Imagine you're looking at a map of the St. Louis region. Now fold that map in half horizontally.

Below the fold, you'd mostly see healthy people living long lives, having no trouble finding doctors or hospitals or fresh fruit and vegetables. Above the fold, you'd see a different, starker picture. Above the fold, there are fewer healthy people, higher rates of infant mortality and few hospitals.

Actually, you don't have to imagine that fold in the map.

In many ways, it really exists in the form of Delmar Boulevard. And while most people think of the "Delmar Divide," as simply a line that separates a mostly white community to the south and a mostly black community to the north, the reality is that the divide represents huge disparities in health.

"Segregation is here and now," said Jason Purnell, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University. "The fact is, Gov. [George] Wallace's vision of America has won over Dr [Martin Luther] King's. He said segregation now; segregation tomorrow; segregation forever. So far, Wallace was right. It's morphed. It looks a little different. We don't have 'whites only' signs. But we have those realities. And it's killing us literally. It's literally killing us. And the us there should be underlined. It's not just killing black people. It's killing us as a region."