Location: St. Louis Riverfront

Explore African American histories along the Mississippi riverfront with a riverboat excursion led by artists and historians Dail Chambers, Dr. Treasure Shields Redmond, and Geoff K. Ward along with Captain Kevin East, in partnership with the Black Heritage Water Trail and Riverboats at the Gateway Arch.

This cruise engages with complex histories of our region’s waterways, centering stories of creative resistance and repair. The program begins on the dock with a circle-keeping activity to set contexts and intentions before boarding the river boat. Next, the cruise will explore stories of Black experiences from the 18th century to today, including key stops to observe important historical sites. Facilitators will discuss topics such as ecological concerns, cultural erasure, civil and human rights, and educational justice. Once the cruise finishes, there will be a wrap-up conversation that invites participants to more deeply connect and create communal forms of cultural memory, including further cultivation of the water trail.

This event is part of a series of gatherings offered in conjunction with Make the River Present, including the Water Ceremony and Conversations held on June 13.

Schedule

• 9:30 am: Dock opens (Location: 50 S. Leonor K Sullivan Blvd.)
• 10:00 am: Pre-Cruise Introductions (Location: Riverboat Dock)
• 10:15 am: Boarding (Tickets required; see below)
• 10:30 am: Cruise Departs 
• 11:45 am: Post-Cruise Talk-back at Old Courthouse (Location: 11 N 4th Street)

To Register for Free Extended Program 

Click here to reserve a space and receive more information about the Pre-Cruise Conversation, talk back, and other activities.

To Purchase Cruise Tickets

Tickets to the cruise must be purchased through Gateway Arch. Click here to purchase tickets online.

• Adult Ticket (16 – 59): $26
• Child Ticket (3-15): $16
• Senior Ticket (60+): $24
• Infant Ticket (0-2): FREE

Questions: programs@camstl.org

Accessibility notes

• Riverfront parking is available for a fee, payable by card, on the cobblestone levee located at 50 S. Leonor K Sullivan Blvd. 
• Please note that it is not recommended to use GPS navigation to the riverboats due to recent street changes. Instead, visitors are encouraged to take Chouteau Ave and follow detour signs to turn left on 2nd Street, then turn right at Poplar Street, and at Leonor K Sullivan continue straight (East) to the riverfront parking entrance. You may also use GPS navigation to the Mural Mile and follow the detour information. For here more information and maps. 
• Indoor and outdoor seating is available on the river boat. It features a climate-controlled interior and open-air exterior decks.
• Restrooms, the dock, and riverboat are all ADA accessible.
• Conversations will be amplified.
• To request an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter for this event, please contact programs@camstl.org with as much prior notice possible to ensure availability.

About the Contributors

Dail Chambers embodies sustainable living through visual and conceptual art making. Her community art/agricultural studio space and public health support campaigns are rooted in storytelling and inspired by Harriet Tubman, Ella Baker, Ntozake Shange and many rematriating contemporary artists. Chambers uses an inquiry-based engagement model as a land steward. Her social and public art practice is focused on public health, the environment, and collective memory. She keeps an archive practice, found object exploration, and ecological/food production that is honoring migration, culture and folklore. Chambers has created preventative healthcare support for resilient urban environments. She is a fine artist, mother, caregiver, scholar, educator, and neighbor across our shared landscape, with a high emphasis on healing practice and ancestral veneration. She is also a seedkeeper, waterkeeper, and personal items appraiser.

A dual citizen of Meridian, Mississippi and East St. Louis, Illinois, Dr. Treasure Shields Redmond is a poet, novelist, educator, community arts organizer, and culture keeper. She is the author of chop: a collection of kwansabas for fannie lou hamer. Dr. Treasure is the co-founder of Fannie Lou Hamer House, a migratory artist residency, and is the founder of The Community Archive, a non profit where she teaches communities how to collect their elders’ oral histories. Dr. Treasure currently serves as a Chancellor’s postdoctoral fellow in poetry and African American Literature at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

Geoff Ward is Professor of African and African-American Studies and Director, WashU & Slavery Project at Washington University in St. Louis. His scholarship examines histories of racist violence, their legacies, and implications for repair.

The Black Heritage Water Trail of St. Louis explores and commemorates African American community stories through the rivers of greater St. Louis. Through remembrance and preservation of these connections we engage the natural and social world, including the arts, issues of migration, environmental justice, the wakes of slavery and colonialism, and stories of community resistance, resilience, place-making, and well-being. This resource is an initiative of the WashU & Slavery Project.