The need to break restrictive covenants in St. Louis coin- cided with a new flowering of the civil rights movement. Invigorated by the success of the March on Washington movement, which had threatened to (but didn’t have to) march on the capital to force Franklin Roosevelt to eliminate discrimination in defense industry jobs, African Americans began to push not only for desegregated housing, but also for desegregated public accommoda- tions. In St. Louis, African American teachers orga- nized to demand pay equal to their white counterparts. Pearl Maddox, at the head of the Citizens’ Civil Rights Committee, led silent protests at local department store lunch counters with women carrying signs reading, for example, “Fox holes are democratic. Are you?” and “I invested five sons in the invasion.” The local NAACPalong with the national organization continued work on voting rights, employment, and housing discrimination. The 1940s also saw the creation of St. Louis’s Lincoln University Law School and the beginnings of suits to desegregate Washington University in St. Louis as well as the University of Missouri system. It was in the context of this hopeful, activist atmosphere that African Americans undertook the effort to move to Lewis Place.