Joe Holleman | Post-Dispatch

Political correspondent/columnist

ST. LOUIS — A public memorial service to honor the late U.S. Rep. William L. Clay Sr. has been set for later this month.

The gathering will be at 11 a.m. Oct. 18 at the Blanche Touhill Center for Performing Arts on the University of Missouri-St. Louis campus. The event is open to the public.

Clay died July 17 in Silver Spring, Maryland, after a lengthy illness. He was 94.

The first Black person elected to Congress from Missouri, Clay began his public career in St. Louis in the late 1950s, first as a union organizer and civil rights activist protesting segregation, then as a politician on the city's Board of Aldermen.

In 1968, Clay became the first Black to be elected to Congress from Missouri. He later when on to help fo

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