- [Narrator] Annie Malone's name is familiar, but one woman thought St. Louis just wasn't doing enough to tell her story.

- It really did not make me happy.

It made me angry.

- [Narrator] So this is what she did about it.

(calm music) He went to Hollywood to get into the movies, but this St. Louisans' mother, was the one who got to say, "I told you so".

- We would be watching something and she'd be like "You know you could do that".

(laughs) - [Narrator] And it might not be on everybody's bucket list, but we talked to St. Louisans, who just couldn't resist the Pamplona experience.

- Something very Hemingway like and heroic.

- [Narrator] It's all next on living St. Louis.

(upbeat music) I'm Jim Kirchherr.

And if you live in St. Louis, you probably know the name, Annie Malone.

There's the children's home, and the annual parade.

Look her up, you find out she was a black entrepreneur.

Self-made millionaire of an African-American haircare and beauty product empire.

There's more to that story, but it's sometimes been hard to find, but that's changing.

Thanks in large part, to the work of one very dedicated woman, who has brought that work and the Annie Malone story here to the Field House Museum.

(soft music) - [Gabrielle] For Linda Nance, the story of Annie Malone starts in a place with many stories.

- I went to the main library and there were maybe two or three slips of paper in there.

- [Gabrielle] Where to?

- Went to the Julia Davis library and they said, well, all our information about her is at the main library, which it wasn't.

It really did not make me happy.

It made me angry.

- [Gabrielle] Mm.

- And I just continued to look for things.

- [Gabrielle] Not only did Nance look and collect, but she became the founder of the Annie Malone Historical Society.

- I just never stopped learning about her.

- [Gabrielle] So where did Linda Nance get everything?

Well, she says for some, newspaper clippings led her to some things.

Most were donated by board members, or members of the community who knew her for organization.

Things like these Poro tins or the pressing comb.

- [Linda] My husband said, "What are you gonna do with all that stuff on your desk?"

- [Gabrielle] Those artifacts on her desk turned into a house full of Malone's life.

Pictures, pressing combs, a physical celebration of who she was.

- [Linda] It got to the floor, and it got to the closet and it got to be boxes.

I just decided I'm not gonna be quiet about that.

(soft music) - [Gabrielle] Today, those piles and boxes, now sit on display at the Field House Museum.

(soft music) - So I wanna ask you when people come here, what is the hope?

What are you hoping for them to take away when they walk through the exhibit?

- My desire was that they have an immersion kind of experience and feel what was going on in her day.

- [Gabrielle] The exhibit starts with a look at Poro college.

- She broke ground, on a building in the Ville in 1917.

It was opened in 1918.

- [Gabrielle] It was her business office and manufacturing operation training center, and much much more, but something else was happening that year, in 1917.

Across the river, black people were being killed in the East St. Louis massacre.

Linda says Malone had a personal tie to that day, too.

- She was able to gather a number of people who had automobiles, and met people on the bridge to try and rescue those people walking across the bridge, trying to flee for their lives.

- [Gabrielle] Wow.

- Annie Malone in the early 1900's was able to navigate prejudice and discrimination.

Also to things that did not include her.

And she was able not only to convince herself that that was important and valuable, she was able to train some 75,000 women in her lifetime.

- [Gabrielle] So who was Annie Turnbo Malone?

Well, in short, while born in Metropolis, Illinois, she spent part of her life, in our very own St. Louis.

Malone was a chemist, an entrepreneur, a supporter of the arts, and in more ways than one, a philanthropist.

She'd go on to have a successful life marketing and selling hair care, inventing the wonderful hair grower in 1900, and eventually becoming a multimillionaire.

She donated to the St. Louis colored children's home, Howard university, the YMCA and many others.

- So that more people can know about the contributions that she made, the sacrifices that she made and the very large footprint.

She had an international business and most people don't know that.

That's not okay with me.

- So you want people to come in here and be able to soak up all those things?

- I do.

- [Gabrielle] From wall to wall, you get an opportunity to do just that.

And museum executive director, Stephanie Bliss, says, "That's important".

- Learning about her and how empowering she was and how powerful she was.

And there are those types of individuals here in St. Louis.

They're not necessarily the big names that we think about, and they are here though.

And our history is so rich, and we need to remember that.

And we can learn from that, to make our next generation better.

- [Gabrielle] As for Linda, her mission is still not done.

From meeting 100 year old graduates of Poro college to Annie Malone's surviving nephew.

After the exhibit closes in June, she's hoping to find a permanent building somewhere in the city.

- We want it to be able to be just as the Poro College was, a community asset.

We want to have GED programs that can help people improve themselves.

We wanna have a Saturday morning program for our children to come and hear books read to them and leave with a book of their own, so they can build their own little libraries.

- [Gabrielle] A woman we celebrate each year in the Annie Malone May Day Parade.

A woman whose mission is still carried out through Annie Malone Children Family Services.

A woman who made a way and paved a way.

- 'Cause she didn't wait for those things to happen.

She didn't get permission from anyone for those things to happen.

She saw that need and she filled it.

(calm music) - Lemme ask you this.

Can you tell the story of St. Louis, without talking about Annie Malone?

- You shouldn't.

- [Gabrielle] Yeah.

- [Linda] And you shouldn't want to.

(soft music) - Let's talk Ernest Hemingway.

Ken Burns' documentary in April made me think of a couple of people, I really wanted to talk to.

Not English professors or experts or historians, but a couple of people who as college students, decided they just needed to go someplace that was made famous, maybe too famous by Ernest Hemingway.

(upbeat music) - [Jim] In his first big novel, "The Sun Also Rises", his central part of the story, takes place in Pamplona, Spain, during the festival of San Fermin, which includes the now famous Running of the Bulls.

And back in the 1920s, Running of the Bulls looked something like this, but thanks in large part to Hemingway, it has grown to look like this.

(crowd cheers) And I wanted to talk to two people I knew, who had been there.

- Say salad fork.

- [Students] Salad fork.

- [Jim] I thought of Mr. Di.

We met Samuel DiLorenzo about 10 years ago, when we were shooting a documentary on refugees.

He was teaching English at the city's International Welcome School and now teaches in the Rockwood district.

I remembered that he told me he had been to Pamplona for the Fiesta when he was a college student in Spain.

- Well, I mean, people talked about it the whole year and I was a Hemingway fan and I'd read a number of books, but I guess a lot of my friends were huge Hemingway fans and they talked about it a great deal.

- So for me, it was really more about what I'd heard in class and what I'd heard-- - [Jim] I also got in touch with my Nine PBS coworker, Megan Grisolano.

She also studied in Spain, married a Spaniard and now splits her time between St. Louis and Madrid.

And as a student, she too went with her now husband, Alejandro, to Pamplona.

And by then they were letting women run with the bulls.

- No.

No temptation whatsoever to run with the bulls.

I can safely watch from the sidelines - [Jim] But Sam DiLorenzo did not go to Pamplona to be a spectator.

(crowd cheers) - I was expecting wearing all white with my red sash and my rolls of newspapers, swatting the bulls in the head, and maybe coming back to St. Louis and telling everyone how I ran with the bulls and was victorious.

Something very Hemingway like and heroic.

- And I just wanted to be a part of that spectacle 'cause I knew that it was pretty wild.

We didn't plan this out ahead enough.

There was no rooms available so we had to get there very early.

Drove at five in the morning and we get there and it's about seven in the morning and we can see people sleeping on the streets, the town is just trashed.

- Yeah I didn't plan that well, so I didn't have a hotel.

And I made the poor choice of sleeping in the park because the following day I was planning on running with the bulls.

And the problem was that I got robbed that night of my camera, my Pentax K1000, all my rolls of film and all my items except for my money and my passport.

And they stole my shoes too.

So, I was there with everyone.

I was ready to go with my new used shoes and all my courage.

- So there are actually professional runners that have kind of... What do you call it?

(speaks in foreign language) So people who pay to support them as they train for this.

And then you have your kind of tourists who come in and they're like, "Yeah, I can do it".

Who haven't been training for years.

She's totally packed.

So I mean, if it's not the bull trampling over someone, it's other people, stumbling.

- Walking up there, I learned of this guy from Illinois who was killed and I just thought, "Geez, that's scary."

And the drunkenness, and the new shoes and the death of this guy, I thought I'm just gonna put my feet down there in the street, touch my feet to the to the ground and that was it for me.

I would love to tell you I ran with the bulls but I was too chicken.

I was too scared.

- Maybe too smart.

- I think the problem was a lot of the folks from all around the world there, wanting to do the same thing as me.

Maybe they ruined everything, I don't know, but it was very chaotic.

- [Megan] And it's all over between two and four minutes.

And we were just waiting in the ring 'cause that's where it ends.

Just kinda taking it all in.

'Cause I just wanted to see what it was all about.

- [Jim] One could argue that the Hemingway experience is not really about running with the bulls, but drinking in the cafes, the Fiesta, the party and of course bullfights.

Both Sam and Megan have attended bull fights with mixed feelings.

- And I look back and it was barbaric and it was wrong in so many ways, but the colors and the majestry... Just the theatrics of the whole thing were just beautiful.

- For me it's something I wanted to learn more about because it is a part of the culture, as I'd heard from professors and friends, but yes, it's very... How should we say?

Controversial subject.

- [Jim] In Spain, there are protests in places that have banned bull fighting and there's opposition as well to the running of the bulls.

To a great extent, both are kept alive by tourist and their money.

And in Pamplona, that can be traced back to Ernest Hemingway.

There's a statue of him in town.

Another, bellying up to a local bar.

You could say he put Pamplona on the map, but what Hemingway really did, was put Pamplona on a lot of buckets lists.

(crowd cheers) - [Samuel] So many influences that drew my attention to Pamplona.

I just couldn't resist having that be the combination before I came back to St. Louis after a year of being in Spain.

(upbeat music) - Imagine wanting to go into a field where you're likely to be told no 6almost every time you apply for a job.

That's why when somebody actually makes it in Hollywood, that's a story.

Here's Ruth Ezell.

- [Ruth] Add another St. Louis native to the list of Hollywood success stories.

- This is Ray's brother Fahmarr.

- Wassup?

- [Ruth] And that's Hunter Sansone, who co-stars in the 2020 film Safety.

It's based on the true story of Clemson University football player, Ray McElrathbey and how he cared for his younger brother on campus while their mother was in drug rehab.

- [All] Oh.

- [Ruth] Being there for family is the movies theme.

One to which Hunter Sansone can relate.

- As long as you family.

So is the kid.

- Family always is such a huge influence.

And I was very fortunate to have a really supportive family that pushed me.

They didn't just give anything.

They were just like, "Hey, if you want something, work for it.

If you want our support, show us."

And that's exactly what I did and I'm grateful for how they handled those early developmental stages because it shaped me into who I am today.

(calm music) - [Ruth] Sansone was about five years old when his parents bought a 123 acre farm in Franklin County.

He grew up dividing his time between going to school in West St. Louis County and spending weekends on the farm.

- The farm was 100% my happy place with horses and goats and chickens, dogs, and everything you can think of.

It was like a zoo.

My neighbor used to say, "Everywhere you look, something's moving".

(Both laugh) Because it was true.

At that point when I was little, my dad went all out and it was such a great childhood.

- [Ruth] Between school, the farm and athletics, Sansone's plate was full, but that didn't stop his mother's subtle drum beat about another pursuit he hadn't even considered.

- My mom is a singer and a songwriter and a vocal coach.

And so from day one, she always would just kind of casually mention to me, "You'd be a good actor."

And in my head, I was like a little kid.

I was playing my sports.

I was out on my farm.

I was going to school with my friends.

I would just brush it off.

I'm like, "All right, thanks mom."

You're just like being a mom.

Like a mom saying you can do anything.

You could go be an astronaut.

And so I would just brush it off and sure enough, man, she stayed consistent with it, not in a nagging way, just kind of a comment here or there.

We'd be watching something, she'd be like, "You know, you could do that."

(laughs) And it rubbed off on me and mama knows best.

And I went to an acting class in the St. Louis area with my mom and I got hooked.

- [Ruth] After graduating from Chaminade, Sansone tested the waters in Los Angeles, made connections, attended college for a while, and ultimately decided to focus on pursuing a career in film and TV.

He learned early on the need to cultivate the art of the audition.

- A lot of my mentors used to say to me, "Your job is actually auditioning."

That's what you do for a living, is auditioning.

And you think(indistinct) no, but what I do for a living is I act in movies or act in TV shows and yes, of course but the day-to-day hustle is going to these auditions and being told no 99 out of 100 times.

Anybody has a different story.

I mean yes, there's a fleet where someone walks out to Hollywood and their first audition they book a life-changing job.

And that happens and that's great and more power to them.

But at least in my experience, in my years in Hollywood I had about five, I'd say about a solid five years, where I was just working those part-time jobs, going to audition after audition.

- That's difficult not to take personally.

- Absolutely.

And that's exactly what you have to do, is not take it personally.

But that's the hardest thing, is to do exactly that.

It's easier said than done.

- [Ruth] In the movie, "Safety", Sansone plays Daniel Morelli, Clemson tigers teammate, roommate, and best friend of Ray McElrathbey.

The character was inspired by some of McElrathbey's real life Clemson buddies.

- What does sacrifice mean to you ?

To me, means putting it all on the line.

- [Ruth] Filming took place in the fall of 2019, prior to the pandemic.

- [Hunter] All the game scenes that you guys see are shot live in front of 70 to 80,000 people.

We ran down onto that field.

There's no green screen.

There's no cinematic tricks.

That's all real.

They gave us half of a half time to run onto the field and execute these intricate football plays.

We had about seven and a half minutes, one take each.

It was like live theater on steroids, got 80,000 people screaming.

- [Ruth] Sansone worked with a few other St. Louis area natives for this project, including the director, award-winning filmmaker, Reginald Hudlin.

And sandstone has this advice for aspiring actors hoping to join them in Hollywood.

- If you're pursuing this and you're really passionate about it, you love it with everything in you and you can see yourself doing nothing else, don't give up.

(players cheering) - [Player] Lets go.

Move.

Lets go.

- C'mon we tigers over here baby.

That's what tigers do.

- [Player] Lets go.

- When the pandemic first hit, the problems hit fast.

And one of the first things I heard was that the pandemic had exposed, not created but exposed, some very serious cracks, deep divisions, deep inequities in our country and our community.

Gabrielle Hayes talked with someone whose organization has been at the front lines.

(calm music) - [Gabrielle] The impacts of COVID-19 can be felt everywhere from lives lost to the healthcare system.

- A lot of people say that COVID has brought out this new light of the health disparities.

Well, the health disparities have always been there.

- [Gabrielle] Affinia Healthcare's Kendra Holmes says, there's a lot to face from both the past and the present.

- There has been harm.

There's historical harm and there's current harm.

We're talking about... Everyone's talking about the Tuskegee study, but today, in 2021, African-American women are three times more likely to die during childbirth.

- [Gabrielle] Affinia has provided health services in the community since 1906.

And over the course of the pandemic, it's provided both testing and now vaccines.

Holme says it all starts with one thing.

- When you don't value a person to the level that you value other people, you don't provide the same care.

Healthcare is so much about trust.

If I don't trust that you have my best interest at heart, I'm not going to take the medication that you prescribe.

I'm not going to go to my prenatal visits because I don't feel that you have my best interests at heart.

- [Gabrielle] It's an area, she believes, the system has to work on.

- COVID really is not the healthcare crisis.

It really is racism.

It's crucial with the trust building for the black community.

- [Gabrielle] So what is our health system learning from the pandemic?

Holmes says in short, a lot.

- What comes to my mind first is tele-health.

So the fact that it is more convenient for some people to receive healthcare in different forms.

- [Gabrielle] So, is it a question of access?

Holmes says partly.

- And then the other piece that comes to my mind is the digital divide that a lot of people of color don't have access to internet services, even laptops and just Information Technology in general.

- [Gabrielle] According to the FCC, that's about 19 million people across the US.

So, if you can't get online and your only option is to go into a doctor, what happens if you have no way to get there?

Holmes says we need to be thinking about that in moving forward.

- So I think healthcare needs to really evolve to accommodate individuals who may not have transportation.

- [Gabrielle] But even in talking through topics like access and education, Holmes says moving forward means circling back to one thing.

- I think the takeaway for me is that again, COVID is not the public health crisis.

The public health crisis is racism for black people in healthcare.

And that's going to take not just talking to get past that.

It takes again, an awareness of the historical harms that have occurred and the current harms that we currently deal with.

And it's also going to take trust building.

We have to work to rebuild that trust and that takes years.

(giggles) That's gonna be a really difficult task to rebuild that.

- [Gabrielle] One building block is gonna have to be more diverse in healthcare.

- While we're doing it, I think that one thing that needs to be pointed out again is that statistically, when black people are treated by black health care providers, their outcomes are better.

- [Gabrielle] So, how do we address that?

Holmes says it starts from the very beginning.

- [Kendra] We need to begin to really build that pipeline of black health care providers.

- [Gabrielle] While the impacts of COVID are everywhere, and in many cases long lasting, Holmes says what we take from it is important now and for years to come.

- It's about action.

And it's about showing people that you care.

It's really all about doing and not talking.

(calm music) - Finally, a little bit more about Ernest Hemingway and a St. Louisan who knew him as well as anybody, the writer A.E.

Hotchner.

- The things I'm doing that I really don't have-- - [Jim] Hotchner died last year at the age of 102.

Here in his hometown, he was known as the author of "King of the Hill".

A book based on his life growing up, surviving really, in the depression in St. Louis.

He came to the Missouri Historical Society in 2007 to read from that book.

But nationally, he was better known as the author of "Papa Hemingway".

He was friends with Hemingway until his death by suicide in 1961.

And the book recounts their many adventures together.

Here they are at the bull ring in Pamplona in the 1950s.

They'd first met in 1948.

Hotchner was sent by Cosmopolitan magazine to Havana Cuba to try to get Hemingway to write an article.

He checked into the Hotel Nacional fully expecting to go home empty handed, but he sent a note to Hemingway.

- It said I'm here from Cosmopolitan magazine.

They ask you to write this dumb article.

- [Jim] He told the story a couple of years ago in the Washington University interview series "Hotch at 100".

- This lady called me up and said, "Come have a drink at the Flori de Mar."

And we met.

And that's how I met him.

And he did write something, not that article.

And that began what was a 14 year friendship.

- Might have been, for example in the first sentence, I just noticed-- - [Jim] Hotchner's papers are in the Wash U archives including early drafts of "King of the Hill" and scripts for adaptations that Hotchner did of Hemingway stories for 1950s television.

- That speaks to the relationship that Hotchner and Hemingway had.

- Yeah.

- That he-- - [Jim] Professor Henry Schvey knew Hotchner well.

- Hotch was somebody, although we think of him as a person of great esteem and somebody who lived a very, very long time, was also looking for a father.

And the thing that's very striking to me and looking at "King of the Hill" is the search for a father.

And in some ways Hemingway represented at least one avenue of that search.

- [Jim] And yet in the conversation you had with him, he said Hemingway was looking for a son.

- Yeah.

I think that that's also true.

- [Jim] Hemingway was 18 years older and while he often alienated those close to him, this friendship continued till the end of his life.

Hotchner would write often about his famous and complicated friend, in a way few others could.

- [Prof.Henry] He knew Hemingway inside-out and really loved him.

- And that's living St. Louis.

Thanks for joining us.

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

- [Narrator] Living St. Louis is made possible by the support of the Betsy and Thomas Patterson Foundation and Mary Ranken Jordan and Ettie A. Jordan charitable trust, and by the members of Nine PBS.

(upbeat music)