African Americans and the Color Line in Ohio, 1915-1930
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“Giffin fills an essential gap and takes on a crucial, yet little-studied time period in history. Perhaps more important is the depth and quality of his research combined with his important and nuanced arguments about the hardening of OHIO OHIO OHIO the color line in Ohio urban areas between 1915 and 1930. This book will find STATE STATE STATE sizeable and significant audiences for a long time to come.” —James H. Madison, Indiana University Afric “An exhaustive and fascinating study of race and community.” —Kevin J. Mumford, University of Iowa Writing in true social history tradition, William W. Giffin presents a magisterial study of African Americans focusing on times that saw the culmination of an trends that were fundamentally important in shaping the twentieth century. While many scholars have examined African Americans in the South and such Americ large cities as New York and Chicago during this time, other important urban in Ohio, 1915–1930 areas have been ignored. Ohio, with its large but very different urban cen- ters—notably, Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati—provides Giffin with the wealth of statistical data and qualitative material that he uses to argue that the African Americans “color line” in Ohio hardened during this time period as the Great Migration gained force. His data shows, too, that the color line varied according to urban area—it hardened progressively as one traveled South in the state. In addition, ans and the Color Line whereas previous studies have concentrated on activism at the national level through such groups as the NAACP, Giffin shows how African American men and women in Ohio constantly negotiated the color line on a local level, and the through both resistance and accommodation on a daily and very interpersonal in Ohio, 1915–1930 level with whites, other blacks, and people of different ethnic, class, and racial backgrounds. This early grassroots resistance provided the groundwork for the Civil Rights movement that would gain momentum some twenty years later. This analysis of the Ohio color line speaks to those historians who still are inclined to discuss Jim Crow as a wholly southern phenomenon. It indicates Color Line that the color line in the North was not uniform and provides further evidence of the importance of locale and local people in African American history. At the same time, it offers stories of inherent interest revealing human conduct at its best and worst. William W. Giffin is professor of history at Indiana State University, Terre Haute. Cover design: Dan O’Dair The Ohio State University Press GIFFIN Columbus www.ohiostatepress.org William W. Giffin Giffin_FM_3rd.qxp 9/16/2005 4:31 PM Page i AFRICAN AMERICANS AND THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO, 1915–1930 William W. Giffin The Ohio State University Press Columbus Giffin_FM_3rd.qxp 9/16/2005 4:31 PM Page ii Copyright © 2005 by The Ohio State University. All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Giffin, William Wayne, 1938– African Americans and the color line in Ohio, 1915–1930 / William W. Giffin.—1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–8142–1003–1 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 0–8142–9081–7 (cd-rom) 1. African Americans—Ohio—History—20th century. 2. Ohio— Race relations—History—20th century. I. Title. E185.93.02G55 2005 305.896’0730771’09041—dc22 2005015260 Cover design by Dan O’Dair Type set in Goudy. Printed by Thomson-Shore, Inc. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. ANSI Z39.48–1992. 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Giffin_FM_3rd.qxp 9/16/2005 4:31 PM Page iii CONTENTS List of Illustrations v Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 PART ONE: BLACK MIGRANTS AND WARTIMES, 1915–1920 Chapter 1 The Great Migration and Its Impact 9 Chapter 2 The Color Line’s Changing Dimensions 33 Chapter 3 New Organizations and Urban Issues 50 PART TWO: THE TWENTIES AND CULMINATING TRENDS Chapter 4 Rising “Black Metropolises” 89 Chapter 5 Increasing White Intolerance 110 Chapter 6 New Leadership and Welfare Work 142 Chapter 7 New Leadership and Equal Rights Struggles 159 Chapter 8 Toward Black Political Independence 195 Conclusion 215 Appendix 232 Notes 235 Bibliography 279 Index 293 Giffin_FM_3rd.qxp 9/16/2005 4:31 PM Page iv Giffin_FM_3rd.qxp 9/16/2005 4:31 PM Page v ILLUSTRATIONS Maps Map 1 Map of State of Ohio. 15 Map 2 Map of Columbus, Ohio, Showing Racial, National, and Industrial Localities, 1918. 36 Map 3 Distribution of the Cleveland Negro Population, 1930. 121 Map 4 Census Tracts of Cincinnati Basin, 1930. 122 Photographs Photo 1 Wendell P. Dabney. 55 Photo 2 Jane E. Hunter. 58 Photo 3 Jennie D. Porter. 60 Photo 4 Harry C. Smith. 69 Tables Table A1 Number and Percentage of Blacks and Whites in Ohio by State Population and Urban Population, 1910–1930. 232 Table A2 Black Population in Ohio Cities, 1910–1930. 232 Table A3 Number and Percentage Increase of Black Professionals, by Ohio City, Occupation, and Year. 233 Table A4 Court Suits Alleging Ohio Public Accommodations Law Violations, 1914–1919. 234 Giffin_FM_3rd.qxp 9/16/2005 4:31 PM Page vi Giffin_FM_3rd.qxp 9/16/2005 4:31 PM Page vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS hanks are owed to those who gave me assistance or support in ways Tthat facilitated the making of this book. My history mentors at The College of Wooster and The Ohio State University grounded me in the study of history. My history department colleagues at Indiana State University maintained a scholarly environment promoting research and writing. The University Research Committee at ISU partially funded research on some of the themes in this work. Librarians and archivists at many institutions were unfailingly helpful and kind to me. I wish to thank the staffs of Cincinnati Historical Society Library, Cincinnati; Carnegie Library, Wilberforce University, Wilberforce, OH; Cleveland Public Library; Cunningham Memorial Library, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN; Fisk University Library, Nashville, TN; Library of Congress, Washington D.C.; National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Ohio Historical Society Archives/Library, Columbus, OH; and Western Reserve Historical Society Archives/Library, Cleveland, OH. Thanks to Heather Lee Miller, The Ohio State University Press acquisitions editor who worked with great care and remarkable efficiency. Much gratitude, as well, goes to the Press’s readers who gave much time to the manuscript and offered many insightful suggestions. I am most grateful to friends and family, some now gone, who gave me comfort and understanding as I advanced in this study. WWG Giffin_FM_3rd.qxp 9/16/2005 4:31 PM Page viii Giffin_Intro_1st.qxp 9/16/2005 4:31 PM Page 1 Introduction he examination of the Ohio color line presented in this book is a Treflection of the renewed scholarly interest in the study of the African American past as seen from within statewide perimeters. Black historical themes in states are the foci of a spate of books and doctoral dissertations produced since the beginning of the 1990s. The states examined are mainly southern: Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.1 Most center on the African American struggle for citizenship rights, while some give special attention to other issues, notably concerning color and class. Excepting one, each work covers several decades in the twentieth century or in a time frame spanning the nineteenth and twen- tieth centuries. This Ohio book responds to a need for additional scholarship on black history in the World War I era and the 1920s, times that were fundamen- tally important in the shaping of twentieth century black experiences because they saw the culmination of trends that started in the nine- teenth century and witnessed antecedents of the modern civil rights era. Trends in the African American experience that were just getting well underway in the 1890s accelerated after 1915 and reached culmination in the 1920s. Among these trends were those that enlarged black urban populations through in-migration, broadened black urban community life, and magnified social welfare concerns in black urban neighbor- hoods. At the same time, mounting white hostility to blacks tended to further isolate African Americans in urban centers. Accompanying these trends was the development of a new black leadership that addressed welfare issues and equal rights grievances. Historian David A. Gerber (1976) carefully analyses these developments in their Ohio manifesta- tions prior to World War I.2 This book asserts that the color line in Ohio grew more divisive in the 1 Giffin_Intro_1st.qxp 9/16/2005 4:31 PM Page 2 2 INTRODUCTION period 1915–1930 when, as specialists in this field know, there was movement away from American principles of equality and justice. It is a reminder that the past does not always provide a comforting story of progress. Its analysis of racial discrimination and segregation in Ohio speaks to those historians who are still inclined to discuss Jim Crow as a wholly southern phenomenon. Further, it provides a notable instance of the slavery era’s legacy mak- ing its influence felt in the twentieth century. This book argues that the intensity of the Ohio color line varied from south to north in the peri- od 1915–1930 and that these differences were rooted in the antebellum era prior to the Civil War when Ohio ties with the slave South were weakest in northern Ohio and strongest in southern Ohio. A theme transcending this volume is that local people in Ohio took the initiative on color line issues. It was mainly black Ohioans working locally who acted on civil rights complaints and welfare concerns arising from the Ohio color line.