If a class were ever taught about Colson Whitehead, the acclaimed author says it would be titled “The Sorrow and the Pain.” That is because writing often feels miserable, Whitehead told a full house at The Sheldon Concert Hall on April 9. 

But when the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning writer comes up with a surprising way to describe a character, imagines a new setting or simply writes an amusing joke, he is reminded of why he loves to write. 

“I realized as a 27-year-old that there’s nothing else I could do that would make me complete,” Whitehead said. “So I can sit around in my underwear feeling bad for myself, or write the next book.” 

Whitehead received the 2025 St. Louis Literary Award, presented annually by the Saint Louis University Libraries. It joins his illustrious collection of accolades, including the National Book Award, the Carnegie Medal for Fiction and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. He is the author of several acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction, including “The Intuitionist,” “Sag Harbor,” “The Noble Hustle,” “The Nickel Boys,” “Harlem Shuffle” and “The Underground Railroad,” this year’s SLU Campus Read book.

Whitehead joins a list of notable award recipients, including Jamaica Kincaid, Arundhati Roy and Margaret Atwood. St. Louis Literary Award Executive Director Ted Ibur announced at the ceremony that celebrated writer Jhumpa Lahiri will receive the 2026 award next spring. 

Ibur said celebrating Whitehead’s creative work is especially important during a time of uncertain funding and support for the arts. 

“Creative expressions bring us together, just as good art often does, and it allows us to see one another more clearly and remind us of what we share, even in the face of our differences,” Ibur said. “The work of artists like Colson Whitehead, it’s not just powerful, it’s essential.”

Colson Whitehead spoke with The University News’s Ulaa Kuziez and The Kiln Project’s Ruth Bouman on April 9. The following conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Ruth Bouman: Saint Louis University is a Jesuit university, and SLU students often deal with the process of discernment, especially as it relates to vocation. What was your journey to being a writer like? 

CW: I wanted to write from a very young age, from like fifth or sixth grade. My mom would buy all the big bestsellers, and they would circulate around my sisters’ rooms, and then me and my brother’s room. So Stephen King; I remember reading this very thick Stephen King book when I was like 10. And I love Marvel Comics, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man. And it seemed like if you’re a writer, you can just make up these weird, crazy worlds, stories about vampires, robots, killer robots.

Ulaa Kuziez: What kinds of missions or goals do you have as you write? 

CW: Well, mission, I guess in a sense of a lofty aim, [is] just not to make it bad. Tell a good story, not let down my ambitions for a project. I’m a flawed person. I’m an artist who’s still trying to get better. So, can my weaknesses as a person and an artist undermine my hopes and dreams for this project? So I try very hard not to make it suck. 

UK: What is it about writing between genres so easily, so fluidly, what does that afford you as a writer?

CW: It’s not easy. I mean, I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what I can take from the horror genre in “Zone One.” It is really just having a lot of different tastes. No one just reads crime thrillers, no one just reads romances. And I think the fun part of my job is that if I keep going, I get to write in all these different forms that I personally enjoy. And part of the fun and challenge is figuring out how to make them work for me.

Whitehead’s writing process

RB: And that challenge is very real. Writing is often described in painful terms. How do you move past this point of pain or writer’s block, or however you want to describe that?

CW: Well, you have to experience that in order to get to the other side. So, I’m working on the third book in this trilogy now, and I’m having trouble. I’m distracted by the news and having trouble getting some traction, but I know eventually, one day, I’ll wake up, and it will click, and I’ll power through the last 100 pages. That’s how it always works. I sort of shut off my brain and don’t work at all – and then one day, I’ll be ready to attack the project with vigor and purpose, hopefully. So, if it was easy, it wouldn’t be worth doing. No one else can write it for you. It’s your book. So you have to accept that no one else is going to figure out how the scene works, how the sentence works, what the ending is, except you. So you have to find that drive early on as an artist.

UK: Is there anything that you’ve learned from those moments where you’re stuck, where you might be experiencing some of that pain? 

CW: Yes, but typically, I always forget it. And so I’m trying to hold on to: “I will figure it out.” Sometimes, I’ll have to skip ahead. When I was writing “The Underground Railroad,” I knew what the slave catcher Ridgeway had to do. I knew his function in the story, but I didn’t actually know how he walked and talked. So I got to page 75 or whatever, and he was supposed to appear, and I couldn’t figure him out, so I just went to the next chapter, and then six months later, I did some more research about slave catchers in New York, and something clicked. So, at this point, 12 books in I know that I’ll figure it out. I’d have to accept that it may not be very easy.

UK: How then do you practice joy as a writer if you’re experiencing some of those struggles? 

CW: It’s not practice as a conscious thing. But I’m delighted when I come up with a new turn of phrase that I couldn’t have done 20 years before, 10 years before, like, I’ve learned how to render this image and with a certain kind of economy I could not have done when I was younger. And I think that brings me joy.if I figure out how Ray Carney gets out of this position of terror and violence that I put him in, and I figure out, there’s actually this plot device that I can use if I figure something out — that’s joy. So it’s not a purposeful ritual where I have to fortify myself against the rigors of the creative process. But yes, in day-to-day work, there are joys. 

Beyond Whitehead’s books

UK:Throughout the past couple of months, people on campus have been engaging with your book, reading it, discussing it. Some are creating art or writing work inspired by it. Do you hope people can build on your writing, or is that something that you don’t think about?

CW: I don’t think about it. It’s definitely not up to me. So if I think about it, in the same way I think about audience, people are going to come to it or not come to it. I can’t predict it, so I just try to do the project that’s right for me at that moment, that year, and do it to the best of my ability. Then, of course, it’s delightful when people are inspired. People are inspired to do nothing, they just enjoy it. People are inspired to create their own art, jumping off from it, or write an essay in response to it. But that’s really separate. 

RB: Does that thought process also carry over to other interpretations, like the TV show of the “Underground Railroad” and the movie of the “Nickel Boys?” 

CW: Well, yeah, it’s beyond me. I didn’t work on either one, so I’m giving permission for these other artists to interpret it. I could be more involved, but I actually have other things to do. I could have worked on “The Underground Railroad,” or I could have written “The Nickel Boys,” so I worked on my book. I think it’s most healthy to step back and let the movie be the movie, or the TV show be the TV show. The book exists. It has readers. The film will exist. It will have its own audience.

Creating characters

RB: Talking a little bit about character creation, you mentioned a little bit of research you did for “The Underground Railroad.” I’m curious how, when you’re writing that historical fiction, what does your research entail?

CW: I had the idea: Wouldn’t it be weird if the Underground Railroad was a real train? I was in my mid-40s. I had not read anything about slavery in 25 years since college, so I had to go back. In terms of making the world sound real to readers at this moment, what’s the language that people used 150 years ago? What were the nouns and verbs that they used that we don’t use now? What’d they wear? So I’m pulling in different things, and definitely with “Underground” and “Nickel Boys” and the Ray Carney stories, first-person accounts are very useful. Getting slang attitudes towards the world, I find that I find a lot of useful vocabulary and attitudes from reading memoirs, slave narratives, newspaper reports that are coming out contemporaneously.

UK: Some of your writing is characterized by telling imaginative stories about the past, but a lot of readers are reading them and connecting them to the present. So it seems like you have your finger on the pulse without actually knowing what’s happening in the future. Do you have any future predictions? 

CW: Yeah, I think the powerful will get richer and escape punishment, the innocent and the powerless will continue to suffer, the fight between regressive and progressive ideals will continue, and great stretches of bleak incidents will continue, periodically interrupted by brief moments of safety and peace. 

UK: Do you feel a sense of urgency to write about that? Those moments of bleakness and those moments of peace? 

CW: No, I’m always picking a project that’s just the best thing for me to do that year, and sometimes it may overlap directly with what’s going on in the world, sometimes just overlapping with my own internal needs. So, the “Nickel Boys” has a character who is very positive and optimistic and a character who’s more cynical. Those are definitely two parts of me, and I started writing it in the early days of the first Trump administration. So, in some ways, the philosophical argument between the two boys is about being an American in 2017, but it’s also obviously about this terrible reform school and these two boys trying to survive. So, there’s part of my philosophical dilemma in there, but you wouldn’t read the book and think, “Oh, this is about the early days of the Trump administration.” 

RB: I noticed your characters have such clear voices and personalities, whether it’s the survival instincts and urgency we see in Cora, the mediocrity of Mark Spitz or the save-facing of Carney. I’m curious how you write such a variety of voices with such clarity.

CW: I think if you’re going to set up to do a certain kind of character, you should do it right. That’s your job. It’s like, my sink is clogged, plumber, can you unclog the sink? That’s what he signed up for. Unclog the sink. So if I am gonna have a female character, a teenager who’s an enslaved person trying to escape, my job is to inhabit them as fully and completely as I can. You get better at it the more you do it. 

UK: Your characters are embarking on external journeys, oftentimes journeys that are oppressive, but internal journeys as well. So I’m wondering if, as you’re writing, you’re learning things about yourself. Besides what’s happening in the world, are you making sense of something that you’re going through? 

CW: Yeah. I mean, “Sag Harbor,” which is a very autobiographical book about growing up in the 80s, is very much about me trying to figure out my childhood and adolescence. There are elements to Mark Spitz’s journey and Ray Carney’s journey that are part of me, and I’m expressing a certain way of being in the world. And then “The Nickel Boys” and “Underground Railroad” are exploring tyranny and brutality and evil. I’m on my own sort of journey of trying to understand the world, and I think I understand a little bit more at the end.

RB: “Zone One” asks a lot of questions about trauma and healing from it, different examples of the survivors and various types of zombies; in the “after” of our pandemic, what kind of zombies do you think we’ve become?

CW: We keep going, lurching forward, half dead. Insulated and cut off from the real world in a certain kind of way. Yeah, I think the pandemic was the last big shock that set us on a different course, and we’re still assimilating what happened.

Politics, teaching and advice for writers

UK: You withdrew from speaking at the University of Massachusetts Amherst last May because the university arrested students and faculty who were protesting. What compelled you to say no in that moment?

CW: Well, I have a daughter who’s in college. I have a nephew who went to the University of Massachusetts. You’re supposed to protect your students. They come first, not kowtowing to a recent vogue in silence. So you don’t call your cops on your students. You serve your students and give them the tools to become better human beings. That’s the job of a college. 

UK: To that point, there are some universities now who are also under fire from the current administration. How would you hope university leaders respond?

CW: Well, safety in numbers. Don’t comply in advance. Fight for your values if you have values. 

RB: You’ve also taught at universities yourself, so maybe you have kind of an insider knowledge into that. What is or has been fulfilling for you about teaching and connecting with young writers? 

CW: I think, in teaching a writing class, a lot of people are taking it as a gut. They’re engineers, like jocks or something, like, “I have to take one English class, I’ll take this.” And so, even if they’ve never heard of me or any of the writers I teach, they always get better across the semester, and they always seem very surprised and delighted by this or that author they’ve never heard of. So even if this is like the last time they’re going to read literary fiction before they become bankers, it’s nice to see them respond to Lorrie Moore, Junot Díaz and Ursula K. Le Guin, and then write their stories which are probably, pretty terrible, the first one and the second ones will look better, and then by the third one, it’s like, “Jimmy the banker actually [laughs] has figured out how to come up with a nice little simile.”

UK: Is there a way that you try to teach students how to build an authentic voice, maybe something that you’ve learned about your own writing voice? 

CW: People want to write about characters they know. When they’re younger, they want to write characters that are familiar to them, maybe based on themselves. So I’m always like, “Okay, you’ve written two stories about 18-year-olds from New Jersey, you’re an 18-year-old from New Jersey. I want you to try a 23-year-old from Connecticut.” So, try different genres. Don’t write in the first person if you keep writing in the first person. Maybe mix it up. There’s three and a half months, it’s a laboratory; it’s okay to fail. Try something new. Don’t just try the same kind of character you’ve been doing.

RB: I don’t know if you’re familiar with St. Ignatius or his story, but he was struck by a cannonball in the knee and had to lay in bed for months to rest. He read a lot, and he read the Bible and the history of the saints, and he was like, “Oh my gosh, I’m changing my life.” Was there a moment when you were like, “Okay, I can do this for a job, too, not just as something that I feel passionate about.” What was that moment for you, if you had one?

CW: I wrote my first novel and no one wanted to publish it. I got 25 rejections, my agent dumped me. And, at that moment, even though no one likes your work, you have to figure out, am I gonna keep doing this, or am I gonna do something else? So I think I became a writer not because I wanted, as a kid, to write “X-Men,” but when I realized as a 27-year-old that there’s nothing else I could do that would make me complete. I can sit around in my underwear feeling bad for myself or start the next book, and the next book might not be published, but I’ll be a better writer for having written two books. So, I guess the cannonball moment is dusting myself off from this failure and realizing that, well, let’s start again.

UK: You said writing makes you complete. What do you mean by that?

CW: Despite me talking about how terrible it is, it actually brings me joy and sets me right.

An extended version of this interview can be found on The Kiln Project’s website. 

When you walk by Dominic Chambers’ colorful new mural in Midtown, the St. Louis-born artist wants you to think about how to practice leisure and “seek out a life that’s filled with color.”

The mural, painted on one wall of Saint Louis University’s Searls Hall, depicts an outdoor landscape with a massive tree branch hanging over as children and adults fly kites, run, gaze at the sky and rest. 

“It’s an invitation to allow those types of experiences back into one’s life,” Chambers said about his mural titled ‘For You: All the Color in the World.’ “[Find] things that fill your life up in the face of a force that seeks to oppress or subjugate your life.” 

Chambers’ mural was commissioned by the Kranzberg Arts Foundation in partnership with SLU and the St. Louis Literary Award program. His color-drenched painting explores the legacy of the Underground Railroad and its significance in the St. Louis region. Chambers said he found inspiration in “The Underground Railroad,” written by acclaimed author Colson Whitehead, who will receive the St. Louis Literary Award on April 9. 

At a public panel discussion about the connections between art, literature and history at SLU’s Pius XII Memorial Library on April 7, Chambers said the mural is an imaginative interpretation of Whitehead’s book that weaves together themes of magical realism, memory and freedom. It also honors the protagonist, Cora, and her courage to seek liberation by escaping the plantation where she is enslaved. 

“It’s meant to be a landscape that celebrates the interior reality of Black subjects, anyone who traverses undesirable circumstances in the hopes of bettering their lives,” Chambers said. “And so that’s what this particular image is meant to, in many ways, embody and represent.”

Chambers’ work is part of The Walls Off Washington series and is the second mural to come from a years-long partnership between SLU and the Kranzberg Arts Foundation, said Visual and Performing Arts Department Chair Cathleen Fleck. The first mural “Endangered Enwildment” was painted by artist Lady Pink on Searls Hall’s east facing brick wall in 2023. 

Fleck, who also serves on the university’s newly formed arts council, said SLU should continue promoting arts and creating opportunities for meaningful reflection in the St. Louis community.

“I don’t think that we should be existing as an island unto ourselves within a broader urban network,” Fleck said. “I really think that our role, especially as a Jesuit university, is to speak to the social issues that are around us, and the arts are one of the most logical ways to work that expression into people’s lives.”

As a writer and artist concerned with depictions of Black life, Chambers said his creative work allows him to be a “different type of citizen” who is more engaged with the community around him. That is the type of ethos that he calls on university students to practice in their own studies.  

“If you’re the type of person [who] comes to an institution to receive a degree and then leave, then you are in service of this institution,” Chambers said. “But what type of citizen would you want to be? Do you want to be a citizen that participates with the community they live in, who has an active relationship to the things that are happening around them, irrespective of their institution?”

During her talk on the panel with Chambers, Dorris Keeven-Franke, an expert on Missouri’s Underground Railroad history, said art, history and literature are important partners in telling stories about the nation’s history. 

Keeven-Franke is working on a book about Archer Alexander, Missouri’s last fugitive slave who is honored on the nation’s Emancipation Memorial in Washington, D.C. and is listed on the National Underground Railroad Network for Freedom. 

The program, administered by the National Parks Service, is tasked with preserving and promoting the history of resistance to enslavement, but an executive order issued last month by President Donald Trump has forced the agency to eliminate or soften language about slavery and the Underground Railroad, according to the Washington Post.

“I hope that all of you will take the time to connect with the objects, the history, the literature and the art that bring our history to life,” Keeven-Franke said to an audience of around 40 people. “And as you create and write, I challenge you to consider how your own work may stand the test of time and be perceived 150 years from today.”

This article has been updated to correct the spelling of Cathleen Fleck.

When you walk by Dominic Chambers’ colorful new mural in Midtown, the St. Louis-born artist wants you to think about how to practice leisure and “seek out a life that’s filled with color.”

The mural, painted on one wall of Saint Louis University’s Searls Hall, depicts an outdoor landscape with a massive tree branch hanging over as children and adults fly kites, run, gaze at the sky and rest. 

“It’s an invitation to allow those types of experiences back into one’s life,” Chambers said about his mural titled ‘For You: All the Color in the World.’ “[Find] things that fill your life up in the face of a force that seeks to oppress or subjugate your life.” 

Chambers’ mural was commissioned by the Kranzberg Arts Foundation in partnership with SLU and the St. Louis Literary Award program. His color-drenched painting explores the legacy of the Underground Railroad and its significance in the St. Louis region. Chambers said he found inspiration in “The Underground Railroad,” written by acclaimed author Colson Whitehead, who will receive the St. Louis Literary Award on April 9. 

At a public panel discussion about the connections between art, literature and history at SLU’s Pius XII Memorial Library on April 7, Chambers said the mural is an imaginative interpretation of Whitehead’s book that weaves together themes of magical realism, memory and freedom. It also honors the protagonist, Cora, and her courage to seek liberation by escaping the plantation where she is enslaved. 

“It’s meant to be a landscape that celebrates the interior reality of Black subjects, anyone who traverses undesirable circumstances in the hopes of bettering their lives,” Chambers said. “And so that’s what this particular image is meant to, in many ways, embody and represent.”

Chambers’ work is part of The Walls Off Washington series and is the second mural to come from a years-long partnership between SLU and the Kranzberg Arts Foundation, said Visual and Performing Arts Department Chair Cathleen Fleck. The first mural “Endangered Enwildment” was painted by artist Lady Pink on Searls Hall’s east facing brick wall in 2023. 

Fleck, who also serves on the university’s newly formed arts council, said SLU should continue promoting arts and creating opportunities for meaningful reflection in the St. Louis community.

“I don’t think that we should be existing as an island unto ourselves within a broader urban network,” Fleck said. “I really think that our role, especially as a Jesuit university, is to speak to the social issues that are around us, and the arts are one of the most logical ways to work that expression into people’s lives.”

As a writer and artist concerned with depictions of Black life, Chambers said his creative work allows him to be a “different type of citizen” who is more engaged with the community around him. That is the type of ethos that he calls on university students to practice in their own studies.  

“If you’re the type of person [who] comes to an institution to receive a degree and then leave, then you are in service of this institution,” Chambers said. “But what type of citizen would you want to be? Do you want to be a citizen that participates with the community they live in, who has an active relationship to the things that are happening around them, irrespective of their institution?”

During her talk on the panel with Chambers, Dorris Keeven-Franke, an expert on Missouri’s Underground Railroad history, said art, history and literature are important partners in telling stories about the nation’s history. 

Keeven-Franke is working on a book about Archer Alexander, Missouri’s last fugitive slave who is honored on the nation’s Emancipation Memorial in Washington, D.C. and is listed on the National Underground Railroad Network for Freedom. 

The program, administered by the National Parks Service, is tasked with preserving and promoting the history of resistance to enslavement, but an executive order issued last month by President Donald Trump has forced the agency to eliminate or soften language about slavery and the Underground Railroad, according to the Washington Post.

“I hope that all of you will take the time to connect with the objects, the history, the literature and the art that bring our history to life,” Keeven-Franke said to an audience of around 40 people. “And as you create and write, I challenge you to consider how your own work may stand the test of time and be perceived 150 years from today.”

This article has been updated to correct the spelling of Cathleen Fleck.

When you walk by Dominic Chambers’ colorful new mural in Midtown, the St. Louis-born artist wants you to think about how to practice leisure and “seek out a life that’s filled with color.”

The mural, painted on one wall of Saint Louis University’s Searls Hall, depicts an outdoor landscape with a massive tree branch hanging over as children and adults fly kites, run, gaze at the sky and rest. 

“It’s an invitation to allow those types of experiences back into one’s life,” Chambers said about his mural titled ‘For You: All the Color in the World.’ “[Find] things that fill your life up in the face of a force that seeks to oppress or subjugate your life.” 

Chambers’ mural was commissioned by the Kranzberg Arts Foundation in partnership with SLU and the St. Louis Literary Award program. His color-drenched painting explores the legacy of the Underground Railroad and its significance in the St. Louis region. Chambers said he found inspiration in “The Underground Railroad,” written by acclaimed author Colson Whitehead, who will receive the St. Louis Literary Award on April 9. 

At a public panel discussion about the connections between art, literature and history at SLU’s Pius XII Memorial Library on April 7, Chambers said the mural is an imaginative interpretation of Whitehead’s book that weaves together themes of magical realism, memory and freedom. It also honors the protagonist, Cora, and her courage to seek liberation by escaping the plantation where she is enslaved. 

“It’s meant to be a landscape that celebrates the interior reality of Black subjects, anyone who traverses undesirable circumstances in the hopes of bettering their lives,” Chambers said. “And so that’s what this particular image is meant to, in many ways, embody and represent.”

Chambers’ work is part of The Walls Off Washington series and is the second mural to come from a years-long partnership between SLU and the Kranzberg Arts Foundation, said Visual and Performing Arts Department Chair Cathleen Fleck. The first mural “Endangered Enwildment” was painted by artist Lady Pink on Searls Hall’s east facing brick wall in 2023. 

Fleck, who also serves on the university’s newly formed arts council, said SLU should continue promoting arts and creating opportunities for meaningful reflection in the St. Louis community.

“I don’t think that we should be existing as an island unto ourselves within a broader urban network,” Fleck said. “I really think that our role, especially as a Jesuit university, is to speak to the social issues that are around us, and the arts are one of the most logical ways to work that expression into people’s lives.”

As a writer and artist concerned with depictions of Black life, Chambers said his creative work allows him to be a “different type of citizen” who is more engaged with the community around him. That is the type of ethos that he calls on university students to practice in their own studies.  

“If you’re the type of person [who] comes to an institution to receive a degree and then leave, then you are in service of this institution,” Chambers said. “But what type of citizen would you want to be? Do you want to be a citizen that participates with the community they live in, who has an active relationship to the things that are happening around them, irrespective of their institution?”

During her talk on the panel with Chambers, Dorris Keeven-Franke, an expert on Missouri’s Underground Railroad history, said art, history and literature are important partners in telling stories about the nation’s history. 

Keeven-Franke is working on a book about Archer Alexander, Missouri’s last fugitive slave who is honored on the nation’s Emancipation Memorial in Washington, D.C. and is listed on the National Underground Railroad Network for Freedom. 

The program, administered by the National Parks Service, is tasked with preserving and promoting the history of resistance to enslavement, but an executive order issued last month by President Donald Trump has forced the agency to eliminate or soften language about slavery and the Underground Railroad, according to the Washington Post.

“I hope that all of you will take the time to connect with the objects, the history, the literature and the art that bring our history to life,” Keeven-Franke said to an audience of around 40 people. “And as you create and write, I challenge you to consider how your own work may stand the test of time and be perceived 150 years from today.”

This article has been updated to correct the spelling of Cathleen Fleck.

On Saint Louis University’s Clock Tower steps last week, around 60 people lit blue candlesticks anointed with salt and oil. While shielding the flames from the cool breeze, they stood together for a historic moment of silence. 

“Our ancestors are being brought out of the darkness into the light,” said Robin Proudie, a descendant of people who were enslaved by Jesuits and forced to labor at SLU.

For years, Proudie and her family have worked to preserve their ancestor’s history and push SLU to make amends. The “Lights of Remembrance Candlelight Vigil” on Feb. 27 — the first university event to officially honor people they enslaved — marked a significant step in that reparative process, Proudie said. 

In March, SLU is also set to offer a formal apology to the descendants for its role in the institution of slavery, Proudie said. The university has not yet made the announcement. 

“Here we are now, finally, being brought inside,” Proudie said. “We’re being acknowledged by the [university] leadership.” 

The vigil was co-sponsored by Descendants of the St. Louis University Enslaved (DSLUE), Proudie’s advocacy group, Black Student Alliance (BSA), Student Government Association (SGA), Campus Ministry, Department of African American Studies and the Division of Diversity and Innovative Community Engagement (DICE). 

In a statement, Vice President of DICE Rochelle Smith said the university is “committed to supporting our SLU communities as we all engage in the process of truth, healing and reconciliation.”

The reconciliation process began in 2019 after Proudie’s family was informed by researchers from the Slavery, History, Memory and Reconciliation Project that they were descendants of over 50 people who were enslaved by the Jesuits at SLU. 

The joint research project between SLU and the Society of Jesus’ Central and Southern Province identified nearly 200 enslaved individuals whose forced labor helped build Jesuit missions and colleges in several states. 

After the monumental research, university officials and descendants discussed ways to honor the enslaved but the coronavirus pandemic stalled the collaboration. Then in 2021, Proudie and her family founded DSLUE to renew the reconciliation efforts. 

Initially, Proudie said SLU was slow to respond to the coalition, but after announcing the institution’s stolen labor is worth between $361 million and $74 billion last February, talks picked back up. 

Proudie also credits students for supporting DSLUE’s mission. In late April, the SGA unanimously passed a resolution calling on administrators to reconcile the university’s history of slavery and work with the descendants to make amends.   

The resolution brought much needed visibility to the descendants, said graduate student Sam Hall who was an SGA member at the time. Hall has been collaborating with DSLUE for a year to move the reparative process forward.

“As a student, I felt like it’s my duty,” Hall said. “This isn’t meant to bash SLU at all. It is because of our love of our university that we want to see reconciliation happen.”

Hall also works with Campus Ministry and co-organized the vigil, which she said was “a reclamation of truth and a step toward justice.” She emceed the ceremony and led a prayer. 

“Our Jesuit values inspire us to do the Examine where we sit and we reflect over how things have happened and how we can make them better,” Hall said. “This is us examining our own history and coming to terms with it, and also finding beauty in it, finding honor in it, celebrating it.”

Campus minister Rev. Jim Roach said the vigil marked an important first step in making amends. 

“It’s good to get a lament and a reckoning out in the open,” Roach said. “This is not the finish line, this is the first step in some ways.”

During the two-hour program at the Center for Global Citizenship, artist InnerGy recited poetry and composer Royce Martin played ragtime songs on the piano. One of the compositions, “Heliotrope Banquet,” was co-written by Louis Chauvin, a ragtime musician whose parents were enslaved by SLU. 

In brief remarks, Christopher Tinson, chair of the African American studies department, called on the audience to commit to examining the devastating history of slavery while also celebrating the stories of resilience. 

“We live in a day and time where the erasure of history is commonplace,” Tinson said. “As a nation we don’t want to look in the mirror; as an institution, we have trouble looking in the mirror.”

Students from the SGA and BSA read around 25 names of people formerly enslaved at the university who are direct ancestors to Proudie’s family. 

Senior Zaire Payton said reciting their names aloud was a meaningful way to acknowledge the forgotten people who helped establish the campus she walks through every day. 

“I think a part of reparation is awareness,” Payton said. “We are not just here studying, we are part of a bigger community.” 

After reading the names, several descendants also offered reflections about their ancestors and their contributions. 

“Every accomplishment I achieved, I do it knowing they [my ancestors] made it possible. That fills me with gratitude, but also with responsibility,” said descendant DoMarco Holley. “Because honoring them isn’t just looking back at what they went through. It’s about living in a way that makes them proud.”

Amid a national push against diversity, equity and inclusion programs, Proudie said she is pleased that SLU is engaging in the reparations process, but more still needs to be done. A working group of descendants has been meeting with university officials and the Board of Trustees to discuss other reconciliation steps, she said. 

After a public apology, the descendants say they want SLU to install a permanent monument on campus to honor the legacy of their ancestors. 

“We want to restore our name and our dignity, our bloodline and what was lost,” Proudie said. 

The University News’ Zekhra Gafurova contributed to this report.

This article has been edited to add that Robin Proudie’s family are descendants of over 50 people enslaved by Jesuits at Saint Louis University.   

On Saint Louis University’s Clock Tower steps last week, around 60 people lit blue candlesticks anointed with salt and oil. While shielding the flames from the cool breeze, they stood together for a historic moment of silence. 

“Our ancestors are being brought out of the darkness into the light,” said Robin Proudie, a descendant of people who were enslaved by Jesuits and forced to labor at SLU.

For years, Proudie and her family have worked to preserve their ancestor’s history and push SLU to make amends. The “Lights of Remembrance Candlelight Vigil” on Feb. 27 — the first university event to officially honor people they enslaved — marked a significant step in that reparative process, Proudie said. 

In March, SLU is also set to offer a formal apology to the descendants for its role in the institution of slavery, Proudie said. The university has not yet made the announcement. 

“Here we are now, finally, being brought inside,” Proudie said. “We’re being acknowledged by the [university] leadership.” 

The vigil was co-sponsored by Descendants of the St. Louis University Enslaved (DSLUE), Proudie’s advocacy group, Black Student Alliance (BSA), Student Government Association (SGA), Campus Ministry, Department of African American Studies and the Division of Diversity and Innovative Community Engagement (DICE). 

In a statement, Vice President of DICE Rochelle Smith said the university is “committed to supporting our SLU communities as we all engage in the process of truth, healing and reconciliation.”

The reconciliation process began in 2019 after Proudie’s family was informed by researchers from the Slavery, History, Memory and Reconciliation Project that they were descendants of over 50 people who were enslaved by the Jesuits at SLU. 

The joint research project between SLU and the Society of Jesus’ Central and Southern Province identified nearly 200 enslaved individuals whose forced labor helped build Jesuit missions and colleges in several states. 

After the monumental research, university officials and descendants discussed ways to honor the enslaved but the coronavirus pandemic stalled the collaboration. Then in 2021, Proudie and her family founded DSLUE to renew the reconciliation efforts. 

Initially, Proudie said SLU was slow to respond to the coalition, but after announcing the institution’s stolen labor is worth between $361 million and $74 billion last February, talks picked back up. 

Proudie also credits students for supporting DSLUE’s mission. In late April, the SGA unanimously passed a resolution calling on administrators to reconcile the university’s history of slavery and work with the descendants to make amends.   

The resolution brought much needed visibility to the descendants, said graduate student Sam Hall who was an SGA member at the time. Hall has been collaborating with DSLUE for a year to move the reparative process forward.

“As a student, I felt like it’s my duty,” Hall said. “This isn’t meant to bash SLU at all. It is because of our love of our university that we want to see reconciliation happen.”

Hall also works with Campus Ministry and co-organized the vigil, which she said was “a reclamation of truth and a step toward justice.” She emceed the ceremony and led a prayer. 

“Our Jesuit values inspire us to do the Examine where we sit and we reflect over how things have happened and how we can make them better,” Hall said. “This is us examining our own history and coming to terms with it, and also finding beauty in it, finding honor in it, celebrating it.”

Campus minister Rev. Jim Roach said the vigil marked an important first step in making amends. 

“It’s good to get a lament and a reckoning out in the open,” Roach said. “This is not the finish line, this is the first step in some ways.”

During the two-hour program at the Center for Global Citizenship, artist InnerGy recited poetry and composer Royce Martin played ragtime songs on the piano. One of the compositions, “Heliotrope Banquet,” was co-written by Louis Chauvin, a ragtime musician whose parents were enslaved by SLU. 

In brief remarks, Christopher Tinson, chair of the African American studies department, called on the audience to commit to examining the devastating history of slavery while also celebrating the stories of resilience. 

“We live in a day and time where the erasure of history is commonplace,” Tinson said. “As a nation we don’t want to look in the mirror; as an institution, we have trouble looking in the mirror.”

Students from the SGA and BSA read around 25 names of people formerly enslaved at the university who are direct ancestors to Proudie’s family. 

Senior Zaire Payton said reciting their names aloud was a meaningful way to acknowledge the forgotten people who helped establish the campus she walks through every day. 

“I think a part of reparation is awareness,” Payton said. “We are not just here studying, we are part of a bigger community.” 

After reading the names, several descendants also offered reflections about their ancestors and their contributions. 

“Every accomplishment I achieved, I do it knowing they [my ancestors] made it possible. That fills me with gratitude, but also with responsibility,” said descendant DoMarco Holley. “Because honoring them isn’t just looking back at what they went through. It’s about living in a way that makes them proud.”

Amid a national push against diversity, equity and inclusion programs, Proudie said she is pleased that SLU is engaging in the reparations process, but more still needs to be done. A working group of descendants has been meeting with university officials and the Board of Trustees to discuss other reconciliation steps, she said. 

After a public apology, the descendants say they want SLU to install a permanent monument on campus to honor the legacy of their ancestors. 

“We want to restore our name and our dignity, our bloodline and what was lost,” Proudie said. 

The University News’ Zekhra Gafurova contributed to this report.

This article has been edited to add that Robin Proudie’s family are descendants of over 50 people enslaved by Jesuits at Saint Louis University.   

During his final week working on campus, Tommy Wessel digs a few inches into the frozen soil, pressing his shovel and piercing through the rocky, clay layer. 

“Found a rock here. What do you think? I say ancient Cahokian,” Wessel jokes with his ‘work husband.’

“Ancient artifact discovered… We’re shutting the place down,” replies groundskeeper Clint Tucker, who worked closely with Wessel for over a decade. 

They laugh as they place a young crabapple tree inside the ground near Morrissey Hall. It’s one of several hundred that Wessel has planted on Saint Louis University’s campus during his 18 years as a groundskeeper. 

“I do love trees, and I do love planting them,” Wessel said. “It brings me peace.”

But some of the trees and the grass fields that line SLU’s 273-acre campus in Midtown are invasive species that are “too manicured,” he said. While beautiful to the human eye, Wessel said the landscape is boring, even harmful, to the birds and insects that live in it. 

“There is a lot of harm that’s done to the Earth [so] that we can sit here and enjoy the green grass, the very formal look,” he said. “It’s important for people to realize that we’re not the only beings on this planet.”

That is part of why when he turned 40, Wessel decided to leave SLU and pursue his passion: restoring native habitats in Missouri. His last day on campus was Jan. 31. 

“I’ve always been very aware of the passing of time, and I feel the need to do something that benefits the Earth,” he said.

“Glue” that kept the grounds crew together

Wessel’s long reddish beard meant he was easily recognizable on campus, and his boisterous personality made him likable among the grounds crew. While on the job with his co-workers, he was loud, energetic and always ready to crack a joke.  

He and Tucker even developed a goofy game they played together in between tasks. On a sunny January day, they moved toward a busy walking path to demonstrate. They talked loudly, Wessel changing his regular deep voice to a high-pitched tone. The contrast of a “big guy with a beard” talking silly like a kid usually elicits a few laughs from passersby, Wessel said. 

“He’s fun to work with,” Tucker said. “You got to have somebody at work to make it a little more pleasant, you know, can’t always be serious.”

But Wessel also values quiet, contemplative moments, too. During his lunch break, he would find a corner outside and sit alone with a book, usually poetry or New England Legends and Folklore. 

“Sometimes I’ll read a chapter, and I was like, well, that’s a good chapter. And so I’ll go back and read the same chapter two or sometimes three times, or a passage. I’ll read it half a dozen times,” said Wessel, who got his avid love of reading from his parents.

When it came to his work responsibilities, Wessel often had a “let me do that attitude,” said Don Weindel, who supervises the grounds team. 

“He is always more than happy to help out the fellow co-workers when needed, always,” Weindel said. “We’re gonna be sorry that he’s gone because he was definitely kind of the glue that kept things together.”

Wessel is also trustworthy, said Dave Eaton, a groundskeeper at SLU for nearly 16 years. When the service employees’ union and SLU were negotiating contracts last year, Eaton said he would count on Wessel to relay messages or find out what people were thinking. 

Eaton also leaned on Wessel for personal support. 

“If you have issues at home or if you have questions about something not related to work, he’s always there to answer those questions or kind of give you ideas or suggestions,” Eaton said. 

For Tony Sabat, a SLU distribution services employee, working with Wessel meant good company — and gifts. 

“When I worked with Tommy one year, I got so many Christmas gifts because he was my partner, and not too many employees get Christmas gifts,” Sabat said. “He’s gonna be missed so much. Especially [by] me.”

Little appreciation and a ‘shrinking’ department 

In just the last two years, around six people left the SLU Grounds Services department, leaving the team understaffed. 

An outdated paragraph on the SLU Grounds Services website says 23 people care for campus grounds, which workers say is the ideal number for getting the job done. With Wessel marking the latest exit, however, just eight people are now responsible for mowing, irrigating, planting, mulching and plowing north campus. 

“Our department, it’s really shrinking,” Tucker said. 

With a $20 million budget deficit that is largely due to lower student enrollment, Tucker said SLU should reinvest in the grounds team. 

“When people come to tour, campus is one of the reasons they chose SLU because it looked nice, the flowers and everything was, you know, looking sharp. How are we going to do that [with less workers]? That’s not going to help recruit more people,” Tucker said.  

Weindel agrees that creating a campus aesthetic and a “curb appeal” is important, especially for incoming students. 

“I want people to walk on the campus and enjoy, you know, think they’re in an oasis,” Weindel said. 

However, a university-wide hiring freeze implemented last semester because of the deficit means there is not enough money to hire additional staff, Weindel said. Last fall, the department moved the remaining few groundskeepers from south campus to north campus, and brought on contractors to work as needed on the former. 

Outsourcing jobs is a worrying sign, some of the remaining groundskeepers say. 

Part of the reason so many grounds workers have left in recent years is low pay. Last April, grounds workers, janitorial and maintenance employees protested a wage package offered by the university.  

After rejecting the proposal four times, a contract was passed in May that gave all service workers a $3.15-an-hour raise over four years. Previously, pay for groundskeepers started at $18.55 an hour. The contract also included better job protection language such as a 60-day notice if the university plans to subcontract work. 

It is not just low pay that pushed Wessel and several others to leave their jobs. Another major factor was a lack of appreciation. 

“It’s nice to be told , ‘Hey, we really appreciate what you guys are doing,’ and that just evaporated over time,” Wessel said.

Just three weeks into his new job, Wessel said he has felt more valued and heard more words of appreciation than in his 18 years at SLU.

“This ship’s sinking,” Wessel said, referring to the grounds department. “I’m like one of the rats. When the ship goes down, they say the rats are some of the first to jump because they’re down in the belly of the ship when the water comes.”

A little plot filled with life 

During his time on campus, Wessel introduced more sustainable practices, encouraging his team to use less fertilizer and plant native plants that require less maintenance. His co-workers appreciated his ideas, but Wessel said there were limits to what he could do. 

There was one place, however, where Wessel made an impact he’s especially proud of. 

Nestled behind Hotel Ignacio near a university-owned parking lot on Locust Street was a gravel plot that for years was sprayed with herbicide to kill the persistent weeds. 

But a few years ago, Wessel did something different. He planted penstemon and buttonbush, colorful native plants that don’t need irrigation and can sustain themselves. 

Now, the little plot is filled with life, including bees, birds and butterflies.

“That makes me quite happy,” Wessel said. 

If it were up to Wessel, more of SLU’s campus would be an oasis for native plants and creatures.

“If this were all native stuff,” he said, pointing to the grass field between Morrissey Hall and Chaifetz Business School, “You’d see so many more birds, you’d see so many more insects.” 

Still, he hopes students, staff and visitors who walk across campus appreciate the existing nature on campus.

“Too many people come out and sit, but then they don’t really look around them and don’t really pay attention. If you’re gonna go out to nature, sit down in one spot, use all five senses, and be quiet and just think,” Wessel said. “And then, you know, everything gets better.” 

And while sitting to read a book or rest on a hammock, Wessel also wants the SLU community to also appreciate the workers who shape the campus’ look and feel. 

“Understand just the amount of hard work that goes into everything that we have done over the years. Understand and give thanks even if you don’t know who we are,” Wessel said.

Art can look like white walls and fancy canvases. At Exhibit A in Delmar, the colorful walls are filled with doodles and writing.

The temporary art exhibit is playful and engaging by design, creator and artist Jayvn Solomon said. Solomon’s work merges art, sustainability and community, while exploring how to reimagine existing spaces in St. Louis. 

Through the interactive exhibit, he said he hopes visitors leave feeling inspired to incorporate art and nature into their own lives. 

“I want to create something that people can engage with in a constructive and productive way,” Solomon said.

Solomon’s artistic vision was nurtured while working at an architecture firm in St. Louis. In his free time, he reimagined how buildings around downtown can look and function. He would draw trees on top of a skyscraper, a mural on a garage, a mini wind turbine on a flat roof. 

“What is actually stopping us from doing any of these renderings?” Solomon would ask himself. 

To satisfy his persistent question, Solomon created Loutopia— a series of artistic renderings that explore how to embed sustainability and art into daily life. Exhibit A gives these renderings a physical home.

Loutopia is a way to respond to his own anxiety about climate change and its ramifications, Solomon said. Instead of despairing, he said he turned to creating art-inspired solutions to climate problems. 

“It turns out we have a lot of really beautiful nature and softscape as well as just sustainable practices and innovations in St. Louis,” Solomon said. “So I figured I might as well lean into it and sort of see how to blend these things together to create something both new and functional.”

Collaboration with local sustainability non-profits like Perennial and Forest ReLeaf is at the heart of his vision, Solomon said. He’s volunteered with all of the organizations represented in the exhibit and looks to them as partners in his artistic mission. 

Forest ReLeaf executive director Meridith Perkins said natural resource professionals like herself often face challenges convincing the general public why sustainable projects are important.

That’s where artists like Solomon come in, Perkins added. 

“What I recognized early on, and I think probably Jayvn knows all along, is that without that inspired creative vision of what could be, sometimes we lose people in trying to explain it because it seems too hard to plant trees and grow them or it’s unattainable in so many ways,” Perkins said. 

The exhibit, Perkins said, not only inspires conversations about sustainability, but it provides visitors with tangible ways to take action after leaving. 

“They see this vision, they get inspired, they want to do something,” she said. “What I really respect about what Jayvn has done with this work is taking it to that next level and said ‘if you feel so compelled, if you if you believe in this mission, and you want to get on this journey with me and us in the city, then join these organizations and take action in these different ways.’” 

Solomon said that it’s this mix of art and sustainability that can help people reconnect with nature and with the city.

Growing up in north city, Solomon said he feels a commitment to St. Louis and a desire to see it flourish. 

He credits the city’s established art scene. The city’s Grand Arts District has been named America’s most exciting emerging arts district by Forbes and studies show the local economy benefits significantly from the arts ecosystem. 

Yet, Solomon said he’s disappointed that artists leave the city. 

“And I’m not exempt from wanting to do that,” he said. “There’s a lot of reasons to not be so energized about [St. Louis], but, I choose to be inspired by what other folks are doing. That’s probably the most bountiful source for me to pull from.”

Solomon said a practice of reciprocity fuels his work. He does not want full creative ownership of Loutopia. Instead, he said he hopes it will be a vision that is built through collaboration with others.  

“That’s why it’s important to me to have resident creators … to help each other out, whether that’s verbal affirmations and confirmations, or whether it’s something a bit more in-depth from business practices to creative technical stuff,” Solomon said. 

Donovan Calloway, a resident artist at Exhibit A, said visitors often walk in not knowing what the exhibit is about. 

“Wow, what is this?’ That’s the initial response off the street,” Calloway said. 

By the time they leave, they have a better understanding of what it means to have a city that is aesthetically beautiful and sustainable.

“Loutopia Exhibit A demonstrates what the possibilities are. It shows people what St. Louis could be,” Calloway said. 

For more information about the exhibit and when to visit, click here.

Keycard scanners malfunctioned in Spring Hall and temporarily compromised the safety of residents living on the hall’s fourth floor. 

The technical malfunction allowed any student ID card to open and access dorm rooms on that floor. The keycard scanners were powered off on Jan. 26, but the glitch put residents at risk for at least two nights. 

Students questioned why the scanners were not immediately turned off. Others said the lack of communication from Housing and Residential Life and the Division of Facilities Services was frustrating.

 “None of us have been sleeping well since we found out,” a sophomore student on the fourth floor said while the issue was still ongoing. “I sleep with pepper spray. There is not much else I can do.” 

As a makeshift safety measure, the sophomore resident said she placed a crinkly takeout bag by her door to alert her if someone entered. 

Residents said they were not advised on how to protect their dorms. The Department of Public Safety officer was posted to the floor, according to DPS assistant vice president Melinda Heikkinen. However, residents said the officer, who arrived on Jan. 26, should have been posted sooner, when the issue was first reported.

Junior Eleanor Oxford, who lives on Spring’s fourth floor, said she was shocked when she first found out from her friend that anyone could access her single room. 

“I thought ‘Oh wow, people can enter whenever they want,’” Oxford said. “There is a level of fear that I [had]. I tried not to think about it, but it’s scary.”

A week before noticing the glitch, residents told the University News some scanners in the hallway and inside their dorm rooms were beeping “obnoxiously” in one section of the fourth-floor hallway. Several residents reported the beeping to their RA’s and put in work orders. 

The beeping stopped 24 hours later on the evening of Jan. 17, but residents said they have yet to hear back from the Division of Facilities Services about this issue. 

Residents in several dorms had been using physical keys because card scanners were shut off last semester after a student hacker compromised their security. So when on Jan. 23, Spring Hall residents noticed their key card scanners working again, many were excited to use their ID cards. 

“We don’t want to worry about having to drag our keys around,” said the sophomore resident, who wished to stay anonymous due to safety concerns. 

The next day on Jan. 24, residents were surprised to find out that their dorms could be opened by any key card. One of the fourth-floor resident’s friends, who lives in a different hall, scanned and entered her friend’s dorm. 

Residents then immediately told their RA. They said they demonstrated the issue by using their own ID cards to scan and open the RA’s room. 

After reporting, residents said they received little communication or no explanation for the issue from their RAs or other staff. In the meantime, they said they kept the issue to themselves so it would not spread and compromise their safety.  

“I was surprised that it took [two days] for the problem to be fixed but it didn’t bother me as much as I did to not get any type of response or communication of the event after the fact,” another sophomore and fourth-floor resident said. She added that she wants to know if there is any risk of this happening again. 

The University News reached out to Spring’s fourth floor RAs, who said they could not comment on the situation. 

Greg Pfeffer, the housing and residential life administrative assistant, said HRL was aware of the issue and worked to fix it as quickly as possible. He did not comment on the lack of communication between HRL and the affected residents. 

“It would have been nice to have received a notification or update about the incident while it was going on because I only heard about it through friends, and if I hadn’t, I would not have had any knowledge that I needed to be cautious,” the sophomore resident said. 

Mariya Yasinovska contributed to this reporting. 

The names and ages of children killed in the Gaza Strip echoed for two hours inside St. Francis Xavier College Church during a public vigil. 

Attendees were encouraged to “mourn collectively” and honor the victims, according to organizers from the St. Louis Friends of Bethlehem and St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee. 

The vigil on Jan. 13 marked 100 days of war and a death toll in Gaza surpassing 24,000, the majority of whom are women and children.

Israel’s intense bombardment and ground attacks of the besieged Gaza Strip began in October after a Hamas-led attack that Israel says killed about 1,200 people. 

Speaking to a crowd of approximately 100 attendees, Saint Louis University graduate student and Fulbright Scholar Intimaa AbuHelou said she fears for her family’s safety in Gaza. 

In early January, her grandmother, her two brothers, including their wives and kids, and other relatives were killed in an Israeli missile strike. AbuHelou said they had been sheltering in tents in the south of Gaza.

AbuHelou added that her family is subject not only to intense bombings but also to disease, bitter weather and limited access to food and hygiene products. 

“I’m telling you this story for you to keep speaking up and speaking out for Gaza, and calling for an immediate ceasefire,” AbuHelou said.

Along with AbuHelou’s testament, the vigil featured other signs of solidarity. On one wall inside College Church, a long black banner was hung bearing hand-written names of some of the children killed in Gaza. 

A group of people has been meeting weekly to write the names and ages of the victims, said Vincent Stemmler, who helped organize the vigil. Stemmler, an art professor at St. Louis Community College – Florissant Valley, wanted to engage the public in what he said is a “meditative act.”

“It feels like such an act of presence and witnessing [to write the names]. It’s a moment to be with the people, to be with the martyrs, even if for a moment,” Stemmler said. 

The names of victims are taken from a list published by the Gaza Health Ministry in November, Stemmler said. Throughout the vigil, attendees were invited to participate by writing more names.

Volunteers also read poetry and first-hand accounts from Palestinians in Gaza. On a projector in the center of the church, their pictures and names were displayed. 

Steve Tamari, Middle East and Islamic history professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, shared a poem from Palestinian writer and poet Refaat Alareer. Alareer was killed in Gaza in early December.  

“[Alareer] has emerged as a symbol of what’s happening in Gaza,” said Tamari, who also organizes with the St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee. “I didn’t know him that well, but I knew of him, and I knew people who knew him very well. His killing hit home in a way. It was shocking.” 

It is important to honor Palestinians in Gaza by hearing their stories, College Church parishioner Lea Koesterer said. Koesterer founded St. Louis Friends of Bethlehem and helped plan the vigil. 

“We are not speaking for them, we are a megaphone for them,” Koesterer said. “It’s more moving than hearing statistics.” 

Koesterer added that holding the vigil in a sacred space encourages “oneness and inter-faith humanity.” 

College Church hosted but was not involved in planning the vigil. “We mourn for all people, especially children who have lost their lives due to conflict and war,” said Parish Life Coordinator Katie Jansen.

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