Black history

One of the lessons of Black History Month is that history cannot be separated from the story of a city, a region, a state, a country or the world. Black history and American history are interwoven.

During segregation, many black businesses operated in downtown Cape Girardeau, but most of the buildings that housed those businesses are gone.

In Monday's Southeast Missourian, reporter Callie Clark Miller provided a tour of black historical sites in Cape Girardeau and Jackson, some of them unknown to people who have lived here many years. The buildings are mostly churches or former schools.

They include St. James AME Church and the African American Baptist Church in Cape Girardeau and a two-room school where black students were taught in Jackson from 1947 until desegregation of schools began in the mid-1950s. The school building will be torn down when the Jackson High School renovation project begins.

In Cape Girardeau, Lincoln School educated black students from 1890 until mostly ruined by fire in 1953. The school was not rebuilt because the nation's "separate but equal" doctrine was ruled unconstitutional the next year.

The first services for St. James AME Church were held in Cape Girardeau in 1863. The church often plays host to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday celebration.

These buildings have sheltered thousands of community events and community members over the decades and centuries. They are historic places.