SHAPING THE PROMISED LAND: THE GREAT MIGRATION COMES TO COLUMBUS, OHIO
In the first three decades of the twentieth century, the United States witnessed a profound and lasting demographic change. During this period, an estimated 1.5 million African Americans left the predominantly rural South to live and work in northern cities in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New York. Known as the Great Migration, this mass movement often drew upon biblical imagery of the “exodus” to describe African Americans’ journey from the land of oppression in the South to the Promised Land in the North. [1] Motivated by opportunities for economic and political advancement, African Americans chose to leave the South for northern cities like Columbus, Ohio, where they created institutions and social organizations to help overcome the color line. This article examines the causes of the Great Migration (nationally), the extent of the color line in Ohio (statewide), and how African Americans in Columbus (locally) took a leading role in shaping the city to provide increased economic and political opportunities.
Drawing upon the body of literature that places African Americans at the center, as active participants, not passive recipients of history, this article emphasizes the conscious decision-making process that led African Americans to move north and to locate in specific cities, and their determined efforts to use local organizations to weaken the color line. [2] The article tells the story of the Great Migration from the inside, blending the words of African Americans with the scholarship of contemporary historians.
CAUSES OF THE GREAT MIGRATION
The root causes of the Great Migration are primarily economic and political. African Americans from the South were “pulled” northward by wartime industrial expansion, labor agents, the Black press, and family ties. They were “pushed” out of the South by the boll weevil, Jim Crow segregation, political disfranchisement, and anti-black violence.
In the late 19th century, the United States experienced extraordinary industrial expansion. Initially, the need for factory labor could be filled with the vast number of immigrants. The onset of World War I, however, spurred the need for an even larger industrial workforce. Declining immigration and the military draft of thousands of northern white men left a void in the labor market that could be filled by African-American migrants. As historian John A.M. Rothney succinctly summarizes: “In the increasingly interconnected world of the twentieth century, sharecroppers from Georgia found jobs in steel mills in Pittsburgh because farm boys from Bavaria were finding death in northeastern France.” [3] African-American migrants to Ohio could find abundant work in tire and rubber factories, iron works, railroads, and coal mines.
During the war, labor agents working for large companies enticed African Americans to move north with the offer of higher wages. Historian Eric Arnesen concludes that wages in the North were often double or more for comparable work in the South. [4] While labor agents were “pulling” African Americans to the North, it was hardly a difficult task to accomplish. African Americans actively sought recruiters. One Mobile, Alamaba resident wrote to the Chicago Defender: “I read where you were coming south looking for labor...there are a lot of idle men here that are very anxious to come north. Every day they are fooled about go and see the man. Plenty of men have quit their jobs with the expectation of going but when they go the man that is to take them cannot be found.” [5]
Failing to recognize the role of Southern racism in pushing African Americans out of the South, local governments and Southern newspapers placed the primary blame for the exodus on labor agents. Conducting interviews in Mississippi for the U.S. Department of Labor in 1916-17, R.H. Leavell concludes: “Many of the whites...laid great stress on the activities of labor agents as a cause of emigration.” [6] In some localities, labor recruiting was outlawed and recruiters were subject to violence and intimidation. The March 28, 1917 edition of the Atlanta Georgian details the arrest of J.B. Maddox, a labor agent arrested in Greenville, South Carolina on a charge of “enticing negro labor to northern cities.” [7] The New Orleans Times-Picayune claimed that “forcible interference” with agents was necessary because they had “deceived the Negroes and tricked and misled them.” [8]
Labor agents were just one pull factor contributing to the Great Migration. The Black press also played a role in bringing African Americans to the North. Robert Abbott’s Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh’s Courier and Cleveland’s Gazette were among the most influential African-American newspapers. Widely circulated throughout the increasingly literate South, the Defender published numerous stories (perhaps some inflated) about lynching and mob violence in South. It published articles, editorials, and cartoons proclaiming the advantages of the North—repeatedly referred to as a land of promise— and declared May 15, 1917 as the date of the “Great Northern Drive.” [9] More importantly, the paper published advertisements from employers, contact information for these companies and train schedules to facilitate relocation. Referring to the influence of the Defender in Mississippi, R.H. Leavell called Abbott an editor who “knows clearly want he wants for his people and why wants it, and is able to...arose response in the Negro masses.” [10] By the early 1920s the Defender claimed a circulation of 250,000, with the large majority of readership outside of Chicago. [11] Despite efforts by Southern cities to prevent circulation of the Defender, copies arrived by way of railroad porters and U.S. mail subscriptions. In some states, those caught selling, or even buying a copy of the Defender were subject to arrest.
African Americans—men and women, young and old—responded by the hundreds to the advertisements in the Defender. Emmett J. Scott compiled over 300 letters to the Defender and published them in the Journal of Negro History in 1919. From Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas, African Americans inquired about conditions and employment opportunities in the North. Some requested work in specific vocations, though they often expressed a willingness to accept any available position. “I am a bricklayer also a painter I want to go to Cleveland” declared a Pensacola, Florida man who was also willing to accept common labor jobs. [12] A Greenville, S.C. resident noted his experience as a “fireing boiler, steam fitter, and experiences mechencs helpe and will do laboring work if you canot get me one of those jobs...” [13] Noting his utility, a Mobile, Alabama man stated: “I am a machinist by trade. I am a Schauffer also. I can repair auto to.” But, being unemployed, he too would accept any kind of work available. [14] Many potential migrants expressed the desire to bring their families with them and hoped for better educational opportunities for their children. These letters are significant because they reflect the active role that African Americans took in the Great Migration. To be sure, the Defender was “pulling” potential migrants, but African Americans exercised their own volition in choosing to leave, settle in specific cities, and work in specific vocations. Sometimes they did so against the advice of local Black leaders. Migrants were not simply pulled and pushed by the larger forces of history. Quoting Ray Stannard, historian Ronald Takaki points out the active role of migrants in Great Migration: “Negroes are acting for themselves self-consciously, almost for the first time in history. They did not win their freedom: it was a gift thrust upon them by the North. But in the present migration...they are moving of their own accord.” [15]
Family ties were also a significant pull factor in the Great Migration. According to Carole Marks, “information provided by a trusted informant, such as a family member or friend, is the keystone of communication lines.” [16] Testimony from family members about opportunities in the new land is generally perceived as reliable, since there is little motivation to give a false impression. Here again, Emmett Scott’s collection of letters in the Journal of Negro History give first-hand insight into family pulls. These letters made the North an appealing place in which to live, and worth the effort and risk of moving. One Cleveland, Ohio resident happily reports: “I am well and is doing fine plenty to eat and drink... and we are making good money here. I have made as hight at 7.50 per day and wife $4.... I am able to farm without asking any man fore anything on a credit...” [17] A few miles away, an Akron man confirmed his financial well-being by sending a check from his salary back home. [18]
Writing in 1917, WEB Du Bois identified the critical “push” factors that contributed to the Great Migration: the economic destruction caused by flooding and the boll weevil, mob violence against Blacks, and dissatisfaction with the system of racism and discrimination in the South. [19] Sometimes the course of history is a matter of millimeters. Such is the case with one of the chief causes of economic hardship in the South that aided the Great Migration: the boll weevil. Native to Central America, the boll weevil is a six millimeter beetle that destroyed young cotton bolls before they reached maturity. Arriving in the United States in the late 1800s, the boll weevil reached Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida by World War I. [20] The boll weevil was particularly devastating for African Americans in the South, as 75 percent of them lived on farms in 1910. Most African-American farmers worked under a system of tenant farming or sharecropping, in which they mortgaged a portion of their cash crop in exchange for the use of the owner’s land. [21] With cotton crops destroyed, banks and merchants refused to extend credit, leaving African-American farmers without the ability to pay the rent or earn a living through farming. The words of the traditional blues song best summarize the plight of the southern sharecropper:
De merchant got half de cotton,
De boll weevil got de res’.
Didn't leave de farmer’s wife
But one old cotton dress,
An’ it's full of holes,
It’s full of holes.
De farmer say to de merchant:
“We’s in an awful fix;
De boll weevil et all de cotton up
An’ lef’ us only sticks,
We’s got no home,
We’s got no home.” [22]
The relationship between the boll weevil and northern migration may be less direct than traditionally thought. Carole Marks argues that many African Americans did not migrate directly from Southern farms to Northern cities. Rather, many of them were pushed from Southern farms to Southern cities where they came into competition and conflict with the white labor force for jobs in the industrial sector. This competition, in turn, led to African Americans fleeing Southern cities to migrate north. [23] Her contention is supported by the large number of migrants whose letters to the Chicago Defender indicate experience in various industrial jobs.
Following the end of Reconstruction in 1877, many southern states began the process of “redemption” that kept African Americans from enjoying equal rights or equal justice. Poll taxes, grandfather clauses, and literacy tests effectively undermined the voting rights provided by the 15th amendment, ratified in 1870. Bolstered by the Supreme Court ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson, Jim Crow laws kept African Americans in segregated and inferior schools, train cars, theaters, and other public facilities. Du Bois cites Africans Americans throughout the South who point to racism and discrimination as chief causes of the exodus. Summarizing the thoughts of a South Carolina resident, Du Bois claims: “these conditions he sums up as the destruction of the Negroes’ political rights, the curtailment of his civil rights, the lack of protection of life, liberty, and property, low wages, the Jim Crow car, residential and labor segregation laws, poor educational facilities.” [24] He goes on to quote men from Oklahoma, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Mississippi who comment on the role racism and racial violence in spurring emigration from the South. Working for the U.S. Department of Labor, reporters R.H. Leavell, and T.R. Snavely confirm Du Bois’s claim, noting especially concerns over poor schools and lack of justice in the courts. [25] Fear of mob violence and lynching also made the South an inhospitable place for African Americans. It is little wonder that one Pennsylvania migrant celebrated his freedom: “I don’t have to work hard. dont have to mister every little white boy comes along I havent heard a white man call a colored nigger you no now—since I been in the state of Pa. I can ride in the electric street and steam cars any where I get a seat.” [26]
THE PROMISED LAND?
Between 1910 and 1930, African-American migration to Ohio swelled the state’s cities. Ohio’s three largest cities – Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Columbus— saw the greatest migrations. Cincinnati’s Black population increased from 19,639 in 1910 to 47,818 in 1930. Columbus saw an increase from 12,379 to 32,774 in those same years. The greatest increase was in Cleveland, where the African-American population reached 71, 899 by 1930, up from just 8,448 two decades earlier. [27] Given all they had heard about opportunities in the North, the expectations of African Americans in Ohio were high. Ronald Takaki tells the story of a group of migrants who, after crossing the Ohio River, “knelt down in prayer and sang ‘I Done Come out of the Land of Egypt with Good News.’” [28]
Was Ohio the Promised Land that so many migrants longed for? One the one hand, the aforementioned evidence on wages in northern cities, including the letter from a Cleveland resident, is an indication of increased economic opportunity that many migrants desired. On the political front, African Americans in Ohio enjoyed the franchise, as there were no voting restrictions like they had known in the South. Further, Ohio’s Civil Rights Law of 1884 (also known as the Public Accommodations Law) banned segregation and discrimination based on race in public facilities. In addition, Ohio’s 1896 antilynching legislation, known as the Smith Law, was hailed as a progressive attempt to curtail anti-black violence. Nevertheless, weak enforcement mechanisms and other forms of de facto segregation undermined Ohio’s status as a land of opportunity for African Americans.
In his book, Ohio: The History of People, historian Andrew Cayton paints a grim picture of Ohio’s increasingly sharp color line. Noting the increasing white intolerance, workplace discrimination, and mob violence, Cayton considers the state a “hostile world” for newly arrived African Americans. [29] In his definitive work, African Americans and the Color Line in Ohio, 1915-1930, historian William W. Giffin supplies the details that support Cayton’s conclusion. Both Giffin and Cayton point out that Ohio’s color line stiffened in the wake of the Great Migration, as whites reacted in fear to the increasing number of African Americans, nearly 99 percent of which settled in cities. [30] According to Giffin, African-American migrants in Ohio faced a number problems including: poor housing conditions in increasingly segregated neighborhoods, increased crime, health problems and other “vices” of city life, discrimination in public accommodations, and racial intolerance that often culminated in violence and intimidation.
During and after World War I, most African Americans in Ohio’s major cities lived in largely segregated neighborhoods. By 1930, for example, 65 percent of African Americans in Columbus lived in just four of the 19 census districts in the city. [31] During World War I, housing shortages limited the options for African-American migrants in Ohio. Often confined to overcrowded and low-rent neighborhoods, African Americans also became easy victims of landlords who took advantage of housing shortages by engaging in rent profiteering. [32] After the war, discriminatory practices and “white flight” resulted in greater segregation within urban areas. Sometimes, African Americans were restricted to particular areas of the city by restrictive covenants, informal agreements among white neighborhoods and real estate agents, and pressure from local white business associations. [33] Taking part in the growing trend of suburbanization in the 1920s, many whites left Ohio’s cities for the growing suburbs, partially as a reaction to the influx of African Americans.
African Americans in Ohio cities faced problems common to rapidly urbanizing areas. They were especially vulnerable to health problems such as pneumonia and tuberculosis, and more likely to die from these diseases than whites. Ohio cities were also susceptible to common “vices” of city life—brothels, gambling houses, and saloons. In Columbus, the brothels and opium den in the “Badlands” neighborhood and “red light district” were largely ignored by the city government. Not surprisingly, adult crime and juvenile delinquency also experienced a surge in Ohio’s cities. [34]
African Americans left the South, in part, to escape segregation and discrimination in the public sphere. Yet, in spite of the Ohio Civil Rights Law of 1884, discrimination persisted in Ohio’s theaters, hotels, and restaurants. Some businesses openly disregarded laws, posting “Whites Only” signs. Even by the middle of the twentieth century, the Ohio Civil Rights Commission found wanton disregard of the laws against discrimination. The Commission’s report detailed discrimination in dance halls, skating rinks, swimming pools, bowling alleys and cemeteries.[35] Ohio schools were also sometimes segregated despite laws against such practice that passed Ohio’s legislature in 1887. Of course, given the residential patterns of cities, schools often experienced de facto segregation. However, school board policies often resulted in gerrymandering of attendance zones that created segregated schools within integrated districts. Columbus Public Schools, for example, gerrymandered its attendance areas in 1911 so that African-American students attended Champion Avenue Jr. High. There they were taught by African-American teachers (including four that been transferred from predominately white schools). White students from the same neighborhoods attended different schools. [36]
If school segregation was not enough to remind African Americans of their experiences in the metaphorical “Egypt” of the South, surely the violence and intimidation were. Instances of lynching and white mob violence were reported in Oxford, Adams County, Bellefontaine, New Richmond, Washington Court House, Lima, Cleveland, and Youngstown. An old southern institution, the Ku Klux Klan, also reared its ugly head in Ohio in the postwar period. Organized by a Franklin county dentist, the KKK used vandalism, violence, and threats of violence to intimidate African Americans. The KKK marched through downtown Columbus in 1924 on their way to a cross burning at a public park. Cross burnings were also reported in the area west of Ohio State campus and in the Linden area of Columbus. Playing on fear and notions of white supremacy, the KKK membership roles in Ohio reached 300,000 by 1927. [37]
SHAPING THE PROMISED LAND IN COLUMBUS
If Ohio was to be the Promised Land that many African-American migrants had sought, it would take much work to accomplish. Just as African Americans took an active role in moving north, they engaged in an equally determined effort to shape the Promised Land. In Ohio’s capital city of Columbus, a variety of organizations emerged to aid the growing urban African-American population. Perhaps emboldened by the spirit of Alain Locke’s “New Negro,” African-American leaders in Columbus took decisive steps to counter the problems of Columbus, including social ills, crime, and white prejudice and discrimination. The efforts by the African-American community to weaken the city’s color line provide early examples of grassroots efforts to achieve racial equality. These methods served as a foundation for civil rights activism in subsequent decades. [38]
Table 1 highlights some of the Columbus organizations and their goals. Most of the governing boards of these organizations were interracial, and they were predominantly staffed by African Americans. (See Table 1 at the end of the article) [39]
The Columbus Urban League, established in 1918, was the most active organization working against the Columbus color line. Dr. Nimrod Booker Allen, a social worker and graduate of Yale Divinity School, was hired as the first general secretary, a position he continued to hold until his retirement in 1954. An ad in the May 10, 1919 edition of the Ohio State Monitor outlines the purpose and activities of the Columbus Urban League. Of the League’s purpose, the ad states that it is founded “especially to give the man farthest down a chance. It holds as a firm principle that Social Service must mean that an opportunity must be given to all men to develop themselves fully, and that every man has a right to be happy...” The ad further notes its commitment to African-American migrants stating that “less than two dollars per capita has been spent on these brothers of ours to school them and make them citizens.” Eight positions are cited as part of the Leagues activities: a traveler’s aid, a nurse, a home-builder, an employment secretary, an industrial group worker (to improve employer/employee relations), a parole investigator, four teachers for African-American soldiers, and two court visitors to assist those released from jail. [40] A similar ad appearing in the Cleveland Advocate makes particular note of the League’s work with the city’s Director of Public Safety. The League’s court visitors made recommendations on parole decisions. Prisoners who were granted parole then reported weekly to an appointed “Big Brother” or “Big Sister.” [41]
A 1930 letter from Nimrod Allen to T. Arnold Hill, Director of the Department of Industrial Relations at the National Urban League, documents the work of the Columbus Urban League as an employment bureau. The letter lists thirteen industries known to employ African Americans, including major industrial forces such as Buckeye Steel and Jeffrey Manufacturing. The letter further cites the League’s efforts to investigate employment discrimination. Although finding no specific examples of an African-American worker being replaced by a white worker, Allen laments the disproportionately high unemployment rates for African Americans in Columbus. Finally, he notes the work of the League on behalf of an African-American manager who was released from the Kroger Grocery and Baking Company. [42]
In addition to working for better employment, the Columbus Urban League also took an active role public health efforts and education advocacy. Through its Department of Health and Housing, the League promoted an annual “Negro Health Week,” distributed literature, and encouraged Africans Americans to visit physicians and health professionals. [43] Although some criticized Nimrod Allen for his non-confrontational approach, Allen did not hesitate to seek redress from school and city officials. In 1931, Allen requested bus transportation from Columbus Public Schools for a group of African-American students who had to walk more than two miles and across the railroad tracks to Champion Avenue Jr. High. [44] In a much stronger letter, Allen chastised a city official for his description of Columbus as a “Mecca” for African Americans, and for his use of the term “darkies” to describe African-American migrants. [45]
In addition to the Columbus Urban League, the Columbus chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) assumed an active role in seeking social and political justice for African Americans. According to William Giffin, the Ohio chapters of the NAACP were critical in providing “organizational backing” to protests that had previously been the work of individuals. [46] The Columbus NAACP worked through all three branches of Ohio’s government to accomplish its goals. Shortly after its formation in 1915, the Columbus chapter joined other affiliates in lobbying against the exhibition of D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, a film that presented a Southern and racist point-of-view on the Civil War and Reconstruction. Though initially the state Board of Motion Picture Censors agreed with the NAACP’s characterization of the film, an edited version of the film was subsequently approved and shown throughout the state. Five years later, the Columbus chapter lobbied for the showing of the film Within Our Gates, a 1920 film by African-American filmmaker Oscar Devereaux Micheaux. A counterargument to Birth of a Nation, this film portrayed the horrors lynching and anti-black violence. After two rejections, the film was approved by the board on the third attempt.
The Columbus NAACP was active on the legislative front as well. In 1917, the Columbus NAACP lobbied successfully in the Ohio House for passage of the Beatty Civil Rights Bill, which aimed to prevent discrimination against African Americans in facilities such as hotels and places of amusement. Two years later, the Columbus chapter worked to gain the support of Ohio’s Senators for the passage of legislation that would result in a nationwide investigation of mob violence and lynching. In the judicial arena, the Columbus NAACP claimed victory in several lawsuits against discriminatory practices. In 1920, for example, the NAACP filed an affidavit in a criminal case against the owner of a Columbus confectionary for refusing to serve two African-American sisters. The owner was fined $50 for his act of discrimination. [47]
To provide social services, such as temporary housing and moral and spiritual development, the Young Men’s Christian Association and Young Women’s Christian Association formed African-American chapters in Columbus. The Columbus Home for Colored Girls provided similar services. Less formal efforts to uplift the African-American community included a campaign by a group of mothers to investigate and report on the city’s gambling dens. The mothers were allegedly committed to closing the dens by force if necessary. [48]
The 1920s also brought about a rising business and professional community to serve the needs of the African-American population in Columbus. In 1922, Nimrod Allen identified nearly one hundred African- American businesses in the East Long Street area. In 1929, the “Columbus Illustrated Negro Directory” began publishing an annual listing of African-American owned businesses. In the second year of the publication, the following numbers of businesses and professionals were listed: attorneys-2 dentists-17, painters-12, taxi services-10, filling stations-5, restaurants-17, hotels-4, undertakers-5, insurance companies-7, lodges-10, stenographers-18, police offers-18, and ministers-80. [49] Primarily located in the near east side, these professionals played a vital role in the African-American community.
In summary, the Great Migration ushered in far-reaching changes in American society. These changes came about as African Americans from the South moved northward to escape southern racism and take advantage of new opportunities in the North. Upon reaching northern states like Ohio, however, African Americans found that new opportunities were accompanied by an increasingly rigid color line. Through local efforts, African-American leaders in Columbus and other cities formed new organizations to work improve the lives of African Americans, and fulfill the promises of the Great Migration.
Endnotes
[1] Arnesen, Eric. Black Protest and the Great Migration. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2003. p. 2
[2] Historian Molefi Kete Asante summarizes this approach and its value. He writes: “My task in writing this book was to capture the African agency, the action, and the excitement of this marvelous history....It is the joy of ownership—of seeing oneself and one’s ancestor’s as active agents who create and change this history of this nation—that overflows and stimulates a hunger to know more.” See Asante, Molefi Kete. African American History: A Journey of Liberation. Saddle Brook, NJ: the People’s Publishing Group, 2002, p. v.
[3] Findley, Carter Vaughn and John A.M. Rothney. Twentieth Century World. Boston/New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1998, p. 46
[4] Arnesen, p. 9
[5] Scott, Emmett J. “Letters of Negro Migrants of 1916-1918,” Journal of Negro History 4, (July 1919), p. 331
[6] Leavell, R.H. “Negro Migration in 1916-17” published by the United States Department of Labor, Division of Negro Economics, 1919, p. 28
[7] “Agent is Held for Enticing Negroes.” The Atlanta Georgian, March 28, 1917. Accessed online at <http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/pdf/Migration.pdf> on 17 July 2009.
[8] “Luring Labor North.” New Orleans Times-Picayune, August 22, 1916. Cited in Arnesen, p. 59-60
[9] Chicago Defender website: <http://www.chicagodefender.com/article-1369-about-us.html>. Accessed on 18 July 2009
[10] Leavell, p. 30
[11] Marks, Carole. Farewell, We’re Good and Gone: The Great Black Migration. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1989. p. 28
[12] Scott, p. 427
[13] ibid, p. 416
[14] ibid, p. 429
[15] Takaki, Ronald. A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America. New York: Back Bay Books, Little Brown and Company, 1993, p. 318. Of course, Stannard’s quote misrepresents emancipation as something thrust upon African Americans. In reality, most enslaved African Americans freed themselves during the Civil War by fleeing plantations in the wake of the wartime chaos.
[16] Marks, p. 23
[17] Scott, p. 461
[18] ibid, p. 465
[19] Dubois, W.EB. “The Migration of the Negroes, June 1917.” cited in Arnesen, p. 47
[20] Crew, Spencer. Field to Factory: African American Migration 1915-1940. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1987, p. 18
[21] Gottlieb, Peter. “Migration and Jobs: The New Black Workers in Pittsburgh, 1916-1930.” The Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine, vol. 61, no. 1 (January 1978), p. 3.
[22] “Boll Weevil Song.” <http://www.uic.edu/educ/bctpi/historyGIS/greatmigration/gmdocs/boll_weevil_song.html> Accessed 17 July 2009.
[23] Marks, p. 59-67
[24] Du Bois, cited in Arnesen, p. 47
[25] Leavell, p. 31-33, 36, 38-40, 59,
[26] Scott, p. 461
[27] Giffin, William W. African Americans and the Color Line in Ohio, 1915-1930. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2005, p. 232
[28] Takaki, p. 318
[29] Cayton, Andrew R.L. Ohio: the History of a People. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2002, p. 282.
[30] Giffin, p. 9, 32; Cayton, p. 282
[31] Giffin, p. 120-21
[32] ibid, p. 18
[33] ibid, p. 37, 14-25
[34] ibid, p. 21-23
[35] Knepper, George W. Ohio and Its People. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1997, p. 406
[36] Giffin, p. 41. Champion Jr. High continued to remain a largely African-American school for several decades. In the 1970s, it was one of the schools that served as the basis for a lawsuit against the Columbus district. That suit resulted in nearly two decades of cross-town bussing to achieving racial integration. By the time forced bussing ended in 1996, “white flight” had re-segregated many Columbus neighborhood schools. The district’s current intra-district open enrollment policy protects against legal action by allowing students from any neighborhood to enroll in any district school where space is available. See Jacobs, Gregory S. Getting Around Brown: Desegregation, Development, and the Columbus Public Schools. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 1998.
[37] Giffin, p. 111 and 115. Speaking of the later demise of Ohio’s KKK, Columbus historian Ed Lentz humorously writes that the KKK failed “mostly because...many people decided that marching in a bed sheet for almost any reason was really rather silly.” See Lentz, Ed. Columbus: The Story of a City. Arcadia Press, 2003, p. 110.
[38] Giffin, p. 194
[39] See Giffin, p. 56, 61, 62, 66, 79, 103; YMCA Columbus website: < http://www.ymcacolumbus.org/history.php; Columbus NAACP website: <http://www.columbusnaacp.org/About%20Us.htm>; and Columbus Urban League website: <http://www.cul.org/about_cul.aspx> Accessed 18 July 2009.
[40] “Columbus Urban League.” Ohio State Monitor, Volume 1, Issue 48 (May 1919). Accessed online at <http://dbs.ohiohistory.org/africanam/page.cfm?ID=2666> 19 July 2009
[41] “Columbus Urban League is a Real Civic Factor,” Cleveland Advocate. May 17, 1919. Volume 6, No. 2, p. 1 Ohio Historical Society Archives Library. Accessed online at < http://dbs.ohiohistory.org/africanam/det.cfm?ID=8365> 19 July 2009
[42] Allen, Nimrod B. “Letter Regarding the Employment of African Americans in Columbus, OH, ” November 5, 1930. Ohio Historical Society Collections MSS 146
[43] Giffin, p. 152
[44] Allen, Nimrod B. “Letter to Assistant Superintendent of Columbus Public Schools,” October 5, 1931. Ohio Historical Society Collections MSS 146.
[45] Allen, Nimrod B. “Letter to Mr. Charles F. Lender, Supt. Columbus Division of Charities,” October 5, 1931. Ohio Historical Society Collections MSS 146
[46] Giffin, p. 193
[47] “Columbus Man Fined,” Cleveland Advocate, Volume 7, No. 8, page 3, (July 3, 1920). Ohio Historical Center Archives Library. Accessed online at < http://dbs.ohiohistory.org/africanam/det.cfm?ID=9542> 19 July 2009.
[48] “Columbus Mothers to Battle Gambling Dens,” The Cleveland Advocate, Volume 6, No. 33, (December 20, 1919) p. 1, Ohio Historical Center Archives Library. Access online at
<http://dbs.ohiohistory.org/africanam/det.cfm?ID=8937> 19 July 2009
49 Mc Williams. W.A. The Columbus Illustrated Negro Directory. Columbus, Ohio, 1929-30
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Gottlieb, Peter. “Migration and Jobs: The New Black Workers in Pittsburgh, 1916-1930.” The Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine, vol. 61, no. 1 (January 1978)
Knepper, George W. Ohio and Its People. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1997
Leavell, R.H. “Negro Migration in 1916-17” published by the United States Department of Labor, Division of Negro Economics, 1919
Marks, Carole. Farewell, We’re Good and Gone: The Great Black Migration. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1989
Scott, Emmett J. “Letters of Negro Migrants of 1916-1918,” Journal of Negro History 4, (July 1919)
Takaki, Ronald. A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America. New York: Back Bay Books, Little Brown and Company, 1993
Organization |
Year Founded |
Goals |
Young Men’s Christian Association (African American Branch- Spring Street) |
1912 |
Provide opportunities for spiritual, intellectual, and physical growth; food, shelter. Included a Business and Professional Men’s Club. |
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (Columbus Chapter) |
1915 |
Advocated for civil rights, especially lobbying for the Beatty Civil Rights Bill. |
Columbus Home for Colored Girls |
1917 |
Offered shelter, promoted the “social, moral, intellectual, industrial and religious advancement of women and girls” |
Young Women’s Christian Association (African American Branch – E. Long) |
1918 |
Provided inexpensive emergency housing for women |
Columbus Urban League |
1918 |
“Empowering African Americans to enter the economic and social mainstream.” Placing unemployed persons in jobs, providing adult education, traveler’s aid, assistance in housing |
Columbus Citizens Law and Order League |
1919 |
Worked to prevent local riots by giving “instruction on the advantages of being law abiding citizens” |