Before the Arch: Jeanette Forchet’s St. Louis tells the story of a Black woman most people were never taught to remember. Born into slavery around 1736, Jeanette Forchet became one of the earliest Black landowners in St. Louis — decades before Missouri became a state, and long before the Gateway Arch ever existed. She farmed, ran a laundry business, raised a family, signed property agreements, and built a life on land that now lies within Gateway Arch National Park.

In this episode of That Doesn’t Make Sense, Michael Porter traces Jeanette’s journey from bondage to ownership and asks the question that should stop every listener cold: How does a woman help build the foundation of a city and still get written out of its public memory? This is an episode about Black ownership, Black survival, erasure, and the histories buried underneath the landmarks America celebrates most.

Hurricane Katrina was a storm. The catastrophe was the levee and floodwall failures that met a century of segregation and disinvestment. This episode follows the water into Gentilly, the Lower Ninth Ward, and New Orleans East, then traces what came next: the Superdome/Convention Center bottlenecks, the Gretna bridge blockade, and gunfire in the aftermath—Danziger Bridge (two people killed, officers later convicted/pleaded and served time), Henry Glover (killed; body burned; federal time for part of the cover-up), and Algiers Point vigilantes (shootings, a federal guilty plea and sentence).

We unpack the paper flood that followed: FEMA delays, insurance denials (wind vs. flood), and the Road Home grants that paid by pre-storm appraised value—penalizing historically undervalued Black neighborhoods. Then schools and housing: mass teacher layoffs, charter takeover, demolition of the “Big Four” public housing with fewer units rebuilt, and the long Katrina diaspora.

Receipts, not rumors—maps, statutes, and court records—on how a “natural disaster” chose its victims long before landfall.

Content note: disaster, shootings, racial violence, displacement.

“No memo says poison the hood. But the paperwork tells a story. New episode live.”