Jessie McMillan Snippits

This video contains excerpts from a longer interview.

Jessie McMillan knew injustice when she saw it. So when a friend asked her if she would take part in sit-ins at Saint Louis department stores that refused to serve food to African American shoppers, she agreed even though she and her husband were afraid it would end in her arrest.

That was in 1944, 16 years before sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina, would gain national attention. Mrs. McMillan and the women who sat with her serve as a reminder that the Civil Rights movement was a war fought on many fronts and that small battles were being waged across the country long before those that have been memorialized in history books.
Mrs. McMillan recently visited the History Museum to share with us her story.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Missouri History Museum
• St. Louis
• Civil Rights
• Jessie McMillian