What do you want your legacy to be?
There’s a question I come back to again and again and again.
What do you want your legacy to be?
I ask myself this question all the time as the way to hold myself accountable to my goals and ideals, the ones I laid out for myself before politics threatened to corrupt me and I grew jaded by the slow pace of progress. I’m still searching for the answer, or maybe it just keeps changing, but I like to think I’m getting closer.
It’s also a question I weave into conversations with others, new and aspiring leaders especially, who are wrestling with their options, looking for clarity, or trying to muster up the courage to do something hard.
At its core, it is ridiculous. There’s no way anyone, myself included, could ever actually control their legacy. There are just too many factors in play. Politicians are replaced with new leaders who have their own scores to settle and agendas to implement. Artists, writers, and other creatives are usurped by the next new young thing. Executives are fired on the whims of a board of directors. But even if someone manages to hang on to the position and the power, time still has a way of eroding the value of the work. Regardless of the effort that goes into creating and caring for a legacy, it can evaporate in an instant. Go up in flames. Dissolve. Disappear. Slip through the cracks, forgotten forever. There may be nothing more ephemeral than a pre-planned legacy.
I know this, yet it doesn’t stop me from asking the question.
A while back, sometime in the very early spring when Dr. Borishade’s permanent appointment to superintendent and the school board election created a relentless swell of attention on leadership, I was musing (or ranting more likely) about leaders and legacies and missed opportunities to my family, an audience held captive in the car on the way home from dinner. I said something along the lines of, “They should all be asking themselves what they want their legacy to be! I ask myself all the time!” and my kid piped up from the back seat to say, “That’s kinda cocky, Mom.”
Maybe it is, but I like to think it’s kept me out of too much trouble.
If our leaders put a little more effort into answering that question, or at least attempting to, they’d make better decisions, think more long term, and try harder to do the impossible. Cocky or not, in times of crisis “What do you want your legacy to be?” may be the only question that matters. It forces the attention on the future, to the days and decades down the road when the current moment is just a memory, when the coulda-woulda-shoulda linger. It’s a way to zoom out, to see the big picture, to identify the interconnections between individual actions and long-term consequences. Without that push to look forward so that you can look back, it’s too easy to get trapped by rapid fire decision making and the advice (some well meaning, some not) that flows from all sides as everyone attempts to wield their influence (again, some well meaning, some not) to gain control of the situation.
The May 16 tornado ripped through our city without much notice. Sure, the forecast held a possibility of storms, even strong ones, but don’t all late spring afternoons in St. Louis seem to bear that risk? We were warned yet caught off guard, a conundrum exacerbated by tornado sirens that stayed silent leaving us without the extra nudge most of us need to separate the baseline springtime threat from something more.
Those living in the areas hit the hardest knew instantly this storm was different. Others, like me, learned over the next few hours as first hand accounts trickled in and journalists ventured out. Now, nearly three weeks later, it is crystal clear to everyone this storm was unlike anything we’ve seen before, both in its sheer power and inequitable toll. The fiscal impact keeps rising; it’s now estimated to at $1.6 billion, a staggering figure but at least it’s something we can quantify. We haven’t even scratched the surface of the impact on our humanity, both the collective and the individual. In fact, I’d argue we haven’t even attempted to.
The tornado won’t define our city. But the response to it will.
Superficial attempts to spread information through press conferences, news releases, and board meetings or distribute resources through inconvenient hubs that require those seeking help to find transportation ultimately have the same effect as our much maligned tornado sirens, these venues are not designed to reach people where they actually are — in their homes, or at least where they used to be.
Every day that goes by without a plan, or even an obvious attempt to create one, further stratifies and fragments our city. Every day that people have to wait on government to take real action deepens the chasm between the leaders and the people.
St. Louis isn’t known for the trust its residents, particularly those who are Black, have in their government leaders. And why would it be? Generation after generation of racist policy making, inequity, and outright lies have made their case. The people who are held in the highest regard and who are thought to be the city’s most valuable assets are white or wealthy or residents of certain neighborhoods, or preferably all three. The opinions that are the most influential come from the business elite and names with a pedigree, fancy degrees and big bank accounts, well-funded non-profits whose missions are politically palatable. Our leaders bend their ears to their suggestions, praising their intellect and commitment to the City as they are added to task forces and listed as contributors to yet another report about what our city needs.
But when the shit really hits the fan where are those so-called experts? Where is that highly lauded dedication to helping the City thrive? Rather than wield the same influence they do over our municipal elections to convince shareholders that people are more important than profits and disaster relief efforts require far more than dropping off cans of water or transferring money from one philanthropic account to another, they hide behind feel good stories and anecdotes, brag about donations that amount to mere pennies in comparison to their (or their company’s) net worth.
The school district’s response to the tornado isn’t good enough. Neither is the city’s nor the business and philanthropic elite’s. It’s far too little, and if an adequate plan is ever developed it will be far too late. The damage has been done. Walls and roofs, lives and trust have all been destroyed. Time will tell if any of these things can be rebuilt.
Given the extent of the damage and the pre-existing need to close schools, it is pretty likely some of the SLPS buildings in the path of the tornado won’t open in the fall. It will be another sudden and devastating loss to neighborhoods that have already lost so much and will lose more with every passing day.
Inside the front entryway of most SLPS schools hangs a large plaque listing all the names given credit for a school’s construction including the architects, the superintendent, and the school board. A legacy embossed in metal that lasts as long as the school does and in some cases, like when schools become market rate condos, even longer.
This isn’t the only way to leave a legacy behind, though. Names are attached to other things too. Things like newspaper quotes and TV interviews, failed policies and projects that never get off the ground. These legacies may not be as visible or as ornate as the plaques that greet school visitors, but they are every bit as permanent.
The post-tornado legacy is still being formed.
To our leaders whose names are forever linked to this devastating event, the mayor, the mayor’s cabinet, the school board, the superintendent, and all our other state- and local-elected officials: What do you want your legacy to be?
I know the circumstances are vastly different, a natural disaster versus one that was maliciously and horrifically human-made, but as I watch the response (or lack thereof) to the St. Louis tornado I keep thinking about the 1921 Tulsa/Greenwood Race Massacre. There the initial deadly disaster lasted hours, yet the aftermath persists into today. Ten decades and counting of opportunistic land-grabbing white folks, bungled policy making, and cowardly leadership that inhibited regrowth and rebirth. It was just June 1, 2025, a full 104 years after the massacre, when Tulsa’s mayor Monroe Nichols announced a plan for a $105 million reparations package intended to atone for the atrocities.
Now, the Greenwood neighborhood is marked by a minor league baseball stadium and an interstate. This too has parallels to St. Louis. Our own Mill Creek Valley, destroyed under the guise of progress, is now home to a Top Golf, an arena, and an interstate. Hmm….what was that I was saying about trust earlier?
In his masterpiece book about Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Built from the Fire, Victor Luckerson describes a moment of leadership during the 100-year commemoration events:
“After [ Congresswoman Sheila Jackson] Lee returned to her seat, a towering black man in a crisp military uniform approached the podium. The badges dotting his coat were the brightest objects on the scene besides the flowers. Michael Thompson was the first black adjutant general of the National Guard in the history of Oklahoma. One hundred year before, his predecessor, Adjutant General Charles F. Barrett, had arrived in Tulsa at about nine a.m. on June 1, after much of Greenwood had been burned and some members of the National Guard, by their own admission, had fired on Greenwood residents protecting their neighborhood.
Thompson spoke of how inspired he’d been to see Mother [Viola Ford] Fletcher coming up on the sidewalk to participate in the ceremony at 106 years old. He spoke of how amazing it was that black people had gone from being considered property in 1865 to owning much of it in Greenwood only fifty years later. He spoke of heartbreak in seeing all the progress wiped away in a single night.
Then he paused. “I probably could get away without saying this, but I think it would be disingenuous,” he said. He looked to Fletcher and [Hughs] Van Ellis. “We can debate what the Guard did a hundred years ago, but there’s no room for debate about what the Guard didn’t do. And what the Guard didn’t do is protect this community. What the Guard didn’t do is save your house from being burned to the ground. What the Guard didn’t do is save businesses from being ruined. We didn’t stop you from fleeing here for your life, and some people never returned. So because I am the adjutant general today…and you are here as representatives of that horrific event, I want to give you my most heartfelt and sincere apology for our unwillingness to do the right thing a hundred years ago.”
Built from the Fire (2023) by Victor Luckerson, page 442-443
Legacies are just as likely to be born from what wasn’t done as what was, from what wasn’t built as what was. What do we want our City’s legacy to be? Is this it?
There’s been a ton of really great tornado coverage. Here’s my must read list from the past week or so:
After tornado, family tries to save its home and legacy on historic St. Louis street
Tornado intersects with school closure plans underway in St. Louis
St. Louis has lost residents for decades. The tornado could nudge more to leave.
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