Photo courtesy of Paulina Gallagher

Here is a guest post from on of our 2015 Summer Interns – Jacob Mohrmann. Jacob is a rising senior in the Olin Business School and the College of Arts & Sciences with majors in Marketing and Psychology. Last Friday, the interns spent the morning on a community building tour with Bob Hansman, a WUSTL professor and community activist.  Here are his reflections:

Our third week on the job was a rainy one, and it continued to pour down on Friday, but the show must go on!  Last Friday, we had a bus tour with Professor Bob Hansman.  The tour was passionate and eye-opening, and professor Hansman had endless stories to share about our beloved city.  On the tour, we visited parts of St. Louis that most WashU students go their entire 4 years without seeing or even hearing about.  We visited the site of the former Hadley township, as well as Kinloch, Ferguson, Martin Luther King Drive, and Ivory Perry Park.  He told us about beautiful and vibrant African American communities such as Hadley Township and Mill Creek Valley that had been displaced and destroyed, and how a pattern of disinvestment in communities all over St. Louis has harmed and continues to harm its neighborhoods and communities.  He expressed a deep love for the areas he showed us, and was sure to point out the best places to eat, places where his friends lived, and even his church, all within these so called “bad” neighborhoods.  I could not recommend his bus tour more to anyone who has the opportunity to take it!