A Community Remembered

Between the 1880s and 1960s, Clayton was home to a substantial and thriving Black community despite persistent discrimination and limited economic and political opportunity. Black residents in early Clayton included homeowners and renters who worked as educators, laborers, domestics, and city workers. They established two of Clayton’s first churches, started businesses, and enriched the city’s cultural life in numerous ways. The community took root in historic Clayton and grew there in part because housing discrimination and restrictive covenants barred residence elsewhere. In the mid-twentieth century, rezoning uprooted that area’s residents, and as Clayton grew, most Black residents were displaced by racial-residential restrictions. As historic Clayton became the downtown business district, the history of Clayton’s African American community was largely erased and forgotten.

Clayton, Missouri · United States