- [Jim] St. Louis has become home to a new memorial, not so much to the history of slavery, but the history of freedom, stories written in our own courthouse records.

- What this statue does, however, is expressed the honor and the courage that was in the heart of the American slave.

- [Jim] Another very American story, new arrivals, immigrants, and those who are helping them begin new lives in a new land.

It is the ultimate recycling story, going natural right to the very end.

- It's really going back to the basics of how burials were, you know, hundreds of years ago.

- [Jim] And a favorite St. Louis tree poses for its final portraits.

It's all next on "Living St.

Louis."

(upbeat music) I'm Jim Kirchherr, and this year St. Louis marked the nation's newest federal holiday by unveiling its newest downtown monument.

(people singing) On the Monday observance of Juneteenth, the day commemorating news of the Emancipation Proclamation and the end of slavery, hundreds gathered at the Civil Courts building to unveil a monument to hundreds of enslaved people who went to court in St. Louis to win their freedom and to those who helped them, arguing that as slave taken even temporarily into free territory was forever free.

Mayor Tishaura Jones, one of several speakers, called this the complex, messy and powerful history of St. Louis.

- Just as the Gateway Arch is a symbol of the gateway to the west, this stunning monument stands as a testament to fairness and how our courts served as a gateway to freedom for slaves.

- Other speakers included Lynn Jackson, a descendant of Dred and Harriet Scott, the most famous of the hundreds who sued for their freedom here and now have their own monument.

But let's back up a bit, as Ruth Ezell tells us how all this came about.

(soft music) - [Ruth] The road to the new memorial starts just a few blocks east of the Civil Courts building at the old courthouse.

It was here that Dred Scott and his wife Harriet sought to gain their freedom from slavery through the legal system.

Though the Dred Scott case was once widely considered an isolated case, court documents revealed the existence of more than 300 similar suits.

This statue of the Scott's outside the old courthouse pays tribute to their struggle.

And now, thanks to effort spearheaded by St. Louis Circuit Court Judge David Mason, a new statue has been created, one that memorializes all enslaved people who are named in what are called freedom suits.

- The thing about the Freedom Suits Memorial is that it is really unique in this country.

You know, there are a lot of statues out there that depict us, when I say us, I mean, enslaved Black people, slaves, as very subservient, beat down victims.

And that was a true fact, a true fact of the life of slavery.

What this statue does, however, is expressed the honor and the courage that was in the heart of the American slave, that desire to be free, which is a desire that thousands and millions of people who came to this country always had.

- [Ruth] To learn more about the memorial, we traveled to Peoria, Illinois and the studio of artist, Preston Jackson.

- The figurative art that you see, all of it's figurative, you know.

- [Ruth] And that figurative style in many of Jackson's paintings carries over to his sculpture, including the work for St. Louis he titled "Freedom's Home."

These images from its early stages show how the sculpture was created in sections.

Collectively, they tell the story of the enslaved who petitioned for their freedom, the white attorneys who represented them in court, and the judges who sought to interpret existing laws fairly for slaves whose cases had merit.

- I didn't want the piece to be completely solid, so I left a place for light to come through the piece.

See, because that area is kind of a nod to St. Louis itself, you know, coming and going.

St. Louis is about coming and going from other places.

- [Ruth] The process Jackson uses of making molds that end up at a foundry for casting has several stages, and that process dates back centuries.

Jackson says the enormity of the Freedom Suits project required him to divide the casting work among three separate foundries.

- But definitely, the feel that I wanted was African image making, you know, carved wood, flat planes, angles, and so forth.

- I'm one of those people who really believes art can tell enduring stories, can tell stories over and over to the same person 'cause when you look at it again, you see something you didn't see before, and there needs to be more of that.

It's a way of doing a documentary, if you will, that is also interesting to just look at in and of itself because it's artistic, but done right, art like that can also make the viewer think of things and feel things and go back in time on things that they may not have otherwise ever paid any attention to, and that's when art becomes powerful.

And I want everyone to just take a brief look around, just tilt your head left and right 'cause in case you were wondering, this is St. Louis.

- All right.

- [David] This is St. Louis.

(audience applauding) St. Louis stands behind the honor of its history 'cause as you are here, you may be not only a descendant of a slave who won, but a family member that took them in after they got out or took them in after freedom was won after the Civil War.

You may be a descendant of those who sat in the pews at Central Baptist Church, right next to Dred and Harriet Scott.

You may be the descendants of some of the white men who said, you know, the law is what it is.

You're free.

And because of the fact that we share a descendancy of everything that went on in our courts, we can be truly happy today.

This is a celebration.

It's a Juneteenth celebration.

(audience applauding) - [Woman] Thank you!

(audience applauding) (soft music) - [Jim] As important as the 14 foot sculpture is the base, on which are inscribed names of men, women, and children not as famous as Dred Scott, but who also fought for their freedom in the courthouse in St. Louis.

The monument is in a place that will soon be officially designated as Freedom Plaza.

With the 4th of July Independence Day coming up, what better time for another very American story, this one about immigrants?

When Afghans first started arriving in St. Louis, they got a lot of coverage, but what now?

Anne Marie Berger on the new arrivals and some of their new friends.

- [Anne Marie] Since the United States withdrew troops from Afghanistan at the end of August- - Up under the shade.

- [Anne Marie] More than 76,000 Afghan nationals have been resettled in the US.

This effort is in coordination with local resettlement agencies across the country.

Here in St. Louis, the International Institute has been contracted by the federal government as the lead agency for resettling refugees in this region.

Arrey Obenson, president and CEO of the International Institute, spoke on "Donny Brook Next Up."

- We have resettled 696 Afghans in the last 11 years, since 2010, so there's a vibrant Afghan community here, which makes this an attractive location.

- [Anne Marie] The International Institute has resettled an additional 600 Afghans in St. Louis in just the last six months.

The Institute's involvement in refugee resettlement is contracted through the state department for just 90 days.

There's no government assistance after that, but remember these new Americans abruptly fled their homes, their families.

They arrived here with nothing.

The majority of them don't even speak English.

Making a home, a life for them in the US in St. Louis, it's going to take more than three months, and it's going to take a village.

- The more the merrier.

Finding a car is a really big problem.

Welcome to St. Louis.

Hi!

Sona!

How are you?

So good to see you, Sona!

- [Anne Marie] Enter Ann Wittman.

Ann lives in Ellisville with her husband and three sons.

She's also a full-time volunteer, helping to resettle refugees in the St. Louis area, working with nonprofits like Welcome Neighbor STL.

- So when the Afghan community arrived, Welcome Neighbors stepped up in a big way from partnering families with these refugees to help them get into school, get cars, get rides, get cell phones, get their wifi set up.

- [Woman] Bring it on in.

Perfect.

- [Anne Marie] On a recent Saturday morning, Ann organized a gathering for her new friends.

- Today, this party is for you guys.

It's for all of you to welcome you to St. Louis.

This is today to come together to celebrate their successes and just take a deep breath that they've made it and that they're safe here in this community, and to just enjoy each other's company, knowing that we care about them.

- [Anne Marie] There was food, cricket, and the opportunity for families to stock their closets and toy chests.

- [Anne Marie] Ooo, do you like pop its?

- I do like pop its.

- You like pop its?

Pop its are fun.

The path to a new life here can be lengthy.

There are new daily challenges and adjustments to a culture these Afghans don't know while speaking a language most here don't understand.

Volunteers like Ann help these families navigate the unknown.

- [Ann] The greatest need first is housing.

There's a great housing shortage for low income housing as well as they have really large families.

So they come here with 5, 6, 7, up to, we have a family with 10 kids.

Sometimes they get their housing through the resettlement agency, but sometimes a family might come in from a different city.

So maybe they got resettled in Kansas City, but their cousins live here, so they want to come to live in the same city as their relatives 'cause they're used to living in a village.

And so they want to be with their brothers, their sisters, their cousins.

So if anyone got out of Afghanistan in August, they didn't have a choice of what city they were going to.

- [Anne Marie] They were just dispersed.

- They were just dispersed.

We need nice landlords who are willing to work with us and rent to large families, and we have found some really great landlords.

- [Anne Marie] So do you work as sort of like an go between the property owners or management companies and secure this housing for them?

- Yes, yes.

We have to take any donated car we get because I can't even buy a car for $5,000, you know?

And they won't give them a loan because they only have these two year visas.

And so then they don't have credit.

- [Anne Marie] Basic needs, transportation, housing, all things that aren't cheap.

So Ann began crowdsourcing to buy cars, washer and dryers, school supplies, whatever was needed to set these families up for success.

- [Ann] We wanna be prepared to help them.

You know, for example, we got a job for this young man.

Clayco Construction reached out, and they said, we have a job for this young man.

He's 19 years old.

He's willing to work.

We're willing to train him, but we need to learn a little bit more about his language.

Can we get a translator?

How is he gonna get to and from work?

So that's something we can jump in.

We got him a car.

We found a donated car.

We paid $2,000 to have it fixed and ready to go.

He has his permit.

We'll take him to the DMV.

He'll get his driver's license.

We can hire a translator to go with him on the first day of work.

So it's gonna happen because we can make it happen.

But then again, we need nice employers like Clayco to say, we're willing to be patient and to deal with the language barrier, and we're willing to wait until you get the car.

And then we need funds to buy cheap cars, to, when we get donated cars, to fix the cars up.

Worst case, we could have Ubered that guy to and from work until we got a car.

(upbeat music) - [Anne Marie] Ann and her friends have taken their efforts to the next level.

They've started HumanKind STL, a nonprofit that raises funds to support organizations like Welcome Neighbor, so these basic needs can be met.

- [Ann] Myself and all the other people that I'm doing this with, we really feel that the need is so significant and is not being met right now, that we can't go to sleep at night knowing that their needs are not being met and that we can help.

So at night I think about all these things, and how am I gonna do it, and who do I know, and who can help me, and then I just know that the next day is gonna be full, every single minute is gonna be full of me making these contacts so that we can make this happen.

And it does happen because St. Louis is a city of generosity and kindness and giving, and I've never had anyone say that they can't help.

Everyone wants to help.

They just want to know how to help.

- So how do you want to go?

I mean, literally, when you're dead and gone, do you really care what happens to you?

Well, a lot of people do.

Brooke Butler has a story about a movement that we might call back to basics.

(soft music) - [Brooke] What do you want to happen with your body after you die?

It's not something people normally like to discuss in their daily life, but, well, unless you know something I don't, it's an inevitable situation that we will all face one day.

- We only really get to make this decision once, and I feel like it's a really important decision because it's a reflection of who we are and how we've lived.

- [Brooke] A decision that for some might come at a moment's notice, like for Jessica Winingham and her family when her father unexpectedly passed away in 2016.

Coming from a Black Southern Baptist family, her father's experience with funerals were much different than what he would've wanted.

- [Jessica] I would describe Black Southern Baptist funerals as very theatrical.

As a person in theater, there's a lot going on.

So amazing loud music, dress costuming, I would say.

So like when my great-grandmother died, she left instructions that everyone was to wear white.

All women were to wear white on that day.

And there's always an open casket and a processional around the casket.

I mean, it's just a lot of rules.

And my dad, who is on that Black Baptist side, but is Jehovah's witness and does not subscribe to that religion, told me he had always had a dream that when he passed away, he wanted my brother and I to steal his body and put an apple in his pocket and bury him illegally so that he wouldn't have to be in a casket and go through the Southern Baptist ritual, and we would just find him by that apple tree.

And as a younger person, I was like, yes, of course.

Fast forward, my father passes away from a massive heart attack.

I get a call in the middle of the night, and I'm driving to my mom's house, and grief is a really odd thing.

And I remember your brain thinks lots of really odd things.

And I remember one of my first thoughts being, how am I gonna steal his body?

How is this gonna work?

And then my mom was like, you know, Bellefontaine Cemetery does something called green burial, and I had no never heard of it.

I had no idea what she was talking about, and she had described it, and I was like, well, that sounds perfect.

- When you hear green burial, a common thing that comes to mind is being turned into a tree after death.

And while it's a bit more complicated than that, as we learned at Bellefontaine Cemetery, it's about as close as you can get.

- [Sherry] Green burial isn't necessarily a new process.

It's really going back to the basics of how burials were, you know, hundreds of years ago.

- [Brooke] Sherry Smith is the president and CEO of Bellefontaine Cemeteries, a non-sectarian historical cemetery founded in 1849, whose 314 acres give a park-like setting.

This emphasis on nature makes it very fitting that Bellefontaine is one of only two cemeteries in St. Louis that offer options for green burials.

Sherry explains that the average person seeking information for green burials has lived a very natural, environmentally conscious lifestyle.

- For some people, you know, you hear 'em say, I don't wanna be laid out in a funeral home.

I don't want people to see me.

I don't want my family to spend all that money on, you know, the big casket or the big procession or all of those things.

I mean, what we don't want is as important as what we do want.

- I had someone explain embalming to me before, and I decided nobody's doing that to me.

This is not something I'm interested in.

- [Brooke] So for Marshall Kiel, not wanting to be embalmed was an indicator to seek information for alternatives, which, since we're on the subject, some might think of embalming as a traditional process, but it actually wasn't widely adapted until the Civil War era as a way to keep fallen soldiers' bodies preserved to be transported back home to their families.

So it's a fairly new implementation to burials when you look at the grand timeline of human existence.

Just over the past two years, the rediscovery of interest in natural burials has more than doubled because of the environmental benefits and affordability, which costs about half of the average modern day funeral.

Cremation has also been thought of to have these benefits, and while its impact is better than the large amounts of chemicals released by traditional caskets and embalming, cremation still emits large amounts of carbon dioxide.

All of this background information was shared with Marshall and his wife while they were attending a green burial class offered by Bellefontaine, which is how they decided this was a more fitting option.

- I had this idea that somehow what gave me the right to take up this piece of six foot by three foot by whatever it is site on this earth when I'm only here for a fleeting moment.

This is the way people have been being buried for millennia, and it seemed to make a lot more sense to us to do it that way.

(whimsical music) And in green burial, there is no hard casket, at least no casket that is a traditional casket of the way we think about them in funeral homes today.

Perhaps what you'd be buried in green burial is really a more traditional casket of years gone by and/or no casket at all.

- There's a homemade biodegradable shroud.

It could be colorful.

It could be a reflection of that person's personality or life.

And we put in all hand cut greens and flowers, whatever's seasonal from our grounds.

There's a bed of that laid in.

Then the deceased is laid in on top of that, and then it's covered again with another biomass of flowers and greens.

- [Marshall] You're buried more shallow than you are in a traditional burial because of the microbes do better at the depth, which I think is four and a half feet rather than six.

- [Sherry] And a lot of times, the families want to participate in that process.

They want to help put the roses in or the evergreen in, and then they've even wanted to help fill the grave.

And so I think it's closure at its finest, and it's personal.

So many times, I've been to a traditional funeral of a loved one, and you leave there and the casket's still sitting there, and you get in your cars, and you drive away.

And a green burial process is much different than that.

- [Marshall] The sections that we chose is that you're buried with no marker, and that actually goes back to my earlier thinking of, everybody knows in two generations, nobody knows who you are or knows who you were, so what makes the point of carving your name in perpetuity?

I suppose it's not been part of our heritage to go to the cemetery, and I don't know if that's a societal change or an individual change, but assuming somebody comes looking, that if they came to Bellefontaine, they can tell you where we are.

It's through the magic of GPS coordinates.

- [Brooke] There are two meadow type locations in Bellefontaine where green burials are offered without a headstone, but you can actually have a green burial anywhere in the cemetery.

And while it may be a minimalist wish to be buried without a marker, some might appreciate having a type of memorial, like Jessica and her family.

- [Jessica] It was like this perfect dream come true moment that I'm really fortunate and grateful to have had.

We showed up, and it was just like a very peaceful, beautiful ceremony, and we did get to do what my dad had wanted.

We got apples from Eckard's, and everyone took a bite out of apples and threw 'em in.

So he did get his apples buried with him.

Well, and my dad, God love him, was not a planner.

There was no will.

There were no instructions.

I mean, it was a mess, and so all we had was this word of mouth promise, but that was it.

So yes, I think had there been a clearer plan, it would've been even easier.

Had this not happened, my brother and I, especially, would've really struggled with the rest of our life of having put him in the ground in a way he did not want.

- There is a great reluctance, I think, to come to terms with the inevitable.

- Death is a curious thing because you don't experience it and then come back and talk about it, so we don't know what to expect.

And I feel like when you make your choices about end of life, it shouldn't be that way.

We should know what to expect.

- [Jessica] The way that our culture is so scared of death and so allergic to it, we don't think about it, we don't wanna think about it, but it really does put a burden on the living.

My only wish is to be at least burdensome as possible to everyone, including the earth, and I feel like this is exactly what that is.

- Finally, as you know, we've done a lot of stories over the years about some really interesting people, but I think Veronica Mohesky's story might be the first one we've ever done about a really interesting tree.

(upbeat music) - [Veronica] Normally, when a tree has to be removed from a park, the public doesn't bat an eye, but the Keebler Elf Tree in Tower Grove Park, isn't just any tree.

With its gnarly branches and hollow center, it is one of the most unique trees in the park.

- This is a beloved tree of the park.

It has a lot of nicknames.

A lot of people reference different fantasy movies when talking about it, whether "Harry Potter," "Lord of the Rings.

I've also heard it called the Troll Tree, the Keebler Elf Tree, whatever you call it, it's definitely a beloved tree of our park.

- [Veronica] Beth Casagrand is the director of community events at Tower Grove Park.

She says the tree is anywhere from 75 to 100 years old, and many St. Louisin's cherish memories of it.

- We have a lot of community members, who, this is their favorite tree in the park, and they have a lot of fond memories of interacting with the tree, climbing inside, playing on its branches.

- [Veronica] But due to safety reasons, it's time for the decades old tree to come down.

To celebrate the tree's life, Tower Grove Park hosted several farewell events on June 9th, including a craft event for kids, a farewell toast, and artist hours where local artists could come and sketch or paint the tree.

Leslie Faust is one of the artists who is invited to the farewell event.

- [Leslie] It's a beautiful tree.

It's got all kinds of fun, you know, shapes to the trunk and leaves and whatever.

So it's really special, really special, 'cause I, like I said, I really respect nature and try to do what I can.

And yeah, this is extra special for me.

- [Veronica] Leslie says events like this are important because they make our community take a moment to enjoy nature.

- [Leslie] I think it just makes people slow down and be aware of how important and how special trees are and nature is and our parks.

I mean, look at people who are just biking and walking and enjoying themselves and getting away from silliness, you know, just, I think, yeah, just being out in nature is, feed's your soul.

You gotta do it.

- [Veronica] Beth says she recognizes the special place this tree has in our community, so she says the responsible way to remove the decaying tree is to allow the community to say goodbye before its removal later this summer.

- We have a lot of trees in this park, but they're not all as beloved as this one, you know.

We have, as good stewards of the land, we think very carefully in the ways that we both take trees out and put trees back in, making sure there's a purpose and a plan, but we also know that when a tree like this has to come out, it doesn't just impact the park.

It impacts the entire community.

And so we want it to give the community a chance to say farewell.

- And that's "Living St.

Louis."

Thanks for joining us.

I'm Jim Kirchherr, and we'll see you next time.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] "Living St. Louis" is made possible by the support of the Betsy and Thomas Patterson Foundation, the Mary Ranken Jordan and Ettie A. Jordan Charitable Trust, and by the members of Nine PBS.