Facets of the past: Missouri full of undiscovered black history

Many black history sites in Missouri are falling into ruin because few people know about them. Angela DaSilva of St. Louis aims to correct the latter.

DaSilva, spoke on Missouri's black history Saturday at Southeast Missouri State University's University Center. DaSilva is president of National Black Tourism Network and gives tours in Detroit and St. Louis.

She encouraged youths to support and investigate black history in Southeast Missouri.

"Go forth with these stories and major in black history," she said.

DaSilva told of her struggle in taking on the Missouri Department of Transportation to save Slave Rock, near Danville on Interstate 70. Slaves were once sold at the rock, which is at the highest point in the county and which is now three-quarters underground. After DaSilva fought the possibility of the rock being blasted, MoDOT detoured a highway 35 miles around it.

The Hicklin Hearthstone plantation, outside Lexington in northwest Missouri, was built by James Hicklin, a surveyor with a 14,000-acre plantation. DaSilva said Hicklin had only 300 acres under cultivation. Instead he owned 700 slaves and held an annual sale each spring marketing 100 to 200 slaves. He was known as a slave breeder.

The plantation and its outbuildings still remain and are owned by his great-great-great-granddaughter.

"She is embarrassed of her heritage and refuses to sell it," said DaSilva, who believes the site should be open to the public.

Heroes in education were a highlight in the lecture -- one of the schools created for freed blacks by James Milton Turner is now a day care in Ste. Genevieve, according to DaSilva. Turner served the Missouri area after the Civil War as a deputy superintendent of schools to create schools for freed blacks. Fourteen of Turner's 30 schools are still standing.

Although she'd like to get back to this area and make more discoveries, she said, she just doesn't have the time.

About fifty attended the lecture. More than half those in attendance were Trio Upward Bound students from Sikeston, Charleston and outlying areas. Trio Upward Bound is a Southeast Missouri State University precollegiate program for low-income students who will be first-generation college students.

Krystal Whitfield, 17, of Sikeston had plans of majoring in nursing in college before she heard the lecture.

After, she said, "I'd like to minor in history, especially black history. I didn't know Missouri had so much black history. Her talk was very captivating. I was really on the edge of my seat the whole time."

cpagano@semissourian.com

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