As early as the 1830s, the area that is now Ransom Place Neighborhood was identified as an African American settlement.[3] The land was originally developed by free African Americans and former slaves who moved north to find prosperity during the nineteenth century. This western section of Indianapolis, close to Fall Creek and the White River, was notoriously marshy and prone to flooding. The undesirable land was the only land that early African American settlers were permitted to purchase. Over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, a thriving African American community formed in Ransom Place Neighborhood, and the area was converted into a residential area and profitable business district for African American families. Ransom Place Neighborhood was also the site of the first public housing project in Indianapolis, Lockefield Gardens.[4]
Many prominent professionals lived in Ransom Place Neighborhood, including African American community leaders, doctors, and attorneys. Churches, schools, and businesses provided for the needs of the residents.[5] Freeman Briley Ransom (1882-1947), the namesake of the neighborhood, lived with his family at 828 N. California St.[6] F. B. Ransom was a successful lawyer, business man, and civic leader who moved to Indianapolis in 1910. Most notably, Ransom served as the corporate attorney and manager of the Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company, a pioneering African American cosmetics company. In addition to his legal work for Madam C. J. Walker, Ransom was an accomplished community leader who served as legal counsel for the Senate Avenue YMCA, Phyllis Wheatley YWCA, Indianapolis branch of the NAACP, and the Frederick Douglass Life Insurance Company, helped found the National Negro Business League and the Marion County Bar Association, and served on the Indianapolis City Council from 1939-1942.[7] F. B. Ransom’s son, Willard Ransom, was also a noted attorney and resident of Ransom Place Neighborhood.[8]
Ransom Place Neighborhood was expanded in 1945 when the Indianapolis Redevelopment Commission selected the area as its first redevelopment project. Helping repair houses in older parts of the neighborhood and constructing new homes in surrounding areas, the assistance of the Indianapolis Redevelopment Commission revitalized Ransom Place Neighborhood.[9] During the early 1960s, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) began buying property in order to develop a downtown Indianapolis campus. Between 1960 and 1980, IUPUI had obtained nearly 1,000 properties and had effectively surrounded Ransom Place Neighborhood.[10] The university’s pressures to redevelop the area for their own purposes, combined with the flight of many prominent African Americans to more prosperous Indianapolis neighborhoods in the early 1970s, led to a period of denigration for the historic neighborhood. In 1976, Lockefield Gardens, a major source of pride for Ransom Place’s community, was closed and converted into private apartments for IUPUI students.[11] Construction of the United Life Building in the 1980s removed a portion of Indiana Avenue, effectively blocking access from Ransom Place to downtown Indianapolis furthering marginalizing the African American community.[12]
Following a period of decline in the 1970s and early 1980s, Ransom Place Neighborhood was revitalized in the late 1980s when Jean Spears, an African American community leader who worked with the Indiana Avenue Association helped to renovate African American homes and businesses in Indianapolis, moved into 849 Camp Street in Ransom Place Neighborhood.[13] Spears started a campaign to promote the African American history of the neighborhood and, with a team of other community leaders, officially named the district Ransom Place Neighborhood in memory of the successful attorney Freedman Briley Ransom.[14] Following the naming, the Ransom Place Historic District was accredited by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, and the Ransom Place Neighborhood was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
While Ransom Place Neighborhood is protected as a historic landmark, many locals fear that the neighborhood- a symbol of African American persistence and ingenuity- could be erased by gentrification. With much of the land surrounding Ransom Place being developed for private businesses and apartments, it is becoming increasingly expensive for long-time residents to remain in the area. Unless the gentrification includes local African American families, many fear that the African American community that built and sustained the neighborhood for generations will disappear.[15]
]]>Ransom Place Neighborhood is a historic district located northwest of Monument Circle in the center of downtown Indianapolis. Bounded by 10th, St. Clair, West, and Camp Streets, this area includes subdivisions platted 1865 and 1871, and features historic homes built in the eclectic Queen Anne architectural style that was popular at the end of the nineteenth century. Ransom Place Neighborhood is considered the most intact neighborhood associated with the African American population of Indianapolis.[1] Named after prominent resident Freeman Briley Ransom, the district was listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1992.[2]
As early as the 1830s, the area that is now Ransom Place Neighborhood was identified as an African American settlement.[3] The land was originally developed by free African Americans and former slaves who moved north to find prosperity during the nineteenth century. This western section of Indianapolis, close to Fall Creek and the White River, was notoriously marshy and prone to flooding. The undesirable land was the only land that early African American settlers were permitted to purchase. Over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, a thriving African American community formed in Ransom Place Neighborhood, and the area was converted into a residential area and profitable business district for African American families. Ransom Place Neighborhood was also the site of the first public housing project in Indianapolis, Lockefield Gardens.[4]
Many prominent professionals lived in Ransom Place Neighborhood, including African American community leaders, doctors, and attorneys. Churches, schools, and businesses provided for the needs of the residents.[5] Freeman Briley Ransom (1882-1947), the namesake of the neighborhood, lived with his family at 828 N. California St.[6] F. B. Ransom was a successful lawyer, business man, and civic leader who moved to Indianapolis in 1910. Most notably, Ransom served as the corporate attorney and manager of the Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company, a pioneering African American cosmetics company. In addition to his legal work for Madam C. J. Walker, Ransom was an accomplished community leader who served as legal counsel for the Senate Avenue YMCA, Phyllis Wheatley YWCA, Indianapolis branch of the NAACP, and the Frederick Douglass Life Insurance Company, helped found the National Negro Business League and the Marion County Bar Association, and served on the Indianapolis City Council from 1939-1942.[7] F. B. Ransom’s son, Willard Ransom, was also a noted attorney and resident of Ransom Place Neighborhood.[8]
Ransom Place Neighborhood was expanded in 1945 when the Indianapolis Redevelopment Commission selected the area as its first redevelopment project. Helping repair houses in older parts of the neighborhood and constructing new homes in surrounding areas, the assistance of the Indianapolis Redevelopment Commission revitalized Ransom Place Neighborhood.[9] During the early 1960s, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) began buying property in order to develop a downtown Indianapolis campus. Between 1960 and 1980, IUPUI had obtained nearly 1,000 properties and had effectively surrounded Ransom Place Neighborhood.[10] The university’s pressures to redevelop the area for their own purposes, combined with the flight of many prominent African Americans to more prosperous Indianapolis neighborhoods in the early 1970s, led to a period of denigration for the historic neighborhood. In 1976, Lockefield Gardens, a major source of pride for Ransom Place’s community, was closed and converted into private apartments for IUPUI students.[11] Construction of the United Life Building in the 1980s removed a portion of Indiana Avenue, effectively blocking access from Ransom Place to downtown Indianapolis furthering marginalizing the African American community.[12]
Following a period of decline in the 1970s and early 1980s, Ransom Place Neighborhood was revitalized in the late 1980s when Jean Spears, an African American community leader who worked with the Indiana Avenue Association helped to renovate African American homes and businesses in Indianapolis, moved into 849 Camp Street in Ransom Place Neighborhood.[13] Spears started a campaign to promote the African American history of the neighborhood and, with a team of other community leaders, officially named the district Ransom Place Neighborhood in memory of the successful attorney Freedman Briley Ransom.[14] Following the naming, the Ransom Place Historic District was accredited by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, and the Ransom Place Neighborhood was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
While Ransom Place Neighborhood is protected as a historic landmark, many locals fear that the neighborhood- a symbol of African American persistence and ingenuity- could be erased by gentrification. With much of the land surrounding Ransom Place being developed for private businesses and apartments, it is becoming increasingly expensive for long-time residents to remain in the area. Unless the gentrification includes local African American families, many fear that the African American community that built and sustained the neighborhood for generations will disappear.[15]
In 1922, Andrew Means and his brother, Geter, created a homebuilding business with $90 and a borrowed typewriter. Means Brothers, Inc. became one of the Midwest’s largest African American real estate development companies.[4] The brothers created 11 housing developments with nearly 2000 homes and/or rental properties in Gary alone. They created homes for African Americans using African American employees and sub-contractors.[5] In addition to housing developments, Andrew Means also constructed the Gary First Baptist church, where he was a member, within the Andrew Means Park Manor neighborhood.[6]
Of all the housing the brothers developed, Andrew Means Park Manor, also known as “Means Manor”, was the most impactful to the Gary community and still exists today. The neighborhood consists of nearly 150 homes[7] including Andrews Means’ own home. At the time of construction in the early 1950s, Means Manor provided African American families safe affordable single family housing at a time when many neighborhoods did not welcome African Americans and Gary was deeply segregated.[8] Remembered by a former resident “I think the community flourished because everyone there was there under the same circumstances. A lot of the families that came, that lived in my neighborhood, their parents came from the South and they were there primarily because of the steel mills, because those were guaranteed jobs, that was guaranteed income.”[9] At the time of its construction, the homes in Means Manor were priced from $15,000 to $75,000.[10]
Means Manor is located in Gary’s Midtown neighborhood. When Means Manor was constructed, 97% of Gary’s African American population lived in the Midtown neighborhood. The neighborhood was mostly self-contained with many retail outlets as African Americans were excluded from Downtown Gary prior to desegregation in the 1960s and 1970s.[11] Means Manor remains as a legacy to Andrew Means and his brother’s achievements of providing affordable and equal housing to Gary’s African American community.
]]>Born in Alabama, Andrew Means graduated from the Tuskegee Institute in 1918. He studied under George Washington Carver and was befriended by Tuskegee Institute President Booker T. Washington. After graduation, Means spent a few years in the US Army and subsequently worked as a railroad porter.[1] Means then traveled north to Gary, Indiana, in order to work in the steel mills, a path taken by many African Americans at the time.[2] This influx of African Americans moving north for fair and equal jobs, and to escape segregation in the South was known as the Great Migration. From the 1910s to 1970, over 6 million African Americans from the rural South migrated to northern cities, including Gary.[3]
In 1922, Andrew Means and his brother, Geter, created a homebuilding business with $90 and a borrowed typewriter. Means Brothers, Inc. became one of the Midwest’s largest African American real estate development companies.[4] The brothers created 11 housing developments with nearly 2000 homes and/or rental properties in Gary alone. They created homes for African Americans using African American employees and sub-contractors.[5] In addition to housing developments, Andrew Means also constructed the Gary First Baptist church, where he was a member, within the Andrew Means Park Manor neighborhood.[6]
Of all the housing the brothers developed, Andrew Means Park Manor, also known as “Means Manor”, was the most impactful to the Gary community and still exists today. The neighborhood consists of nearly 150 homes[7] including Andrews Means’ own home. At the time of construction in the early 1950s, Means Manor provided African American families safe affordable single family housing at a time when many neighborhoods did not welcome African Americans and Gary was deeply segregated.[8] Remembered by a former resident “I think the community flourished because everyone there was there under the same circumstances. A lot of the families that came, that lived in my neighborhood, their parents came from the South and they were there primarily because of the steel mills, because those were guaranteed jobs, that was guaranteed income.”[9] At the time of its construction, the homes in Means Manor were priced from $15,000 to $75,000.[10]
Means Manor is located in Gary’s Midtown neighborhood. When Means Manor was constructed, 97% of Gary’s African American population lived in the Midtown neighborhood. The neighborhood was mostly self-contained with many retail outlets as African Americans were excluded from Downtown Gary prior to desegregation in the 1960s and 1970s.[11] Means Manor remains as a legacy to Andrew Means and his brother’s achievements of providing affordable and equal housing to Gary’s African American community.
Better Homes of South Bend was a corporation created in May 1950 in an effort to combat housing discrimination against African Americans. African Americans who worked at the South Bend Studebaker plant started the group. Most members lived in World War II-era prefabricated houses on Prairie Street near the Studebaker factory. They established a corporation to provide a better chance of securing homes outside of the slums near the factories.The members “wanted to find homes away from the factories and slums that surrounded them and give their children a better start in life than they themselves had."[1] Better Homes of South Bend’s attorney, J. Chester Allen, kept the location of potential neighborhoods a secret in an effort to get families moved into anew area with as little resistance as possible. In the 1950s, not everyone was open to the idea of African American families living in their neighborhood.[2]
The members of Better Homes of South Bend all had Southern roots. Either they or their parents had moved to the North to escape Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation. Although the members had moved to South Bend looking for a better lifeamid relatively good paying manufacturing jobs, they were unable to escape discrimination. Two of the biggest challenges they faced were discrimination in housing and employment. Reverend B.F. Gordon attested to the discrimination of African Americans in South Bend in his 1922 book The Negro in South Bend: A Social Study. “Give him the same recreational opportunities, the same educational opportunities, the same industrial advantages (in particular those advantages that call for better education, and personal conduct,) and the same privileges to buy and sell, land or commodities...”[3]
African Americans in South Bend were seeking equal opportunities.On June 25, 1941, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, which states,“I do hereby reaffirm the policy of the United States that there shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries or government because of race, creed, color, or national origin.”[4] However, as was evident in South Bend, public opinion was strong enough to disregard the executive order in the workplace. Gabrielle Robinson addresses the employment discrimination of African Americans in the book, The Better Homes of South Bend. “Yet they had not found the equal treatment in the North for which they had hoped. Many factories in South Bend did not hire African Americans.”[5] The Studebaker plant was the biggest employer of African Americans in South Bend.
After World War II, housing discrimination intensified. White families moved to the suburbs and the west side of South Bend by the factories became almost exclusively African American. Better Homes of South Bend members lived primarily on Prairie Avenue, defined as “slum” in the Fact Sheet on Housing in 1952.[6] "This white flight took with it private and public investment in housing, schools, roads and infrastructure, leaving a deteriorating center to the poor."[7] This deterioration of infrastructure drove Better Homes for South Bend members to secure land to buildhousing in a less developed part of the city. The corporation settled on the 1700-1800 block on North Elmer Street as their housing destination, where a handful of white families currently resided. The collective power of the corporation enabled the members to secure land, loans, and contractors for 22 houses.[8] After extensive discrimination and hardship, the group was able to secure a contractor, Max Meyer, at a reasonable price. Three years after Better Homes of South Bend was created, the members finally had houses built and ready to occupyon North Elmer Street. The discrimination that Better Homes of South Bend members faced was notisolated to South Bend. Housing discrimination against African Americans occurred in Indianapolis as well. An article in the 1944 Indianapolis Recorder discusses the utter lack of acceptable housing for African American workers in the city.[9] Many of these workers migrated to Indianapolis as part of The Great Migration. From 1916 to 1970, over six million African Americans migrated from the South to cities in the North, including Indianapolis and South Bend. The first wave occurred prior to World War I and the second wave prior to World War II. “African Americans sought an alternative to sharecropping, disenfranchisement, and racial injustice in the South.”[10]
Before the Better Homes of South Bend formed in 1950, Congress passed the Housing Act of 1949. “In passing the Housing Act of 1949, Congress defined the policy of the United States to include the requirements of a decent home and a suitable living environment for every American family.”[11] However, this Act did not change the living situation for Better Homes of South Bend members; they fought and improved their situation themselves. For instance, in order to build homes for black members, a competent contractor was needed, one that would use the same quality of material that was used to build white homes. Margaret Cobb stated “the contractors they met with ‘only wanted to give us substandard materials’ to build their homes because members were black.”[12] Fortunately, Better Homes for South Bend were able to hire contractors who were willing to build homes with high-quality materials regardless of the race of the occupants-to-be. Many of those 22 homes still stand today on North Elmer Street, a testament to one group’s efforts to fight racial discrimination.[13]
[1] Gabrielle Robinson, Better Homes of South Bend (Charleston: The History Press, 2015), 26.
[2] Ibid, 14.
[3] Reverend B.F. Gordon, The Negro in South Bend (South Bend: 1922), 2.
[4] Executive Order 8802 dated June 25, 1941, General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National Archives.
[5] Gabrielle Robinson, Better Homes of South Bend (Charleston: The History Press, 2015), 14.
[6] “Fact sheet on housing, South Bend, circa 1952” (South Bend, 1952), 1.
[7] Gabrielle Robinson, Better Homes of South Bend (Charleston: The History Press, 2015), 48.
[8] Better Homes for South Bend Historical Marker. Indiana Historical Bureau, 2017. Accessed January 14, 2020.
[9] “Local Housing Evils Cited to FHA Officers,” Indianapolis Recorder 48, 20 (1944): 2, accessed April 5, 2019.
[10] Joe William Trotter, "The Great Migration," OAH Magazine of History 17, no. 1 (2002): 31.
[11] “Discrimination Against Minorities In The Federal Housing Programs,” Indiana Law Journal 31, 4 (1956): 501, accessed April 5, 2019,
[12] Annette Scherber, “‘Better Homes Wants to Have a Fair Shake’: Fighting Housing Discrimination in Postwar South Bend” Indiana History Blog. Accessed January 7, 2020.
[13] Better Homes for South Bend Historical Marker. Indiana Historical Bureau, 2017. Accessed January 14, 2020.
[1] Drenovsky, Rachel L. "A Community within a Community: Indianapolis's Lockefield Gardens." Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History.
[2] "Lockefield Gardens Apartments--Indianapolis: A Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary." National Parks Service.
[3] Barrows, Robert G. "The Local Origins of a New Deal Housing Project: The Case of Lockefield Gardens in Indianapolis." Indiana Magazine of History.
[4] Historic District: Lockefield Gardens." Indy.gov. Accessed April 10, 2019.
[5] Drenovsky, Rachel L. "A Community within a Community: Indianapolis's Lockefield Gardens." Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History
[6]"Historic District: Lockefield Gardens." Indy.gov. Accessed April 10, 2019.
[7] Ibid.
[8] “106 Success Story: New Deal Public Housing Gets New Life.” Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. Washington, D.C., n.d.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Staff, WFIU. "Lockfield Gardens." Moment of Indiana History - Indiana Public Media. February 14, 2005.
[11] “106 Success Story: New Deal Public Housing Gets New Life.” Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. Washington, D.C., n.d.
[12] Jaynes, Gerald D. Encyclopedia of African American Society, Volume 2. Sage Publications. 2005.
[13] “106 Success Story: New Deal Public Housing Gets New Life.” Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. Washington, D.C., n.d.
[14] "Lockefield Gardens Apartments--Indianapolis: A Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary." National Parks Service.