Caption: A portrait of Homer G. Phillips, a lawyer and advocate for civil rights who helped lead the successful effort to build a new hospital for blacks in the Ville neighborhood of St. Louis, where many blacks lived, rather than near City Hospital No. 1 south of downtown, the site preferred by the city's white doctors. At the time, blacks used City Hospital No. 2, a converted former medical college in the Mill Creek neighborhood west of downtown. Phillips was murdered while waiting for a streetcar on Delmar Boulevard, five blocks from his home at 1121 Aubert Avenue, on the morning of June 18, 1931. Police arrested two young men, including an 18-year-old whose family was angry at Phillips over his fee to successfully protect an estate. The Board of Aldermen moved quickly to approve naming a proposed new hospital in Phillips' honor. Separate trials were held in 1932, but both men were acquitted. One witness couldn't be found, and another had suffered a mental breakdown. The case technically remains unsolved. Work began on the hospital at 2601 Whittier Street in 1933, and it was dedicated in 1937. (Post-Dispatch)
Album ID: 1026084
Photo ID: 30141692
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