John Buckner was lynched in 1894; his body left to hang from a bridge over the Meramec River. More than 130 years later, Buckner’s killing is being memorialized through a new historical marker in Buder Park in St. Louis County. Washington University professors Geoff Ward and David Cunningham discuss the role of public memorials and America’s history of racial violence, why it has taken years to create a marker for Buckner, and what happened after activists faced pushback when they tried to place his marker in Valley Park in 2023.
St. Louis on the Air