Associate Artist

All digital programs during Metro Theater Company's 2021-2022 Season are supported by PNC Arts Alive.

Send questions for our panelists to community@metroplays.org by February 23
or post them in the chat during the discussion.

Purchase Vivian Gibson’s book The Last Children of Mill Creek from The Novel Neighbor (a portion of sales go to support Metro Theater Company when you buy through this link) or from EyeSeeMe African American Children’s Bookstore in St. Louis.

OPTIONAL: Would you like a reminder email to watch the live virtual panel discussion? Complete the form below and we will email you the link prior to “Stories of Market Street.” You do not need to complete this form to watch the virtual event.

Lois D. Conley has dedicated many years toward researching African-American history, with particular emphasis on the Underground Railroad and Westward Expansion. Conley was a consultant to the National Park Services study which documented the trails of hundreds of enslaved Blacks that used it to secure their freedom via the Underground Railroad. She has also lectured across the nation at various schools, churches, universities, and has conducted tours to Black historic sites.

Conley consulted for the Royal Tropical Museum in Amsterdam for its exhibition on slavery. She has visited and studied museums in Mexico, Great Britain, Canada, and throughout the United States. Conley was a member of the Neighborhood Leadership Team for St. Louis’ 5th Ward Sustainable Neighborhood Project, has served on grant review panels for the Missouri Arts Council, St. Louis Regional Arts Commission and United Way, and was a founding member of the St. Louis Mid-Size Arts Collaborative.

Conley has been honored by numerous organizations including the Missouri Humanities Council, Top Ladies of Distinction, the Harambee Institute, Elijah Lovejoy Society, National Council of Negro Women, the YWCA of Metropolitan St. Louis, the St. Louis Argus, St. Louis Gateway, Mound City Bar Association, Classic, Greater St. Louis Community Empowerment Foundation, J.U.S.T.I.C.E., Grand Center, The Royal Vagabonds. She is a member of the 2006 class of Leadership St. Louis.

Currently,  Conley serves on the Advisory Committee for the Divided City Project, Center for the Humanities at Washington University; co-chairs the Fairgrounds/Grand Metro Link Station Working Group for the Brickline Greenway project, and is an organizing member of the Regional Justice Coalition (RJC-STL).

A graduate of Saint Louis University, Conley earned her bachelor’s degree in Communications and master’s degree in Education.  She also earned a Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies from the University of Missouri-St. Louis as an E. Desmond Lee Scholar.

Ms. Conley grew up in St. Louis’s Millcreek Neighborhood, graduated from Vashon High School, and is a life-long member of Greater Mount Carmel Baptist Church..

Vivian Gibson was raised on Bernard Street in Mill Creek Valley—454 acres in downtown St. Louis, which comprised the nation's largest urban-renewal project beginning in 1959. She started writing short stories about her childhood memories of the dying community after retiring at age 66. Her memoir, The Last Children of Mill Creek (Belt Publishing) was published in April 2020 when the author was 70 years old.

Gibson was a contributing playwright of 50in50: Writing Women into Existence (2017), performed at the Billie Holiday Theater in Brooklyn, NY. She is the author of a short story: Sunup to Sundown, published in St. Louis Anthology (Belt Publishing), June 2019. An essay excerpted from her memoir titled My Father's Accident appeared in Plough Quarterly Magazine, June 2020. In December 2020, Gibson was featured in Poets & Writers Magazine's Annual 5 Over 50. The Last Children of Mill Creek won the Missouri Humanities Council 2021 Literary Achievement Award.

Gibson received an AFA degree in apparel design from the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC and earned a bachelor's degree in Business Administration from Fontbonne University. Washington University in St. Louis honored her as one of its Most Outstanding Students in 2012 when she received her Masters in Nonprofit Management at age 63. She currently lives less than a mile from the historic Mill Creek Valley community in downtown St. Louis that she writes about in her memoir. Vivian has two adult children. 

Gwen Moore is the Curator of Urban Landscape and Community Identity at the Missouri Historical Society focusing on race, ethnicity, race relations, and social justice issues in St. Louis. Gwen has been associated with the Society since 1998 working as a researcher, community programmer, and oral historian. Her current area of research is concerned with social movements with a particular interest in civil rights activism. An important part of her work has been documenting the Ferguson protest movement which includes a collecting initiative and an oral history project. Gwen was also the curator for the Missouri History Museum exhibition, #1 in Civil Rights: The African American Freedom Struggle in St. Louis. She continues her focus on documenting the history of African Americans in the region through collecting the voices, objects, papers, and images of ordinary and extraordinary Black St. Louisans.

Gwen has a BA in sociology and history from the University of Missouri-St. Louis, a MSW from Washington University and MA and degree in history from Indiana University where she worked at the Organization of American Historians as a book editor for the OAH Magazine of History.

Elizabeth Simons is a Community Program Manager at Great Rivers Greenway, the public agency connecting the St. Louis region with a network of greenways. She engages the community through meaningful experiences such as tours, classes, and conversations on the greenways. For over a decade, she has helped communities throughout the St. Louis region to create healthy ecosystems, active lifestyles, and vibrant local economies. A native of South Carolina, she has lived in St. Louis for nearly two decades and holds a bachelor's degree in urban affairs from Saint Louis University. She enjoys conversations about nature and culture on long walks throughout the St. Louis region.

Jacqueline Thompson, Moderator, MTC Associate Artist, and Director of Last Stop on Market Street, is an accomplished actor, director, and educator. As an assistant professor of theater at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, she is passionate about providing students opportunities to explore their creativity and embrace their individuality. She previously directed MTC's productions of Idris Goodwin's Ghost and Jeremy Schaefer’s Games Dad Didn’t Play, as well as Four Little Girls: Birmingham 1963 at COCA. She has performed with MTC in Afflicted: Daughters of Salem and the virtual play Early Days. As an actor she has a performed with the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, The Black Rep, Shakespeare Festival St. Louis, Upstream Theater, Mustard Seed Theatre, and New Jewish Theatre. In March 2018, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch recognized Jacqueline not only as one of St. Louis's most versatile performers, but also as one of six women shaping the arts and entertainment in St. Louis. She received a St. Louis Theater Circle Award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama as well as an artist fellowship from the Regional Arts Commission. In 2019, she received a Saint Louis Visionary Award. She was also selected by Theatre Communications Group (TCG) to participate in The Rising Leaders of Color program.