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Historical February–March 2026 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
If you live in the Skinker DeBaliviere area you are likely to drive by the World Community Center at 438 N. Skinker often. Do you know that the Center is currently a hub for approximately 32 member organizations and has served nearly 150 members that are focused on peace and social justice causes over the past 50 years? Given where we are in America, it is important to amplify the mission of the World Community Center and share more about its auspicious history and the vision of its founders.
This journey of discovery was very inspirational! Visionary Founders and Activists Dedicated to Peace In 1974-75 an impressive group of activists with academic, national and local connections to the peace movement collaborated to buy the building on Skinker to provide a workspace for activists where an environment of collaboration, problem-solving and collective action could be nurtured. Dr. Theodore Lentz, an educational psychologist at Washington University was internationally known as the “father of peace studies” in academic circles. Lentz started his peace studies work at Washington University, which led to the start of the Lentz Peace Research Association, notably the oldest continuously running peace research center in the world!
The Lentz Peace Research Association eventually was based at the World Community Center and Lentz, a founding board member of WCC, contributed substantially to the start-up and sustainability of the Center, sharing his knowledge and resources.
Some sources claim that he sold his family farm in out-state Missouri to help support WCC.
His visionary work benefitted the World Community Center and its mission, inspiring the founding of peace research centers in the United States, Western Europe, Nigeria and Japan!
In a 1987 Riverfront Times article, Yvonne Logan, co-founder of WCC emphasized that there were two requirements for membership at WCC.
The first requirement was that organizations needed a peace and justice mission and second, the tenants needed to support nonviolence. Logan was a volunteer administrator at the Center from 1975 until approximately 2016.
She was also the National President of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom from 1981- 1985.
Her husband Joseph Logan, a Harvard trained lawyer was an environmentalist and also supported the Center.
She also worked with the Greater St. Louis Citizen’s Committee for Nuclear Information to launch the Baby Tooth Survey to test for radioactive substance in the teeth of St. Louis children born between 1945 to 1965. Yvonne Logan was the kind of activist that was willing to protest outside of McDonnell Douglas at the age of 69, write articles about the impact of radioactive materials, and lead a national organization.
She also ensured that the building which housed other activists had what was needed for them to be productive, safe and comfortable. Arthur Sandler, a founding Board member of WCC, was a professor at Webster University and established the first human rights major in the country. Sarah Hermes Griesbach, current Board Member of the World Community Center, an activist and artist, shared this memory of Arthur Sandler: My first time in the WCC was after seeing my mother’s good friend, one of my favorite people, park and walk in.
I ran to the door and called (out) to him.
It didn’t seem right that he would come to my block but not to our door. Art Sandler was an incredible person.
His light was brighter than most anyone I’ve met.
His work at the WCC that day that I found him was for the Latin America Solidarity Committee. Then, in the mid-1980s, Americans were aware that our president, Ronald Reagan, was speaking a language of the moral right, while acting to support authoritarian violence across South and Central America. Art educated me about the work he was doing and invited me to return to the WCC to learn more. Art
died in 2008. Though I’m sure it isn’t true for the many other people who loved him, I think of the big old human rights work home at the corner of Skinker and Kingsbury as his resting place. It’s a little holy for me, both for the work done within and the light that first drew me there.
On September 6, 2025, Mayor Cara Spencer honored the 50-year anniversary of the World Community Center with a Proclamation.
The proclamation noted that well over a hundred organizations have benefitted from being a part of the Center and in turn the City has benefitted from advocacy across a wide spectrum of causes: including racial segregation in housing, nuclear weapons, women’s rights, environmental protections, international peace, LGBTQ rights and more.
It was noted that the Center was a safe space for Ferguson organizers and more recently the Center housed families from Skinker-DeBaliviere who were unable to stay in their homes after the tornado.
The World Community Center is so much more than the building.
It is a vision and concept that supports activists and benefits thousands of people in varied and vital ways.
While working with the National Farm Worker Ministry Mike Baldwin was reintroduced to WCC and is now Manager.
He told me about a special visit to the Center in 2022. Nicolas Davies, co-author of “War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict” came to St. Louis on a book tour and made it a priority to visit the World Community Center. Davies wanted to visit the celebrated place where “peace and justice” advocates have been housed in a safe place where they could collaborate, share resources and help each other. Baldwin was touched that Davies urged him and the Center’s leadership to do everything possible to continue its model of support to peace and justice organizations at a time when advocacy is more critical than ever.
In the next issue of the TIMES, I will share more about volunteer opportunities and include the voices of those that have been very involved with the Center including Margaret Phillips past President of the Board, Bill Ramsey of the American Friends Association, and Keith Rose, VP of the Board of Directors who is leading the effort to designate the Center as a Historic site and expand the funding base of WCC.
If you are interested in volunteering or have questions about the Center feel free to contact Mike Baldwin at worldcommunitycenter@gmail.com.
Original photograph caption
World Community Center building at 438 North Skinker.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, February–March 2026.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times2026_02.pdf, printed page(s) 1, 2; PDF page(s) 1, 2.
