John R. Anderson

John R. Anderson, also known as J. Richard Anderson (1818–May 20, 1863), was an American minister from St. Louis, Missouri, who advocated against slavery and for education for African Americans. As a boy, he was an indentured servant, who attained his freedom at the age of 12. Anderson worked as a typesetter for the Missouri Republican and for Elijah Parish Lovejoy's anti-slavery newspaper, the Alton Observer. He founded the Antioch Baptist Church in Brooklyn, Illinois and then returned to St. Louis where he was a co-founder and the second pastor of the Central Baptist Church. He served the church until his death in 1863.

More than half of his congregants were slaves. Reverend Anderson helped enslaved people attain freedom by encouraging them to file freedom suits and by raising funds to emancipate them. He was a minister and spiritual advisor to Harriet Scott and Dred Scott, of the landmark Dred Scott v. Sandford Supreme Court case.

In 1854, Anderson operated the floating Freedom School, after its founder John Berry Meachum's death, and he lobbied for schools for black children. He worked with a ten-person board to bring subscription and public schools to the city. After ten years, a law was enacted in 1864 that provided funding for four or five public schools. There were four subscription schools also established by that year. He founded the first African American Masonic temple west of the Mississippi River in the early 1860s.

Early life and education John Richard Anderson was born in 1818 in Shawneetown, Illinois. His parents had been enslaved in Virginia. As a child, Anderson was moved to Missouri by the family who owned him. Legally, his past residence in Illinois territory meant that he was free. He moved to Missouri with Sarah Bates, the sister of United States Attorney General Edward Bates. While he was technically an indentured servant, he was treated like a slave until the age of 12, when he attained his freedom. Rev. Richard Sneethen was the church's first minister. More than half of the congregants were enslaved men and women. To walk the streets and attend church, they needed approval in the form of a pass from their slaveholders.

Activist M. Hermandez Arevalo, Painting of a Slave Sale in St. Louis, 1908, based on a description from The Crisis,by the novelist Winston Churchill, Missouri History Museum Anderson was an anti-slavery activist who provided loans to purchase the freedom of enslaved people, preventing them from being sold into the Deep South to work on cotton plantations. Anderson regularly carried baskets of food and other necessities for the poor and hungry. A historical marker at the cemetery memorializes his efforts to provide education for African Americans and in recognition for his efforts as a minister and a community leader.