Freedom Plaza, which honors the hundreds of enslaved men, women, and children who sued for their freedom in antebellum St. Louis, has been recognized as an important addition to the National Parks Service’s National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Program.
Located just six blocks from the Old Courthouse, where Dred and Harriet Scott filed their freedom suits, Freedom Plaza was highlighted by the National Parks Service as one of two sites of special significance among the most recent designees. The Network connects more than 800 sites, facilities, and programs that provide insight into the diverse experiences of the freedom seekers who escaped slavery and those who assisted them. With its induction to the Network, Freedom Plaza joins just a dozen other such sites in Missouri.
“We are honored that Freedom Plaza has received this designation,” Paul Venker, President of the Freedom Suits Memorial Foundation, said. “We hope it will raise the profile of this moving tribute to the courageous freedom suit plaintiffs and those who helped them.”
Freedom Plaza is centered around Freedom’s Home, a 14-foot-tall, muti-faceted bronze sculpture by civil rights artist Preston Jackson that sits atop a black granite base that bears the names of the more than 300 St. Louis freedom suit plaintiffs.
Unveiled on Juneteenth 2022, Freedom Plaza was almost two decades in the making. The enormous collection of St. Louis freedom suits was rediscovered by Missouri state archivists in the late 1990s and early 2000s. But the idea of a memorial to the plaintiffs did not materialize until St. Louis City Circuit Judge David Mason proposed it after learning in 2006 about the large number of cases. As he has explained, “[s]eeing the signatures of these enslaved people who were just like my ancestors, and knowing the risks they took, I felt compelled to do everything I could to bring their voices to light.”
It would take many additional years for that vision to become Freedom Plaza.
The Network to Freedom designation is the result of the efforts of a small team of Freedom Suits Memorial Foundation board members who prepared the application. The effort was led by Stanford University history professor Anne Twitty, a nationally renowned freedom suits scholar and a Missouri native. She was joined by former Missouri State Archivist Kenneth Winn and Foundation President Paul Venker.
“When we think about how enslaved people escaped slavery, we tend to think about those who ran away,” Twitty said. “But the St. Louis freedom suits plaintiffs show that there were other avenues for obtaining freedom. Our site differs from many others that are already part of the Network, because filing a freedom suit represented a fundamentally different strategy for becoming free, one with its own obstacles and hazards.”
“The St. Louis freedom suit plaintiffs mustered an amazing, often desperate courage,” Winn added. “They often risked life and limb to sue their enslavers in an all-white court system. The St. Louis freedom suits have greatly enriched our historical understanding of the lives and bravery of people who had been largely lost to history. Freedom Plaza brings those stories to the broader public.”
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FREEDOM SUITS MEMORIAL FOUNDATION 