Between Civil Rights and Black Power in the Gateway City: The Action Committee to Improve Opportunities for Negroes (ACTION), 1964-75‪.‬

Introduction When construction began on the federally assisted Gateway Arch project in the early 1960s, St. Louis, Missouri's civic, business and government elite viewed it as a means of revitalizing the blighted downtown riverfront area. Located near the banks of the Mississippi, this tourist attraction would be the centerpiece of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial park, symbolizing through formidable public art St. Louis's importance as the gateway city to the American west. Many local Civil Rights activists, however, saw the Arch project as indicative of continuing racial discrimination. African Americans worked as laborers at the site, but held no positions in the skilled building trades involved in the construction. During the midsummer of 1964, members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) picketed the Old Courthouse, which housed the downtown offices of the superintendent of the construction project. Then on July 14, one black and one white member of CORE staged a dramatic demonstration that became legend in St. Louis's Civil Rights struggle. While construction workers lunched, and protesters gathered for a press conference at the Old Courthouse, Percy Green and Richard Daly used a partially enclosed steel surface ladder to scale 125 feet up the north leg of the unfinished structure. Workmen returning to the scene found the two men perched above them, sitting on rungs of the ladder. Feet dangling, Green and Daly ignored orders by workers, National Park Service officers, and the project's assistant superintendent to disembark. A group of demonstrators, gathered at the base of the Arch leg, demanded that black workers receive at least ten percent of the jobs at the site. Four hours after making their ascent, the two Civil Rights activists climbed down the fixture to a reception of news media and police. Authorities charged them both with trespassing, peace disturbance, and resisting arrest. (1)