Author Archives: Dorris Keeven-Franke

Muhammad Ali’s Ancestor was once in St. Louis Slave Pen

Originally posted on ArcherAlexander.blog:
In March of 1863, a fugitive slave named Archer Alexander, perhaps the last fugitive slave in St. Louis, had fled a lynch mob in Saint Charles County after exposing his owner’s sabotage of the local railroad bridge. Local Confederates had sawn the timbers, and were waiting for the next train…

The Emancipation Monument

Originally posted on ArcherAlexander.blog:
“I warmly congratulate you upon the highly interesting object which has caused you to assemble in such numbers and spirit as you have today. This occasion is in some respects remarkable…Wise and thoughtful men of our race, who shall come after us…will make a note of this occasion, they will…

The first Thanksgiving

That first Thanksgiving celebration was not in Plymouth, Massachusetts. While the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags did indeed share a harvest feast in fall 1621, and early colonial leaders did declare days of thanksgiving when we were supposed to give our thanks for continued life. Today we celebrate Thanksgiving because of the crisis that we call the Civil War. Lincoln had declared a Proclamation appointing the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving and Prayer on October 3, 1863.

Elijah Lovejoy

The mob scaled the building and was about to set fire to the warehouse when Lovejoy was shot five times and killed while defending his press and his right to publish his thoughts on the abolition of slavery. The mob overran the warehouse and threw his press into the Mississippi River.

German America Day 2020

Originally posted on German American Committee:
JOIN US!? TUESDAY – 1:00 PM OCTOBER 6, 2020 ONLINE CELEBRATION! https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88524194600 Keynote program: WHAT MAKES MISSOURI SO GERMAN?! Dorris Keeven-Franke, President German-American Committee and Missouri Germans Consortium, Executive Director In St. Louis, Missouri, one of the largest strongholds of German-American heritage, the German-American Committee of St. Louis, was…