Missouri was a slave state, so most enlightened people consider it to be more Southern than Midwestern. Then there’s the infamous Dred Scott case in St. Louis. Scott had petitioned the courts several times for him and his wife’s freedom before the big legal sledgehammer was dropped by the U.S. Supreme Court. Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney was emphatic, Blacks had “no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” The ghost of Taney has been colliding ever since with the attempts of Black folks to be free.

The Taney opinion was so powerful that it still permeates every crack and crevice of the city’s bricks and culture. It hovers like an invisible cloud and disseminates toxic vapors when necessary that affect people’s behaviors and decisions. It seems to be more and more necessary, but the dates of May 16, 2023, November 5, 2024 and April 5, 2025 are memorable ones for woke people in St. Louis.

Those are the dates that prosecutor Kim Gardner was forced to resign, and when Congresswoman Cori Bush and Mayor Tishaura Jones were forced out of office. Comptroller Darlene Green was considered collateral damage. All were Black women who were the first to hold their respective offices. They all shared a common reform agenda, and all shared a defiant attribute that made them targets of the white patriarchal system. Their demise was rejoiced on social media by former Missouri Attorney General and now U.S. Senator Eric Schmitt. He declared that one by one, they were all gone now. “Poof…like magic,” he gloated.It was not magic. It was a methodical and calculated plan that began with character assassination, disinformation, amplification of their missteps and bad decisions, then engaging other opportunists and misguided Black folks to fan the flames.

Making St. Louis white again gathered speed after the election of trump. Missouri Republicans already had a trifecta in the state. They control the House, the Senate and the Governor’s seat. The trump victory emboldened their quest for white power. After knocking Cori Bush out the box, they saw the chance to change the color of the city’s three-person leadership structure. St. Louis has an archaic body called the Board of Estimate and Apportionment (E&A). It consists of the Mayor, Comptroller and President of the Board of Aldermen. The Board of E&A is considered the city’s executive branch of government. It has the authority over city real estate purchases, appropriations and the city’s annual operating budget. They who control E&A control the city coffers.

For the first time since 1988, the Board of E & A is all white. The April 5 General Election saw the stunning defeat of Mayor Jones and Comptroller Green. The blame game is being played and there’s plenty of blame to go around from a lack of unified progressive forces to a disengaged Black electorate to accentuated spotlights on mishandled issues. I strongly believe in summation, but let’s not let the real culprit off the hook.

The trump oligarchy is proving that it has power and will abuse that power. It has shared that playbook with its power-hungry minions on the state and local levels. In St. Louis, we are getting sucka punched. In addition to taking out the Black mayor and Black comptroller, the MAGA forces have seized the St. Louis Police Department from the citizens and put it in the hands of the governor. Getting local control of the police was a 20-year People’s Victory. Voters also said they wanted abortion rights, an increase in the state minimum wage and earned sick leave. The GOP, drunk with power, is trying to take it all back.

This is a cautionary tale to let you know that Blue seats, districts or offices are not exempt from the Red pestilence. Don’t be fooled by party affiliations. Democrats can be very undemocratic; they can even join forces with Republicans. That means the rest of us will have to fight doubly hard to stand our ground, defend our wins and advance a strategy to defeat the right.

This means those who believe in democracy will have to accelerate our efforts because the longer it takes us to build a formidable, united front against fascism, the more ground we lose. And losing is not an option.