In this episode, our guest is Vivian Gibson, author of The Last Children of Mill Creek and proof positive of the importance of telling your story. The book came out in 2020, amid the craze of the COVID19 pandemic, and has since grown to be a must-read. Mill Creek Valley was a segregated Black community in St. Louis city that was labeled "blighted" and razed for urban development in the late 1950s. Vivian’s book set out to humanize the people, stories, and places of Mill Creek through the eyes of her childhood. This is Gibson’s first book, and though it started as a retirement project, the momentum of the book ensured Gibson would not be slowing down any time soon.

While we commemorate 250 years of American History, we're reminded of the people and stories who were here before the establishment of the United States. For this conversation, we're joined by Dr. Angela Cooper, Site Services Specialist at Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, to discuss a place that was once one of the biggest civilizations in North America, home to the Mississippian people and the largest pre-Columbian earthworks in the Americas.

In this episode, we’re thrilled to dive into a conversation about a true Missouri legend, Samuel Clemens, aka the one and only Mark Twain. Twain is someone who has undoubtedly contributed to the nation’s literary legacy and helped so many of us better appreciate the written word. To help us learn more about this Missouri icon, we talked with Megan Rapp from the Mark Twain Museum in Hannibal, Missouri.

Welcome to Season 5 of the Missouri Humanities Podcast, The Story of US: 250 Years as Told by Missouri. To kick off this season, we talked with Dr. Joel Rhodes, Executive Director of the State Historical Society of Missour. His contribution to our conversation helps get us in gear for a year of storytelling through Missouri’s lens. We talk about Missouri as a crossroads in more ways than one, Missouri’s role in the future of the American Experiment, and what Missourians can expect from the State Historical Society and beyond during the Semi quincentennial year.

As we close out this year’s signature series, we are joined by Missouri Humanities Executive Director, Ashley Beard-Fosnow to discuss how the humanities have shaped American civic leadership and the role of Missouri citizens in contributing to our “American Experiment.” Especially ahead of America’s 250th anniversary, how can each of us employ the power of the humanities to build a “more perfect union?”

September 28-October 5th is Good Neighbor Week. Signed into law in 2022, Missouri Good Neighbor Week encourages citizens of Missouri to “participate in events and activities to establish connections with their neighbors.” In honor of Good Neighbor Week, we’re sharing a conversation held during our 2025 Humanities Symposium: Ozarks Engaged: Citizenry and the Future of Our Communities

This session is titled Engaged Neighbor, Engaged Citizenry: How Neighboring Strengthens Civic Life. Its goal is to highlight key findings from The State of Neighboring in Missouri (2022-2024) study, exploring shifts in community connection, the impact of declining personal interactions, and local initiatives—like Missouri Good Neighbor Week and the Engaged Neighbor Pledge—that are helping rebuild trust and civic engagement.

Our conversation included David Burton from University of Missouri Extension and author of the State of Neighboring Report, and Michael Brittain from Restore SGF and Neighborhood Advisory Council Clean Committee. This conversation was recorded on April 5th, 2025, in Springfield, MO.

For this latest episode, we are taking a look back at early American history, hundreds of years ago, to explore the relationships between colonists/early Americans and Indigenous peoples in this part of North America. Specifically, how did Native groups influence early American government and civic engagement? Yes, this is a very big question, and a topic like this could fill volumes of books and hours in a lecture hall, so this episode will just scratch the surface. But, as always, we encourage you to dig in and explore more for yourself!

To help break down this very dense and complicated topic, we spoke with Robert Miller, an enrolled citizen of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe and Professor at the Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law at Arizona State University, and Dr. Peter Kastor, the Samuel K. Eddy Professor in History at Washington University in St. Louis.

This episode can best be described as “US Constitution 101.” Our guest is Dr. Silvana Siddali, professor of history at St. Louis University, and we’re diving into the foundational principles that have shaped the United States from its birth to its modern-day challenges. We’re going on a journey through the creation, evolution, and ongoing debates around the U.S. Constitution. So, grab your thinking caps—because this is a big one!