Against the Odds
As a kid, Steven Jones was smart and a little nerdy, an only child who secretly wanted to be Bill Nye the Science Guy. Now he’s 33, unemployed, disabled, and facing a global pandemic that none of the scientists can quite explain.
Our Community Stories
Homeschooling when home isn’t safe
Five-year-old Meegale Hundley can’t wait to race his bike outside. It’s been 60 days since he’s been allowed to venture outdoors.
“It’s the scariest thing in this life”
Courtnesha Rogers’s first hint of pandemic was the day she showed up at the Flance Early Learning Center to pick up her daughter, Angele. “Hey, you can’t go any farther,” she heard someone yell. A table with bottles of Germ X was set up outside, and she had to sanitize her hands before she could enter the building. What? Then she was told she could not bring Angele a My Little Pony cake with four big candles for her birthday.
And then she heard that her father’s best friend had died.
He was 36.
Facing a pandemic alone
Kim Daniel has stared death in the eye more times than she can count. But this coronavirus has her more than scared. ‘“It’s intimidating,” she says. “I don’t walk out the door without a mask, gloves, baby wipes and rubbing alcohol.”
Judy Gladney speaks at racial equity forum
When an acquaintance contacted Judy Gladney to see whether she would be attending their 50th high school reunion, she blew him off. Why bother, she thought. The only other University City High School reunion she went to wasn’t an experience she wanted to revisit. She barely knew anyone there, and almost no other African American […]
Vol. 3: American Dream Deferred, not Discarded
Evita Caldwell shares her story of what it was like moving from an-all black high school to Saint Louis University.
Vol. 2: The Washington Family
The Washingtons have long been drum majors for social justice. But they faced a unique challenge when Teddy Washington, a rising freshman at Washington University found himself among 10 students stopped by police after a dine-and-dash incident at a local IHOP.
Vol. 1: The Caldwell family
Before Ferguson Beyond Ferguson begins with the Caldwells, the first of a series of stories about how St. Louis families over many generations have struggled to get a quality education and gain their purchase on the American Dream.