Our Position

Due to residential segregation in St. Louis, the location in which a person lives has a significant impact on their health, according to a report from the St. Louis Health Department. The most startling statistic from this report is that there is an eighteen-year gap in life expectancy between North St. Louis zip codes and the predominantly white Clayton area, separated by less than 10 miles. In addition, the black community in St. Louis suffers from an infant mortality rate of 3.3 times that of white people. Illnesses such as diabetes, obesity and hypertension impact black communities disproportionately and they experience the highest death rates from most leading causes. 

The African People’s Education and Defense Fund designed the OAON Farmers Market in North St. Louis to address the historical grave health disparities created by concentrated poverty, food apartheid and lack of economic development in the black community. The market will build capacity for local job creation and community-owned gardens which contribute to the control of food production in the African community and aid in the creation of an independent, anti-gentrification, African economy. The OAON Farmers Market is part of the transformative Black Power Blueprint, a community-building initiative transforming North St. Louis through economic development, renovation and political power by and for the black working class.