Students confront St. Louis' slavery legacy as plaque is set to go up near Busch Stadium

Perched on a hill overlooking the Mississippi River, Notre Dame High School and its 260 students are part of the legacy of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, who first immigrated to St. Louis in 1858 to fulfill their mission to educate the poor and help the disadvantaged.

To build their residential Mother House and school, the sisters purchased property once owned by Dred Scott’s enslavers, Peter and Henry Blow. They opened the school in 1895, sitting above train tracks that snake along the river and once carried lead ore mined in southern Missouri, where thousands of miners — many of them enslaved — toiled in toxic conditions.

Today, the ravages of slavery have long passed, but a group of Notre Dame students has discovered its buried history in St. Louis and beyond. Thanks to the efforts of an English Department faculty member, Kathryn Ellerbrake, the students learned first-hand about the history of slavery and racial injustice. Their experiences will culminate next week in the unveiling of a plaque marking the site of a notorious slave prison near Busch Stadium.

The journey started in the fall of 2024, when four students and Ellerbrake took a pilgrimage tour of slavery museums and historical sites throughout the South. The bus trip included stops in Alabama at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the multi-media immersion project at the Legacy Museum, which Ellerbrake called “truly a life-changing experience.”

After the trip, Ellerbrake began research for a new class and came across stories that mentioned efforts to establish a historical marker for the pre-Civil War slave pen site near Busch Stadium. The stories revealed a history of St. Louis she had never heard of.

"I felt embarrassed because this is a gap in my knowledge that I was completely unaware of,” she said. "I kind of went down the rabbit hole of trying to see what I could find out.”

Stories about the slave pens, run by businessman Bernard M. Lynch, also hit her students hard.

“I’ve heard about slave pens elsewhere and read about them in history books, but I never knew that happened in my own state,” said Nija Greene, a senior at Notre Dame.

Then last year, after five years of effort, a group of former politicians, academics and historians succeeded in getting funding to install a plaque on the Stadium East parking garage near the stadium. That’s where remnants of the Lynch Slave Pen prison cells and a historical marker were torn down during the construction of the original Busch Stadium in 1963.

“I think the marker will put back what was missing from the history of St. Louis,” said Olivia Richardson, a junior at Notre Dame. “It does have an impact.”

Four Notre Dame students have been invited to attend a private unveiling ceremony next week, joining Mayor Cara Spencer and politicians, academics and historians who backed the marker project. The students had tried to get the mayor to respond to their questions after briefly meeting her at an arts fair last fall.

Last week, the mayor responded to the River City Journalism Fund with a statement:

“This marker serves as a powerful reminder of the dehumanization and suffering endured by countless individuals,” the statement said. "Placing this marker bears witness to history, honors the dignity of those who were enslaved, and educates ourselves and future generations ... Let this marker be a catalyst for continued dialogue, deeper understanding, and renewed commitment to justice and healing for all our citizens.”

The Cardinals have not commented recently on the plans for a marker. The team's chairman and CEO, Bill DeWitt Jr., did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

“By being silent and ignoring things, you’re really just emphasizing the problem,” said Notre Dame senior Elizabeth Merrill.

State Rep. Raychel Proudie, a descendent of ancestors enslaved by Jesuits at St. Louis University, said the Cardinals should do more than speak out in support of the plaque.

“The political climate has changed,” Proudie said. “It is incentivizing silence … The Cardinals should also invest in the community that is paying for their tax credits.”

Last week, Curt Flood Jr., chairman of the Curt Flood Foundation and son of the famed Cardinals outfielder who championed baseball’s free agency and reserve clause, said in a statement:

“From Dred Scott's chains that denied humanity to my dad's plea for freedom from the MLB reserve clause, the American narrative shifting from defining men as property to recognizing players as persons, was a slow, arduous, but necessary expansion of justice from the soul of the nation to the spirit of sport.

"Clearly, acknowledging and memorializing the fact that thousands of enslaved Black men, women and children were trafficked through Lynch's Slave Pen in St. Louis before the Civil War has been similarly slow and arduous. On behalf of my dad and family, we are heartened and thankful that it will finally happen and an important measure of justice will be served.”

Former State Rep. Trish Gunby, who led the effort for the marker, met with Ellerbrake’s class last month and is invited to speak to the entire school in February during Black History Month.

“They saw firsthand that change can happen but only if you are willing to face rejection along the way,” Ellerbrake said. "Hopefully, her talk will educate and inspire even more young individuals to take action.”

Her students said they already have learned a lot from the class and the tour, especially the role young people can play in raising awareness about social justice.

“It showed us how interconnected and intertwined things get ... how prejudices are formed,” said senior Dasia Harris. “If you ignore it and pretend it’s not there, it gets worse.”

For more information about the River City Journalism Fund, which seeks to support journalism in St. Louis, go to rcjf.org.