Humans of St. Louis: Dr. Michael E. McLemore II’s Story

Editor’s Note: Over the next few days, we’re sharing Dr. Michael E. McLemore II’s story as part of a Humans of St. Louis and STLMade collaboration profiling ongoing tornado recovery efforts across St. Louis. We will update this story with new content as it publishes on our Facebook and Instagram pages this week. And learn how to get involved in tornado relief and recovery efforts across St. Louis.

Subject: Dr. Michael E. McLemore II

Community organizing and advocacy connects all of Dr. Michael E. McLemore II’s career experience so far. He earned a doctorate in public administration, and his dissertation was on increasing diversity in American service corps like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps — two organizations he worked with before getting involved in St. Louis city government, and later, local social justice and collective action work.

When the May 16, 2025, tornado hit, McLemore was at home in The Greater Ville neighborhood with his family. Their home was badly damaged in the storm, and the rain that followed days later made a bad situation worse. Yet even while still managing projects at home, McLemore began volunteering with The People’s Response, a community recovery and relief hub organized by the staff of Action St. Louis and leaders of ForTheCultureSTL. McLemore’s work helping tornado victims soon led to a full-time role with The People’s Response; he is now the Electoral Justice Organizer for Action St. Louis, offering political education to the community so people can make informed decisions on election day. This is his story.

Tell us about your family home in The Greater Ville neighborhood and the damage it sustained in the tornado.

“This house is my family’s home on the north side. Most of my life, off and on, I’ve been here. Whenever anyone’s in an in-between situation, we’ll converge back here. So my aunt and uncle have lived here since the summer of ’73, along with whoever else is here at any given time. They’ve seen a lot here in The Greater Ville in the past 50 or so years. I just happened to be living here when the tornado struck, too.

We ended up in the dark for 11 days. At first, we were thinking we’d lose the house and would have to figure out the next living situation. But ultimately, we chose to stay. So we’ve been here through the entire rebuild and everything. Early on, there was a lot of community support from people I’d known from my time working for the city. They came through and did whatever they could. Mayor Jones was here. Most of the staff and colleagues I’d worked with (in Mayor Jones’ administration) stopped by. 

Once these one-way streets were cleared, drivers were flying down them while people were still in them, trying to clean up. Well, the chief of police ended up over here, and a car almost hit him. So he laid this massive two-by-four across the road to create a speed bump. He was like, ‘This is what we used to do out east when we had storms.’ But really, all it did was tick off all the neighbors. So eventually, somebody just got out of their car and threw it across the street. Yeah, it was something. But so many people stepped up.”

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“Every other corner, people were trying to feed people. Restaurants would come through to bring food while folks were cleaning. We had heard about a family the next block up with an 8- or 9-year-old girl who needed a feeding machine. With no electricity, there was no way the family could feed her. So we were calling whoever we could, looking for a generator or anything to help them out. Out of all the people we tried to get to come out and help, the Humane Society ended up being the ones with the vehicle they drive around with to catch animals. So they were able to take the girl’s feeding machine during the day to charge it inside the vehicle, and they’d bring it back at night so she could have dinner and breakfast in the morning. Little situations like that were something to witness.”

“We’re going to stay here. We’re not going anywhere. Some of my best memories in this house are growing up with my siblings and cousins, and all the holidays that we’ve had. It was my grandmother’s home. You know, no matter who’s running the house, it’s still always Big Mama’s house. It’s the family house, and we’re not getting rid of it. There are too many memories to even count. We’ve all grown up here. Anytime anybody moved away, every one of us always found ourselves back here. We toyed with, ‘What if we go somewhere while the rebuild happens?’ But a fear was, ‘What if we don’t come back?’ And my aunt was concerned about leaving the house unattended in case squatters moved in. Our house was something we just didn’t want to let go of. Plus, all the time and money that had already been put into it.

There were offers to sell or buy it as is, literally the next day, too. The vultures that were on these grounds were disgusting. So many predatory realtors and contractors came from out of the region, even from out of state. They promised all these things to the people who resided in these homes, like signing over insurance money or paying them outright to do all this so-called work. And when you have people who lost everything, who were either underinsured or had no insurance at all, they took whatever they could get, they carried laundry baskets of whatever possessions they could take, and we’ve never seen them again. And then all those strangers disappeared. That happened to a lot of households. Unfortunately, this is a business for some. And they go from disaster to disaster doing that.

To this day, we still get calls about selling. I guess they don’t know how far along we are in the rebuild. As far as the neighbors go, we don’t have many anymore. Our house is in the middle of the block. Whereas the street was lined with households, there are maybe six or so occupied now, and the majority are at the end of the street. Those were the least damaged. But everything else is completely devastated. Some started to rebuild, but I think those are more folks who bought property at land bank sales or purchased homes after the tornado. Because neighbors were selling, getting whatever they could at the time. At the end of the day, there’ll be a lot of demolition in the area, considering how much was damaged. And just looking at how much can actually be repaired, there’s going to be a lot of empty land.”

𝐻𝑜𝑤 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑓𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑦 𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑏𝑢𝑖𝑙𝑑 ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑛?

“Insurance played a big part. We were on the phone with Allstate that afternoon, praying they’d help us out. You know, the storm was on a Friday, and they had somebody out to do inspections the following Tuesday. Given how many calls I know they got, their turnaround was fast. Luckily, they at least paid that first portion pretty quickly, so we could start getting supplies and do a good portion of the work on the interior ourselves. It was a lot of mucking and gutting the walls and floors. Where the insurance mostly came in handy was for the rebuild of the porch and the roof. I didn’t have any experience in that department, so once we were ready, we had construction workers help with those parts. I’m used to doing the ground stuff: going door to door, removing debris, and talking to people. I have no idea how the technical work happens. And I don’t like heights, so I’m not gonna be the one to put the tarp on the roof. We had to call in reinforcements for that.”

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“Now, my biggest excitement is to be back in my bedroom soon. We’ve made progress we can actually see. Now it’s like, ‘We’re spending this summer under construction, knowing the lower area, like the kitchen and my room, still need some work. Last Thanksgiving and Christmas were so different than what we’re used to. Last summer was really rough doing anything family-wise at the house. This summer, we’re celebrating the Fourth of July here together. And we’re trying to get all this work done on the downstairs this summer to hopefully have some semblance of normalcy for the holiday season this year.”