rwklose

rwklose, 12 days ago to stlouis

75 years ago, the students of Washington University in St. Louis overwhelmingly voted to admit Black students to undergraduate programs. But it took the university another three years to desegregate. #stlouis

A group of pictures showing Washington University students campaigning and voting for integrated undergraduate classes.

rwklose, 12 days ago to Arkansas

The nation’s fastest-shrinking city, and among its least safe, hopes an education turnaround will help spark a revival in central Arkansas. https://bit.ly/4dyHkRR from the Arkansas Advocate #arkansas

rwklose, 16 days ago to random

Pro-Palestinian protests at U.S. universities are neither Nazi rallies nor Jew-friendly utopias, as partisans declare. But for the American right, they’re a perfect foil for a campaign of moral panic which doesn’t safeguard Jewish students but does win points from the base — and distracts from the real crisis in Gaza. https://bit.ly/4bivcT8 by @etannechin in @haaretz_english_news

rwklose, 2 months ago to Illinois

20 years ago today (March 11), I gave a young state senator from Chicago the cover of Illinois Times ahead of the Democratic primary. He went on to win Sangamon County and the state, but for some reason failed to complete his first term in the U.S. Senate. #illinois #politics

rwklose, 2 months ago to Palestine

Girl Scouts of the USA have apologized to the St. Louis troop raising money for Gaza. “We are disappointed and disheartened by what recently transpired. We sincerely regret any hurt caused,” said Bonnie Barczykowski, chief executive officer for Girl Scouts of the USA. https://bit.ly/3VcR0Lp (It’s a surprising follow to this story -> https://bit.ly/4bTac6I) #palestine #gaza #stlouis

rwklose, 3 months ago to random

“When ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, there can be no successful appeal back to bullets; that there can be no successful appeal except to ballots themselves, at succeeding elections. Such will be a great lesson of peace; teaching men that what they cannot take by an election neither can they take by a war; teaching all the folly of being the beginners of a war.” — Lincoln’s July 4, 1861 address to Congress https://bit.ly/48lyLX2 #lincoln #insurrection #elections

rwklose, 3 months ago to ukteachers

75 years ago, 13 Black children led by an organizer for Henry Wallace’s Progressive Party tried to enroll in whites-only public schools in East St. Louis. White students walked out in protest; police escorted the Black students out of the schools. School segregation was illegal in Illinois, but southern Illinois school districts ignored the law. East St. Louis schools didn’t desegregate until 1950; public schools in St. Louis waited until Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. #education #illinois

A photograph of white students in East St. Louis protesting an attempt by Black students to enroll in whites-only schools, published on Feb. 1, 1949. One sign reads: “The Negro If They Stay We Go.”

rwklose, 4 months ago to Russia

In Putin’s Russia, the state fears poets. https://rb.gy/z7vl46 #russia #ukraine #poetry

rwklose, 4 months ago to Palestine

It just doesn’t stop. https://www.stltoday.com/news/nation-world/death-toll-mounts-as-israeli-widens-attacks-across-gaza/article_03aa416c-a569-11ee-9a70-17e11d907a5b.html #palestine #gaza via @AP

rwklose, 4 months ago to Palestine

An Israeli airstrike killed 76 members of an extended family, rescue officials said Saturday, a day after the U.N. chief warned again that nowhere is safe in Gaza and that Israel’s ongoing offensive is creating “massive obstacles” to the distribution of humanitarian aid. https://www.stltoday.com/news/nation-world/israeli-strike-kills-76-members-of-one-gaza-family-rescue-officials-say/article_f3a8a51c-a18d-11ee-a9f1-e70c73775e7a.html #palestine #gaza via @AP

rwklose, 5 months ago to Palestine

Israeli warplanes struck parts of the Gaza Strip overnight into Saturday in relentless bombardments, including some of the dwindling slivers of land Palestinians had been told to evacuate to in the territory’s south. https://www.stltoday.com/news/nation-world/israel-now-bombing-areas-where-it-told-civilians-to-flee/article_0fbefaa4-9689-11ee-bc38-53d8f42f05fc.html #palestine #gaza via @AP

rwklose, 5 months ago to Palestine

The United States vetoed a United Nations resolution Friday backed by almost all other Security Council members and many other nations demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza. Supporters called it a terrible day and warned of more civilian deaths and destruction as the war goes into its third month. https://www.stltoday.com/news/nation-world/us-vetoes-un-resolution-backed-by-many-nations-demanding-immediate-humanitarian-cease-fire-in-gaza/article_99552ebe-961b-11ee-9495-37474e38a8e2.html #palestine #gaza

rwklose, 5 months ago to Palestine

Israel’s campaign has killed more than 17,100 people in Gaza — 70% of them women and children — and wounded more than 46,000, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which says many others are trapped under rubble. https://www.stltoday.com/civilian-casualties-soar-as-israel-s-military-assault-on-gaza-enters-third-month/article_2d93c004-95bd-11ee-92e9-7ffd765be79e.html #palestine #gaza via @AP

rwklose, 5 months ago to Palestine

“United Nations officials say there are no safe places in Gaza nearly a week after Israel widened its offensive into the southern half of the territory….

“The United States, Israel’s closest ally, appears likely to block any U.N. effort to halt the fighting.” https://bit.ly/46IT53L #palestine #gaza

rwklose, 6 months ago to random

“One cannot maintain equanimity in view of these scenes. Even after the visits to kibbutzim and towns in the south the day after the massacre, even after being exposed to all the horrors that took place there. Even after all the stories of the survivors and the dead, and even after watching the movie put out by the IDF spokesperson. One cannot escape being horrified by what is now happening in Gaza, even in the knowledge of what lies underneath those hospitals.” https://rb.gy/wj1ly1 #gaza

rwklose, 6 months ago to stlouis

This is the former home of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, once one of the top newspapers in the nation, reimagined by new owners as some kind of tech hub and featuring workplace areas that “encourage happenstance collisions” and an industrial feel “reimagined.” There’s even a nod to the founder, Joseph Pulitzer. (The newspaper is still in business. It’s just in a much-smaller place.) To see the marketing video, go to https://youtu.be/pEnc1HLouUc #stlouis

The Joseph Pulitzer office, named for the founder of the Post-Dispatch.
Part of the old press on the ground floor of the Post-Dispatch.
An area in the refurbished Post building that purportedly encourages “happenstance collisions” (which hopefully aren’t painful).

rwklose, 6 months ago to Palestine

“The wreckage goes on for block after devastated block. The smell is sickening. Every day, hundreds of people claw through tons of rubble with shovels and iron bars and their bare hands.

“They are looking for the bodies of their children. Their parents. Their neighbors. All of them killed in Israeli missile strikes. The corpses are there, somewhere in the endless acres of destruction.” https://rb.gy/gso1x4 #palestine #gaza

rwklose, 6 months ago to Palestine

Encircled by Israeli troops, Gaza’s main hospital goes dark and patients die https://bit.ly/3N1DN39 #palestine #gaza

rwklose, 6 months ago to Palestine

More children have been killed in just over three weeks in Gaza than in all of the world’s conflicts combined in each of the past three years, according to the global charity Save the Children. https://bit.ly/3QGvMTh #gaza #palestine

rwklose, 6 months ago to missouri

On the campaign trail 75 years ago, Harry Truman warned of “powerful reactionary forces” operating through the Republican Party. “What are these forces that threaten our way of life? Who are the men behind them? They are the men who are striving to concentrate great economic power in their own hands. They are the men who are stirring up racial and religious prejudice against some of our fellow Americans.” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Oct. 26, 1948) https://bit.ly/45PYlCd #truman #missouri #stlouis

rwklose, 8 months ago to environment

Since July, 301 truckloads of contaminated dirt have been removed by the Army Corps of Engineers from the bank of Coldwater Creek near Jana Elementary School in Florissant, Missouri. Meanwhile, people who live near the now-shuttered school have no idea what’s going on. https://bit.ly/45GuP2e #radiation #environment #stlouis

rwklose, 10 months ago to stlouis

‘The glorious Fourth.’ An editorial cartoon by Paul Frederick Berdanier, published July 4, 1913 by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Berdanier worked as an illustrator for the Post-Dispatch from 1902 until 1918. While in St. Louis, he did several covers for The Mirror, William Marion Reedy’s acclaimed literary journal. The St. Louis Public Library has an online collection of some of Berdanier’s work here: https://rb.gy/s8j6k #stlouis #july4th