In Kiener Plaza stands a 6-foot-tall bronze statue of the civil rights attorney and activist Frankie Muse Freeman. It depicts Freeman, the leading attorney in the landmark NAACP case Davis et al. v. the St. Louis Housing Authority, leaving the Old Courthouse after winning the case, which ended racial discrimination in public housing in St. Louis in 1954.
The statue, created by Brian Owens, was St. Louis NAACP gift to the city. It was dedicated in a special ceremony on November 21st, 2017, just three days before Freeman’s 101st birthday, in the presence of Hundreds of people, including her daughter, Shelbe Patricia Bullock, and the president of the St. Louis NAACP chapter.
Frankie Muse Freeman (1916-2018) was a long-life advocate for civil rights. Graduating with a law degree in 1947 from Howard University Law School, she founded private legal practice after struggling to find a job in local law firms. In 1949, she was legal counsel to the NAACP legal team in Brewton v. the Board of Education of St. Louis.
In 1954, she was the leading attorney for the landmark NAACP case Davis et al. v. the St. Louis Housing Authority, which ended legal racial discrimination in public housing within the city. Her victory encouraged others to fight for this cause in other cities.
In 1964, president Lyndon Johnson nominated her as a member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, the first black woman on the civil rights commission. She got reappointed by presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter and served in this position until July 1979.
Then, she returned to St. Louis, and till her death in 2018, she practiced law, served on serval boards, and contributed her time and knowledge to civil activism and equality.
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