1
100
22
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Thomas V. Barnes
Description
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Thomas V. Barnes was born in Arkansas in 1936. His family moved to Gary, Indiana when Barnes was only four weeks old. He graduated from African American Roosevelt High School in 1954 and earned his Bachelor of Science degree in 1958. He attended law school, obtaining his Doctorate of Jurisprudence from DePaul University in 1972 [1].
Barnes began his political career in Lake County, when he won the Democratic nomination for Calumet Township assessor in 1978. His campaign established Barnes as a man “dedicated to community development…and respect for people” and he served as assessor for a decade [2], [3]. In 1987, he announced his candidacy for Mayor of Gary. The Mayor at the time, Richard Hatcher, had endorsed Barnes’ election to Township assessor. Now, they were political opponents [4].
Barnes won the Mayoral election, defeating Hatcher and promising hope to a city whose economy had been devastated by the decline of the steel mills in the 1970s. He vowed to combat the city’s economic decline and address the growing crime issue by hiring more police officers and increasing their salaries. After his election, Barnes announced his commitment to the city, stating that he could “see a Gary that is clean, safe and working" [5]. Barnes was re-elected in 1991, serving another four-year term [6]. Many of his years in office were dedicated to bringing riverboat casinos to Gary to stimulate economic development. His “last official act” as Mayor was a groundbreaking ceremony for two riverboat casinos, the Majestic Star and Trump Indiana [7]. Barnes lamented the brief five-year existence of Trump Indiana in Gary, admitting that he did not want to accept Trump’s proposal in the first place. His decision was overridden by the state, who had the final say in the matter [8].
In addition to his time as Mayor, Barnes served in the U.S. Army, retiring as a Colonel in 1986. In 1988, he was elected Civilian Aide to the Secretary of the U.S. Army for the State of Indiana. He also served as Co-Chair of the World Health Organization Conference in Sweden in 1990. He was DePaul University’s Distinguished Graduate of 1993, and in 1994 was placed in Purdue University’s Hall of Fame. In 1995, he was also inducted into Gary’s Steel City Hall of Fame. He is a life member of the NAACP and AMVETS, a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, and a former advisor and board member of Brothers Keeper [9]. When his years as Mayor came to an end in 1995, Barnes returned to work at Barnes Washer Repair and Parts, continuing the family legacy of fine service and hospitality at the business his father had established upon moving to Gary in 1936 [10].
Source
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[1] “48th Annual Black History Month Program,” Gary Public Library, Gary Public Library and Cultural center, February 2020, http://www.garypubliclibrary.org/clientuploads/barnes_flyer_2020_.pdf.
[2] “Calumet Attorney Wins Nomination for Assessor,” Indianapolis Recorder (Indianapolis, IN) May 27, 1978.
[3] “48th Annual Black History Month Program,” Gary Public Library.
[4] Emma Lou Thornburgh, Indiana Blacks in the Twentieth Century (Indiana University Press, 2000), 194.
[5] Dirk Johnson, “Economic Decline Seen as Factor in Hatcher Loss,” New York Times (New York, NY), May 7, 1987.
[6] “48th Annual Black History Month Program,” Gary Public Library.
[7] Carole Carlson, “Gary Mayors Offer Glimpse into City Hall Politics at Forum,” Chicago Tribune, Post-Tribune, January 9, 2019, https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/ct-ptb-gary-living-mayors-st-0110-story.html.
[8] Lauren Cross, “Gary’s Living Mayors Reflect on City’s Past, Present, and Future,” NWI, The Times, December 14, 2019, https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/lake/garys-living-mayors-reflect-on-citys-past-present-and-future/article_d445ce73-3112-582a-a6e1-a5960aa1d4fc.html.
[9] “48th Annual Black History Month Program,” Gary Public Library.
[10] Michael Puente, “Former Gary Mayor Remembers When trump Came to Town,” Will Radio TV, Illinois Public Radio, April 30, 2016, https://will.illinois.edu/news/story/former-gary-mayor-remembers-when-trump-came-to-town
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Student Author: Gwyneth Harris
Faculty/Staff Editors: Dr. Ronald V. Morris, Dr. Kevin C. Nolan, and Christine Thompson
Graduate Assistant Researchers: Carrie Vachon and JB Bilbrey
1950s-present
Gary
Lake County
NAACP
Politics
-
https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/f039c6ee9c5ad2f6ae816767982fcb2d.jpg
184f31d489fb4d67c1c84d9f438faea8
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Leon Lynch
Description
An account of the resource
Leon Lynch was born in Edwards, Mississippi, in 1935. He moved to Gary, Indiana, as a child, when his family migrated north for more promising job opportunities [1]. In his youth, he learned the bass violin, which he played in the Count Basie Orchestra in East Chicago. After graduating high school, he started working at Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. steel mill in 1956, where he met Joe Jackson. Lynch played bass in the band that backed up his co-worker’s sons’ musical group, The Jackson 5 [2].
While at Youngstown Sheet & Tube, Lynch became involved with the United Steelworkers (USW) Local 1011 [3]. He was a passionate activist and worked hard for Local 1011, serving as a Grievance Committeeman, Secretary of By-laws, Coordinator of Education, and in other positions [4]. In 1968, Lynch was appointed Staff Representative for United Steelworkers of America [5]. Lynch was sent to Memphis to work with Local 7655, which represented employees of the local Carrier air conditioner plant. In the wake of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in Memphis, Lynch was admired for his leadership skills and ability to conciliate black and white workers at Carrier [6]. His ambition and leadership skills were so well respected that Local 7655’s first union hall was declared “Leon Lynch Union Hall" [7].
At the 1976 USW convention, Steelworkers appointed Lynch to the newly created position of Vice President for Human Affairs [8]. In this position, he was responsible for the union’s Department of Civil Rights and the Wage and Arbitration Department, in addition to overseeing the Audit and Review Committee [9]. Lynch held his position of international Vice President for Human Affairs for six consecutive terms until his retirement in 2006. In addition to overseeing the union’s Civil Rights and human rights efforts, he also chaired the Steelworkers’ Container Industry Conference and Public Employees Conference [10]. Lynch was the first African American to hold such an important position in a major labor union [11].
In 1992, two hundred people gathered at the Genesis Convention center in Gary, to celebrate Lynch’s accomplishments and display the pride they felt for a local hero. Lynch’s admirable character and successful work for the USW raised him to the same status as other prominent, nationally known African American activists in the eyes of fellow Hoosiers. USW Local 1014 President Larry McWay said, “when you talk about great leaders like Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson and others, you have to mention Leon Lynch, who was raised right here in the city of Gary and has done a lot for labor in this country" [12].
In 1995, Lynch was elected to the AFL-CIO Executive Council, where he lent his expertise to committees such as Civil and Human Rights, Immigration, Legislative/Public Policy, and Safety and Occupational Health [13]. During his career, he worked with the A. Philip Randolph Institute, the Democratic National Committee, Labor Roundtable of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators, and was elected by President Bill Clinton to the Advisory Council on Unemployment Compensation and the subcommittee of the Federal Aviation Administration’s Aviation Management Advisory Council. In East Chicago, the USW Local 1011 dedicated its member career development facility to Lynch in 2005. The Leon Lynch Learning Center is still active today and stands as a reminder of Lynch’s dedication to “standing up for working people, advocating for men and women who might otherwise not have had a chance at a fair, living wage.” Lynch died in 2012 after a lifetime of promoting Civil Rights [14].
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
[1] Bowdeya Tweh, “Labor, Civil Rights Activist with Local Ties Dead at 76,” NWI, The Times, May 8, 2012, https://www.nwitimes.com/business/local/labor-civil-rights-activist-with-local-ties-dead-at/article_ec00ffb5-2dcc-50ed-93af-bd3690ee2518.html.
[2] Ann Belser, “Obituary: Leon Lynch / First Black Vice President of a Major Labor Union,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. May 8, 2012, https://www.post-gazette.com/news/obituaries/2012/05/08/Obituary-Leon-Lynch-First-black-vice-president-of-a-major-labor-union/stories/201205080150.
[3] Bowdeya Tweh, “Labor, Civil Rights Activist with Local Ties Dead at 76.”
[4] Nancy Pieters, “Gary Native Lynch Enjoys Role as Top Union Official,” Times (Munster, IN), September 8, 1992.
[5] Bowdeya Tweh, “Labor, Civil Rights Activist with Local Ties Dead at 76.”
[6] “Leon Lynch,” AFL-CIO, March 4, 2008, https://aflcio.org/about/leadership/statements/leon-lynch.
[7] Ann Belser, “Obituary: Leon Lynch / First Black Vice President of a Major Labor Union.”
[8] “Leon Lynch,” AFL-CIO.
[9] “Union, Steel Officials to Speak at Import Rally,” Morning Call (Allentown, PA), October 5, 1982.
[10] “Leon Lynch,” AFL-CIO.
[11] Ann Belser, “Obituary: Leon Lynch / First Black Vice President of a Major Labor Union.”
[12] Louis Blackwell II, “USWA Official Get Hearty ‘Welcome Home’ in Gary,” Times (Munster, IN), April 8, 1992.
[13] “Leon Lynch,” AFL-CIO.
[14] Bowdeya Tweh, “Labor, Civil Rights Activist with Local Ties Dead at 76.”
Contributor
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Student Author: Gwyneth Harris
Faculty/Staff Editors: Dr. Ronald V. Morris, Dr. Kevin C. Nolan, and Christine Thompson
Graduate Assistant Researchers: Carrie Vachon and JB Bilbrey
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Image of Leon Lynch courtesy of United Steelworkers archive.
1950s-present
Gary
Lake County
Organization
Steelworker Union
-
https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/59fe3565c82ede814b2bc20240aa5b4b.jpg
977b38cab92e27f955780aeb74a01d79
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Rudolph Clay
Description
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Rudolph Clay was a renowned African American politician in Gary, Indiana. Clay was born in Hillsboro, Alabama, and following the death of his mother shortly after his birth, he was raised by his aunts in Gary [1]. He attended Israel Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church and was a graduate of Roosevelt High School in 1953. He studied at Indiana University in Bloomington and was awarded a track scholarship. Clay’s civil rights activism began at a young age with his membership in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Youth Council. In 1959, he was drafted into the United States Army and received an Honorable Discharge after two years of service. He returned to Gary to work as an insurance agent before entering politics.
He greatly influenced the African American community in Gary, as well as the state of Indiana during his time as a politician, breaking many racial barriers [2]. Clay participated in many Civil Rights demonstrations in Gary, including boycotts, sit-ins, and freedom rides, as well as marching alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rev. Jesse Jackson in the 1960s. In 1970, in recognition of his work with civil rights activism, Clay was awarded the Southern Christian Leadership Council Operation Bread Basket’s Outstanding Activist Award. From 1972 to 1976, Clay began his career in politics as Indiana’s first African American senator [3]. As an Indiana senator, Clay cast the deciding vote in 1974 to allow African Americans to serve as a Lake County Commissioner [4].
From 1978 to 1982, he served on the Lake County Council, and in 1984, he was elected as Lake County Recorder. In 1987, he was elected as Lake County Commissioner, the position that he had fought to integrate thirteen years earlier. For his continued work in politics and civil rights, Governor Evan Bayh awarded Clay the Outstanding Hoosier Award in 1994. In 2005, he was elected as the first African American Lake County chairman.
Following in the footsteps of Richard Hatcher, the first African American mayor of the city, Clay was elected mayor of Gary in 2006 [5]. As mayor, he worked to demolish dilapidated buildings, pave city streets, and improve public safety by increasing police presence. Education was always an issue of personal importance for Clay as well as the driving force for his political influence. He viewed education as a necessity to make things “better.” When asked about public and private education legislation, he responded that “education is everybody’s business” and promoted education as an avenue for bettering oneself and seeking out leadership roles [6].
Due to illness, Clay did not run for re-election as mayor in 2011. Upon his death in 2013, many who knew him remarked about his influence, not only as a politician, but also a political activist for over forty years, dedicating himself to civil rights [7]. Before his death, people would ask him what he hoped would be the outcome of his political influence in the city of Gary. "When all is said and done, I want Gary to become a better city, with better people, and better jobs" [8].
Source
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[1] Venisha Johnson, Ray Bernal, Mark Edwin Scoggins Sr., and Henrietta Tenney. "Rudolph Clay, Sr." RUDOLPH CLAY Obituary - Gary, IN | The Times. Accessed April 15, 2019. https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nwitimes/obituary.aspx?n=rudolph-clay&pid=165211746&fhid=4986.
[2] "Rudolph M ‘Rudy’ Clay." Findagrave.com. 2019. Accessed April 15, 2019. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/112701339/rudolph-m-clay.
[3] Anthony Thigpen.
[4] Anthony Thigpen.
[5] Anthony Thigpen.
[6] Anthony Thigpen.
[7] "Rudolph M ‘Rudy’ Clay."
[8] Anthony Thigpen.
Contributor
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Student Authors: Emma Cieslik and Robin Johnson
Faculty/Staff Editors: Dr. Ronald V. Morris, Dr. Kevin C. Nolan, and Christine Thompson
Graduate Assistant Researchers: Carrie Vachon and JB Bilbrey
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PHOTO & VIDEO:
Genesis Towers & Gary State Bank, attributed to
Takingactioningary, Public domain, via Wikimedia commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Genesis_Towers_%26_Gary_State_Bank.JPG
1950s-present
Gary
Integration
Lake County
NAACP
Politics
-
https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/f10129612af9255804b18efac4f30526.mp3
c4a0a0f2e5c8ea3d1e1b91f2ef81db07
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Interview 5 with Junifer Hall (Mayor Richard Hatcher of Gary)
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<a href="https://digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/items/show/108">Mayor Richard Hatcher of Gary</a>
Description
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Junifer Hall, a life-long resident of Gary, Indiana describes how Mayor Richard Hatcher promoted residents staying in the city and investing in the city with their dollars and how he impacted her experiences with racism.
<strong>***Trancript***</strong><br /><br /><span><em>Junifer Hall</em>: From a young child, I could hear Mayor Hatcher saying, “stay in Gary, buy in Gary. </span><span>You can be just as competitive. We have to control our own financial dollars,” and that is one of </span><span>the strongest memories I have from my childhood </span><span>because unfortunately, I did not have a lot of </span><span>the experiences of direct racism only because Mayor Hatcher has just pivoted to power.</span>
https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/5e1f80e04b5ad80202ae6bb16e688ba8.mp3
7ef09e0c7d0248f605751216ed9f6033
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Interview 6 with Junifer Hall (Mayor Richard Hatcher of Gary)
Subject
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<a href="https://digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/items/show/108">Mayor Richard Hatcher of Gary</a>
Description
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Junifer Hall, a life-long resident of Gary, Indiana, shares how Mayor Richard Hatcher opened doors for more African American individuals to hold political office, including her mother Represenative Katie Hall. Junifer Hall also describes Hatcher's impact on city hall and blazing a trail of opportunity for others.
<strong>***Transcript***<br /><br /></strong><em>Junifer Hall</em>: And he opened the door for my generation, so we didn’t have to experience as overtly, and we thank him for that, especially myself. Every time now that I go to city hall to serve on the Gary Historic Preservation Commission because if it weren’t for a trailblazer such as Richard Hatcher, there could not have been a Katie Hall, there could not have been a mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson, and I might be biased on this, and I might be sounded a little arrogant, but if it were not for Richard Gordon Hatcher opening the door for all of these people to follow, we could not have had the opportunity to serve, and my mother would often say when she first came to Gary, at city hall there was a receptionist and maybe a janitor people of color, and Mayor Hatcher knocked down so many barriers for so many to hold political offices including Katie Hall.
https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/3b4c44c02ceee2d822d65c497af9803c.jpg
b4062d10611267bea339e0e99e4a7729
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Mayor Richard Hatcher of Gary
Description
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Richard Gordon Hatcher was born on July 10, 1933 in Michigan City, Indiana. He grew up during the Great Depression as the twelfth of thirteen children. His family went on welfare after his father lost his job with the Pullman Car Company [1]. Despite encouragement from his teachers to pursue a career in the trades, Hatcher aspired to be a lawyer, indicative of his future career in political office and civil rights activism. In 1951, Hatcher attended Indiana University on an athletic scholarship, with financial assistance from his older sisters. Hatcher began his activism as an active member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), participating in protests against segregated restaurants while still in college [2]. He earned a law degree from Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana, and then moved to East Chicago, Indiana, to practice law. While there, he served as a deputy prosecutor for Lake County.
In 1962, Hatcher moved to Gary, Indiana, to pursue a career in politics and civil rights. He ran for city council in the 1963 Democratic primary and won due to the large African American support in the city. He was then chosen to be council president. While in office, he helped pass a law to “end restrictive property covenants that forced blacks to live primarily in Gary's midtown section" [3]. In 1967, Hatcher ran for mayor and led a campaign that promoted racial unity and promised to rid the city of corruption and poverty, specifically among African American individuals. In November of that year, he won the election with the support of 96 percent of African American voters and twelve percent of white voters. His election made him the first African American mayor in Indiana and one of the first African American mayors of a large American city. He was elected despite the Democratic Party supporting his Republican opponent Joseph Radigan [4]. His campaign was largely funded by donors like Senator Robert Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey [5]. He appealed to voters as a “young, intelligent, a reputable lawyer, and a capable city council member" [6]. In order to appease white voters, he appointed a white police chief to help create a crime-free city. Hatcher served as mayor for twenty years and then went on to serve as chairman of Jesse Jackson’s Democratic presidential campaign in 1984 and as vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee in the early 1980s [7].
During his five terms as mayor, Hatcher was able to fundraise millions of dollars in order to change the face of Gary, Indiana, adding new public housing units, repaving streets, and coordinating regular garbage collection for multiple inner-city neighborhoods [8]. In supporting African Americans in political leadership, he appointed twenty-five African Americans as governmental department heads. Unfortunately, Hatcher could not resolve every problem Gary had, including the sharp decline in the steel industry, which caused many hardships within Gary and surrounding communities. By the early 1980s, about 25,000 people were laid off at U.S. Steel. Businesses closed down and crime increased [9]. By 1987, when Hatcher left office, about 50,000 people had left Gary, including considerable numbers of white individuals who moved south to Merrillville, Indiana [10].
As mayor, Hatcher fought against race-based inequalities in Gary. Hatcher was part of the lawsuit to allow African Americans to visit Miller Beach, a neighborhood on the southern shore of Lake Michigan. Despite pushback and eventual failure, Hatcher pushed for the development of a bank for Gary’s African American community and more regulations on gun usage. Hatcher also supported accessible housing, founding the $1 house program that allowed residents to purchase a house if they were able to improve it. He also brought African American leaders across the United States to Gary through as part of the first National Black Political Convention [11].
Hatcher continued to be recognized as a powerful voice for civil rights and African American representation in office throughout his life. According to former Lake Country Surveyor George Van Til, Former President Barack Obama personally thanked Hatcher during the 2008 presidential primaries for letting him stand on his shoulders and supporting African Americans running for American leadership position [12]. During his final years, Hatcher and his family lived in Chicago, Illinois. Richard Hatcher passed away on December 13, 2019 at the age of 86. He is still remembered in the African American community as someone who “did the impossible,” in the words of Democratic Representative Charlie Brown of Gary.
<a href="https://digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/show/235">Junifer Hall interview 4</a><br /><a href="https://digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/show/237">Junifer Hall interview 5</a><br /><a href="https://digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/show/239">Junifer Hall interview 6</a><br /><a href="https://digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/show/236">Junifer Hall interview 7</a>
Source
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[1] Emma L. Thornborough, Indiana Blacks in the Twentieth Century. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2000, pp. 175.
[2] Ibid, pp. 176.
[3] Associated Press. “Richard Hatcher, one of 1st black mayors of major city, dead at 86.” NBC News, 2019. Accessed May 1, 2020. Accessed at https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/richard-hatcher-gary-indiana-one-1st-black-mayors-major-u-n1102311.
[4] Craig Lyons. “1967 Gary election a ‘history marker’ with Richard Hatcher as Indiana’s first African-American major.” Chicago Tribune, 2017. Accessed February 2, 2021. Accessed at https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/ct-ptb-richard-hatcher-profile-st-1029-20171028-story.html.
[5] David Rutter. “Rutter: Hatcher still pays his dues for unforgiven ‘sins.’” Chicago Tribune, 2016. Accessed on February 2, 2021. https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/opinion/ct-ptb-rutter-hatcher-st-0309-20160308-story.html
[6] Emma L. Thornborough, Indiana Blacks in the Twentieth Century. pp. 177.
[7] Associated Press.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] David Rutter.
[11] Craig Lyons.
[12] Craig Lyons.
Contributor
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Student Authors: Emma Cieslik and Robin Johnson
Faculty/Staff Editors: Dr. Ronald V. Morris, Dr. Kevin C. Nolan, and Christine Thompson
Graduate Assistant Researchers: Carrie Vachon and JB Bilbrey
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PHOTO & VIDEO:
Richard Hatcher 1967, Public domain, via Wikimedia commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Richard_Hatcher_1967_(a).jpg
1950s-present
Civil Rights Movement
Gary
Housing
Lake County
law
NAACP
Oral History
Politics
-
https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/5cb1c6337f8d4d1405c925c8cc2e0991.jpg
29775f0f2253a906528c3a038a6b4e93
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Reverend Julius James
Description
An account of the resource
Julius James was born in 1918 [1]. After serving in the U.S Army, James graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1952, and the Morehouse School of Religion in 1954 [2]. James was a close friend with fellow Morehouse classmate Martin Luther King, Jr. [3] Reverend James served as pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church and Zion Hill Baptist Church in Georgia, [4] before accepting the call to become the Pastor of St. John Baptist Church in Gary, Indiana in October 1955 [5]. From 1959 to 1960, James served as president of the Baptist Minister’s Conference in Gary [6]. He was also involved in labor movements in Gary, walking among the picketers in the 1959 Steel Strike and supplying meals to protestors [7].
Reverend James brought the Civil Rights movement to St. John Baptist Church by hosting meetings and planning sessions for civil rights organizations in the late 1950’s and early 1960s. He invited prominent African American leaders to speak, including Jesse Jackson and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [8] His civil rights work in the community included serving as president of the Gary branch of the NAACP in the late 1950s [9]. James founded the “Gary Freedom Movement,” which coordinated economic boycotts of businesses that opposed civil rights legislation [10]. On posters, citizens were urged to “Sacrifice for Freedom in Gary. Don’t Buy Anything Anywhere for Easter. Wear Your Old Clothes for New Dignity. Boycott" [11]. In 1964, James organized a Christmas shopping boycott to protest businesses who opposed the Omnibus Civil Rights Bill [12].This organization later became the Gary Freedom Movement Council, and James served as chairman [13]. In the mid-1960s, he brought famous African Americans to the Gary for speaking engagements, including comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory, who encouraged 900 Gary residents to practice “selective shopping” at stores outside of Gary to protest continued racial injustice [14].
In recognition of his civil rights leadership, Reverend James was awarded the NAACP’s Mary White Ovington Award in 1964 for outstanding contributions to sustaining civil rights [15]. In March 1965, James bussed a group of congregants from St. John Baptist Church south to Atlanta to join the march from Selma to the state’s capital in Montgomery led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The protest march was in support of the supported the Voting Rights Act, prohibiting racial discrimination in voting. At home in Gary, James coordinated meetings between Dr. King and local Gary African American leaders. In 1966, Gary Mayor Richard Hatcher met Dr. King for the first time when Rev. James brought King to speak at St. John Baptist Church [16]. Dr. King spoke to 275 clergymen of various faiths at St. John Baptist Church, emphasizing interfaith solidarity [17].
Fair housing practices later became a focus of Reverend James’ activism. Under his leadership, St. John Baptist Church purchased a rundown housing complex at 22nd and Carolina Streets. Using government grants, the church remodeled the housing complex into the St. John Homes, which operated as one of the only viable non-profit housing developments in the U.S. until 1984 [18]. James founded the Fair Share Organization, focused on fair housing and employment practices, [19] with Cherrie White, secretary of the Gary NAACP, and Richard Gordon Hatcher, Gary’s first African America mayor [20].
Rev. James was inducted into the Steel City Hall of Fame in 1987, for making “broad, significant, and multiple contributions to the Gary community or to society at large" [21]. Rev. James died in 1994, after a lifetime dedicated to civil rights in Indiana and the nation [22].
Source
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[1] Correspondence from Julius James (Shiloh Baptist Church) to Martin Luther King, Jr, March 14, 1955. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. Accessed on February 5, 2021. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/julius-james.
[2] Correspondence from Julius James, March 14, 1955.
[3] Becky Jacobs. “Man killed in Gary was great-grandson of pastor, civil rights activist.” Chicago Tribune, February 22, 2019. Accessed on February 5, 2021. https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/ct-ptb-julius-james-death-st-0213-story.html.
[4] Correspondence from Julius James, March 14, 1955.
[5] “Our Community.” St. John Baptist Church. Accessed on February 5, 2021. http://stjohnbcgary.com/community/
[6] Correspondence from Julius James, March 14, 1955.
[7] “Our Community.”
[8] “Our Community.”
[9] Correspondence from Julius James, March 14, 1955.
[10] James B. Lane. City of the Century: A History of Gary, Indiana. Indiana University Press, 1978, pp. 281.
[11] James H. Madison and Lee Ann Sandweiss. Chapter 11: Justice, Equality, and Democracy for All Hoosiers in Justice, Equality, and Democracy for All Hoosiers. http://indianahistory.org/wp-content/uploads/Hoosiers-and-the-American-Story-ch-11.pdf
[12] Becky Jacobs. “Man killed in Gary was great-grandson of pastor, civil rights activist.”
[13] “Gary woman heads Ind. Conference of NAACP.” Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 6 November 1965, pp. 12. Hoosier States Chronicles. Accessed February 5, 2021. https://newspapers.library.in.gov/cgi-bin/indiana?a=d&d=INR19651106-01.1.12&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-------
[14] “Gregory Endorses Boycott.” Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 23 January 1965, pp. 6. Hoosier States Chronicles. Accessed February 5, 2021. https://newspapers.library.in.gov/cgi-bin/indiana?a=d&d=INR19650123-01.1.6&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-------
[15] “Gary woman heads Ind. Conference of NAACP.”
[16] Joyce Russell. “Local residents recall the legacy of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on the 50th anniversary of his death.” NWI.com. Accessed February 5, 2021. https://www.nwitimes.com/news/history/local-residents-recall-the-legacy-of-the-rev-martin-luther-king-jr-on-the-50th/article_9eb318e4-92e1-5fcd-b0a1-27058351c345.html
[17] Nancy Coltun Webster. “MILK’s life remembered as Northwest Indiana leaders continue to struggle.” Chicago Tribune, April 4, 2018. https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/ct-ptb-king-anniversary-indiana-st-0404-20180403-story.html
[18] “Our Community.”
[19] Correspondence from Julius James, March 14, 1955.
[20] Carmen M. Woodson-Wray and Gary Crusader. “After 103 years Cherrie White has truly had a productive life.” Crusader. Accessed on February 5, 2021. https://chicagocrusader.com/103-years-cherrie-white-truly-productive-life/ [21] “Steel City hall of Fame.” Gary Public Library. Accessed February 5, 2021. http://www.garypubliclibrary.org/steel-city-hall-of-fame/
[22] “Our Community.”
Contributor
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Student Author: Emma Cieslik
Faculty/Staff Editors: Dr. Ronald V. Morris, Dr. Kevin C. Nolan, and Christine Thompson
Graduate Assistant Researchers: Carrie Vachon and JB Bilbrey
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Sacrifice: Join Rev. Martin Luther King, Indiana Historical Society.
https://images.indianahistory.org/digital/collection/V0002/id/1148/rec/2
1900-1940s
1950s-present
Civil Rights Movement
Gary
Housing
Lake County
NAACP
Religious Leaders
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https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/a1c8b35156d8c668e634f6c104ad3f08.jpg
0b1b30008fa594b4eb1ec194e91b0b31
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Miller Beach
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Nestled between a steel plant and the Indiana Dunes National Park, Miller Beach is a community on the easternmost side of Gary with a reputation of progressive attitudes. Fine sunsets and beautiful wilderness sanctuaries paint Miller Beach as a resplendent recreational getaway for anybody looking to escape the crowded and busy streets of Chicago. Miller Beach was not always a destination that welcomed everyone, however. Miller Beach began as a sundown town, where African Americans spent time as daytime workers and household servants but were expected to be out of town by dark [1]. In its infancy, Miller Beach had a long way to go before it encapsulated the progressive ideals for which it is known today.
Miller Beach began as the small town of Miller Station in 1865. Although a mere train stop in its beginning, it soon became a settlement for steel workers. In 1919 the town was annexed by Gary and became Miller Beach or, as it is often referred, Miller. Annexation was against the wishes of many who wanted to keep their clandestine beaches unspoiled. Quickly encroaching on the solitude of the community, people flocked to Miller on streetcars that connected downtown Gary to Lake Street in Miller Beach [2]. Miller rapidly became a hotspot for wealthy white Chicagoans to build summer cottages or luxurious landmark homes so they could spend their summers enjoying the dunes and lagoons of Lake Michigan. During this early period, the people of Miller Beach did not allow African Americans to live in the community [3]. War production of steel brought an era of economic prosperity in Gary. A labor shortage and company recruitment inspired a large number of black workers to move up from the south to find jobs. Barred from Miller Beach, they were forced to live in the Midtown neighborhood, overcrowding soon pushed African Americans to buy property in other neighborhoods. White residents in these nearby neighborhoods quickly became uncomfortable at the thought of integration and moved to Miller, where African Americans were not allowed to visit the beaches or bathe in the waters of the lake [4]. The racist attitudes of the affluent white people did not sit well with some of Miller’s residents.
In 1949, black and white Gary citizens banded together to march to the beaches of Miller. They planned to have the African Americans among them step into the waters of Lake Michigan in an act of defiance against racist attitudes. A white mob met the group at Marquette Park, armed with clubs and pipes. Only three black residents reached the water. Racist and violent incidents like this continued for years after the Gary residents marched for integration in Miller Beach [5].
The bleak reality of Miller’s racist reputation was not to last, however. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 pushed small communities like Miller Beach to address their overtly racist practices. In that same year, television writer Stanley Greenberg sold a Miller Beach house to a black family. It was an unprecedented decision that brought Miller closer to integration, but caused violent threats against Greenberg. A few years later, Richard Hatcher became the first African American mayor of Gary. He was a pro-civil-rights and antipollution activist [6]. White flight rapidly followed Hatcher’s election. Entire Gary neighborhoods were put up for sale as white residents with uncompromising attitudes about integration left the area [7].
In 1971, the residents of Miller Beach decided to act on the unrest in their community. The Miller Citizens Corporation, or MCC, was created by a group of primarily white, liberal residents who sought to bring stability to Miller Beach. The corporation’s goals were to welcome black families into the community and discourage the panic selling by white citizens that had afflicted the community since Hatcher’s election. They also set up a hotline to oust harmful, false rumors [8].
Davetta M. Haywood, a woman whose family moved to Gary during the Second Great Migration from the South, joined the MCC after moving to Miller as an adult. Describing the work of the group, she said “we wanted to work with our neighbors instead of pushing them away" [9]. The combined effort quelled white anxiety and led to racial stability in the area. By the end of the 1980s, Miller Beach was about 68% black, making a primarily black neighborhood out of a space that had been a prejudiced, exclusive white community only a couple decades earlier [10].
Today, Miller Beach is a bustling beach town that offers an abundance of diverse activities to residents and visitors. The community retains eco-friendly practices to preserve the Indiana Dunes while hosting a multitude of restaurants, breweries, and small businesses. The arts are alive at the Miller Beach Arts and Creative District, where music events, artist talks, and gallery showings offer a unique experience [11]. In 2016, the Arts and Creative District hosted an exhibit at the Marshall J. Gardner Center for the Arts. Vanguards: Moving “Out Here” to Miller was an exhibit showcasing “black perspectives on joining the Miller community in the ‘60s and ‘70s" [12]. The exhibit gave voices to the African Americans whose efforts changed Miller Beach from an exclusive, segregated beach spot to the integrated community known for its progressive ideals. Due to the perseverance of African Americans against prejudice and blatant racist attitudes, Miller’s fine sunsets and beaches can now be enjoyed by anyone who wishes to dip their toes into the tranquil waters of Lake Michigan.
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[1] Matthew A. Werner, “Miller Station to Miller Beach & Everything in Between,” DigTheDunes, February 2, 2018, https://digthedunes.com/miller-station-miller-beach-everything/.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Grant Pick, “Now Comes Miller’s Time: An Island of Integration and Natural Beauty in Gary, Indiana,” Chicago Reader, June 29, 1989, https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/now-comes-millers-time-an-island-of-integration-and-natural-beauty-in-gary-indiana/Content?oid=874093.
[4] Matthew A. Werner, “Miller Station to Miller Beach & Everything in Between.”
[5] Grant Pick, “Now Comes Miller’s Time: An Island of Integration and Natural Beauty in Gary, Indiana.”
[6] Ibid.
[7] Matthew A. Werner, “Miller Station to Miller Beach & Everything in Between.”
[8] James B. Lane, “Moving to Miller,” Northwest Indiana Historian James B Lane, Blogspot, April 28, 2016, http://northwestindianahistorianjamesblane.blogspot.com/2016/04/moving-to-miller.html.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Grant Pick, “Now Comes Miller’s Time: An Island of Integration and Natural Beauty in Gary, Indiana.”
[11] “Visit Miller Beach.” South Shore Indiana, South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority, January 25, 2021, https://www.southshorecva.com/listing/visit-miller-beach/2997/.
[12] Bob Kostanczuk, “Nina Simone Doc Highlights Miller Beach Exhibit on Gary’s Past,” Chicago Tribune, February 16, 2016, https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/ct-ptb-nina-simone-gary-st-0219-20160216-story.html.
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Student Author: Gwyneth Harris
Faculty/Staff Editors: Dr. Ronald V. Morris, Dr. Kevin C. Nolan, and Christine Thompson
Graduate Assistant Researchers: Carrie Vachon and JB Bilbrey
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PHOTO & VIDEO:
Miller Beach Sign, attributed to Visviva, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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1800s
1900-40s
1950s-present
Civil Rights Movement
Entertainment
Gary
Integration
Lake County
Segregation
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https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/72897f1d2513a1a85e827d345f242e12.jpg
bf60d10fb1f25dbd22fbf6f1a489dfb4
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Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church
Description
An account of the resource
The Hammond Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church was established around 1919. The church began with a small, humble congregation that grew considerably under Reverend William Davis [1]. For thirty years after its creation, Mt. Zion’s church leaders and congregates met in temporary spaces. In 1949, Mt. Zion established its permanent home in a one-story brick building designed by a local architectural firm [2]. Not only did Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church play a role in the religious, political, social, and civic life of Hammond’s African American community, but their long time preacher Reverend Albert R. Burns was a significant figure in Hammond [3].
Reverend Albert R. Burns was the great-grandson of slaves and grew up in Enterprise, Mississippi, where segregation limited his freedom and access to quality education. Despite these restrictions, Burns loved reading works by Booker T. Washington, who inspired him to turn his ill feelings toward his hometown into compassion. This compassion, in addition to a promise to God during a terrible illness, pushed Burns to “spread [God’s] word" [4]. Beginning in 1935, Burns preached in Mississippi until the early 1940s. Burns moved to Hammond and continued his education, and in the winter of 1944 when the pastor of Mt. Zion became ill, Burns was ordained and filled in for the pastor. Burns’ position became permanent after the pastor passed away [5].
From 1945 to 1998, Reverend Burns served as the Mt. Zion’s pastor. Together, Burns and Mt. Zion worked continuously to challenge racial injustice, often with the help of the local Chapter of the NAACP and the Hammond Human Relations Commission [6]. Burns’ passion for racial justice and his leadership inspired Mt. Zion congregants to fight for civil rights, quality housing, and job opportunities for Hammond’s African American community [7].
In 1958, in a court case against local school officials, Burns fought for the right for African-Americans to teach in Hammond schools. The next year, his daughter, Annie Burns-Hicks, a graduate of Ball State Teachers College, filled the very position for which her father had fought. Burns-Hicks was Hammond’s first African American teacher [8].
Reverend Burns aspired to provide quality housing for the elderly in Hammond [9]. The opening of Mt. Zion Pleasant View Plaza in 1983 attests to Burns’ ability to manifest his hopes into concrete benefits to his community [10]. Mt. Zion Pleasant View Plaza continues to provide affordable senior housing with 127 one-bedroom rental units.
In 1996, at the age of 85, Burns criticized Hammond Mayor Duane W. Dedelow Jr. for breaking his campaign promise to hire more African American police officers [11]. This is just one example of the civil rights work that Reverend Burns was doing in Hammond late into the 1990s, before retiring in 1998 after 53 years at Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church [12].
In 2019, the Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church was honored with an Indiana Historical Bureau historical marker. The marker “celebrated Mt. Zion’s place in the community as both a religious and civic leader and comes as the church celebrates its centennial anniversary" [13].
Source
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[1] “Historic Marker: Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church.” Indiana Historical Bureau. Indianapolis, Indiana. 2019. Accessed October 7, 2020. https://www.in.gov/history/markers/4477.htm
[2] “Mt. Zion Church Marks History as a Hammond Mainstay.” Indiana Landmarks. Indianapolis, Indiana. February 26, 2020. Accessed October 7,2020. https://www.indianalandmarks.org/2020/02/mt-zion-church-marks-history-as-a-hammond-mainstay/
[3] “Mt. Zion Church Marks History as a Hammond Mainstay.” Indiana Landmarks. Indianapolis, Indiana. February 26, 2020. Accessed October 7,2020. https://www.indianalandmarks.org/2020/02/mt-zion-church-marks-history-as-a-hammond-mainstay/
[4] Franklin, Lu Ann. “A Fisher of Men.” The Times. March 8, 1998. Accessed October 7, 2020 .https://www.nwitimes.com/uncategorized/a-fisher-of-men/article_8889ea0c-3a45-5cd0-97a5-b4e7210fc498.html
[5] Franklin, Lu Ann. “A Fisher of Men.” The Times. March 8, 1998. Accessed October 7, 2020 .https://www.nwitimes.com/uncategorized/a-fisher-of-men/article_8889ea0c-3a45-5cd0-97a5-b4e7210fc498.html
[6] “Historic Marker: Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church.” Indiana Historical Bureau. Indianapolis, Indiana. 2019. Accessed October 7, 2020. https://www.in.gov/history/markers/4477.htm
[7] “Mt. Zion Church Marks History as a Hammond Mainstay.” Indiana Landmarks. Indianapolis, Indiana. February 26, 2020. Accessed October 7,2020. https://www.indianalandmarks.org/2020/02/mt-zion-church-marks-history-as-a-hammond-mainstay/
[8] Yovich, Daniel J. “East Hammond pastors deal with city’s divisions.” The Times. October 2,1996. Accessed October 7, 2020. https://www.nwitimes.com/uncategorized/east-hammond-pastors-deal-with-city-s-divisions/article_b3aa6155-dfcd-5003-b4b2-4325887408fd.html
[9] Steele, Andrew. “State Marker Honors Black Church’s Commitment to Service.” The Times. July 20, 2019. Accesses October 7, 2020. https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/lake/lake-newsletter/state-marker-honors-black-church-s-commitment-to-service/article_cb31e201-55fe-5484-baf5-85d6d6c868cf.html
[10] “Historic Marker: Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church.” Indiana Historical Bureau. Indianapolis, Indiana. 2019. Accessed October 7, 2020. https://www.in.gov/history/markers/4477.htm
[11] Yovich, Daniel J. “East Hammond pastors deal with city’s divisions.” The Times. October 2,1996. Accessed October 7, 2020. https://www.nwitimes.com/uncategorized/east-hammond-pastors-deal-with-city-s-divisions/article_b3aa6155-dfcd-5003-b4b2-4325887408fd.html
[12] Franklin, Lu Ann. “A Fisher of Men.” The Times. March 8, 1998. Accessed October 7, 2020 .https://www.nwitimes.com/uncategorized/a-fisher-of-men/article_8889ea0c-3a45-5cd0-97a5-b4e7210fc498.html [13] “Indiana State Marker Honors Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church for its Longtime Commitment to Service in the African-American Community.” Black Christian News Network One. July 21, 2019. Accessed October 7, 2020. https://blackchristiannews.com/2019/07/indiana-state-marker-honors-mt-zion-missionary-baptist-church-for-its-longtime-commitment-to-service-in-the-african-american-community/
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Student Authors: Gwyneth Harris and Molly Hollcraft
Faculty/Staff Editors: Dr. Ronald V. Morris, Dr. Kevin C. Nolan, and Christine Thompson
Graduate Assistant Researchers: Carrie Vachon and JB Bilbrey
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<a href="https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.in.gov%2Fhistory%2Fstate-historical-markers%2Ffind-a-marker%2Ffind-historical-markers-by-county%2Findiana-historical-markers-by-county%2Fmt-zion-mb-church%2F&data=04%7C01%7Ctlhayes2%40bsu.edu%7C5ed160245b3244a2680208d8c6c04bf9%7C6fff909f07dc40da9e30fd7549c0f494%7C0%7C0%7C637477876498563775%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=vwuNi1hBtbWgz49GDxxP8ZlQpV64avn5xDIpPfB5yC0%3D&reserved=0">Indiana Historical Bureau: Historical Marker</a>
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Courtesy Indiana Landmarks https://www.indianalandmarks.org/2020/02/mt-zion-church-marks-history-as-a-hammond-mainstay/
1900-40s
1950s-present
Church
education
Equality
Hammond
Indiana Historical Bureau Marker
Lake County
religion
-
https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/02aeacead59903046bc5ccd7e8764b26.jpg
30a9853f597251d349aaf4216c83f98b
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Curtis Strong
Description
An account of the resource
Born in 1915 to the “son of the slave owner who had owned his mother’s family”,[1] Curtis Strong was no stranger to racism or the effects that segregation had on African American lives. Born in Mississippi, Strong grew up in Dixon, Illinois, before moving to Gary, Indiana, with hopes of joining the Air Force as a pilot. [2] However, because of the same racism and segregation that he would fight his whole life, he was unable to become a pilot and instead began working in a Gary tin mill in 1937.[3] The same year that Strong became a member of Steelworkers Union Local 1014, he witnessed the Memorial Day Massacre; a Chicago incident where police rioted and fired on unarmed, protesting steelworkers, killing 10. [4]
Strong was appointed as the first African American union griever at the Gary Works coke plant, handling union members’ grievances and complaints against their employer. He quickly began working with other African American factory workers to form “independent organization” within the union.[5] Strong also knew that, given the time and power dynamics within the union, if African American workers wanted to see change they would need to align their own goals with those of their white coworkers. Consequently, Strong spent a great deal of time “building Black-White unity”, and worked together with others in the factory so that changes would benefit all workers.[6] Strong pushed for changes in discriminatory practices, including desegregating jobs and locker rooms, and worked with various union members to encourage other changes, like internal hiring preferences, that benefitted all workers regardless of race. [7] His approaches were not without opposition, however, and he narrowly escaped death after two “union goons” once threw him from the third story window of a hotel. Curtis was eventually appointed to the International Union, where he worked to improve work conditions for not only African American steelworkers, but factory workers everywhere. [8]
Curtis and his wife, Jeannette, were both very involved with the NAACP throughout their lives. Jeannette was a steelworker activist like Curtis, but she also worked with her husband and the Gary NAACP to combat segregated medical treatment, housing, and nearly an entirely white Gary police force.[9] With the support of other NAACP members and resources, the Strongs helped desegregate hospitals where, as Curtis recounts, “one woman delivered a baby in the hallway because she was black.”[10] Curtis Strong not only picketed outside predominantly white hospitals, but simultaneously helped plan for 500 Gary citizens to participate in the 1963 March on Washington, partook in the march, and then returned to picketing as soon as he returned to Gary. [11],[12]
Strong worked throughout his life to pave a path to a better future for the African American community. He played a key role in the 1968 campaign that saw Richard Hatcher become the first African American mayor of Gary, where he served for 20 years.[13] Strong died on September 16, 2003 as one of the most influential labor and civil rights leaders in America’s history, and his legacy and voice live on in the policies of labor and union workplaces, as well as in the hearts of all those impacted by the Gary NAACP. [14]
Source
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[1] “Black Freedom Fighters in Steel: Black Workers Commemorated on Broadway,” The Chicago Crusader, October 8, 2018. https://chicagocrusader.com/black-freedom-fighters-in-steel-black-workers-commemorated-on-broadway/
[2] “Remembering Curtis Strong, 1915-2003,” People’s World, October 3, 2003. https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/remembering-curtis-strong-1915-2003/
[3] “Black Freedom Fighters in Steel: Black Workers Commemorated on Broadway”
[4] “Remembering Curtis Strong, 1915-2003”
[5] “Black Freedom Fighters in Steel: Black Workers Commemorated on Broadway”
[6] “Remembering Curtis Strong, 1915-2003”
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] “Physicians Recall Integrating Hospitals,” The Post-Tribune, May 2, 1996.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ruth Needleman. “Black Freedom Fighters in Steel: The Struggle for Democratic Unionism,” 2003.
[12] “Physicians Recall Integrating Hospitals”
[13] “Remembering Curtis Strong, 1915-2003”
[14] Ibid.
Contributor
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Student Author: Joel Sharp
Faculty/Staff Editors: Dr. Ronald V. Morris, Dr. Kevin C. Nolan, and Christine Thompson
Graduate Assistant Researchers: Carrie Vachon and JB Bilbrey
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PHOTO & VIDEO:
Gary Steel Works, United States Steel Corporation, 1959, attributed to Steven R. Shook, Public domain, via Flickr.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/shookphotos/4219006672/in/photostream/
1900-1940s
1950s-present
Civil Rights Movement
Gary
Integration
Lake County
NAACP
Organization
Politics
Steelworker Union
Union
Violence
-
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3af30f527214c7098334c09c95e2cf7d
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Jeannette Strong
Description
An account of the resource
Jeannette Strong played instrumental roles in the desegregation of both housing and hospital care in Gary, Indiana, throughout the 1960’s, and served as a major leader within the Gary chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Following a Gary City Council vote in July of 1962 that rejected moving towards desegregated housing, Strong and the NAACP helped organize a peaceful march to City Hall in protest of the “ghettoized housing conditions” that were being imposed on the African American community. [1] The protests were successful, and early in 1964 a “26-member Advisory Committee on Human Relations” was established to help protect the rights and relations of Gary’s African American community. [2]
In 1963, following the majority of her work to desegregate housing, Strong turned much of her attention to the disproportional hospital care that African Americans received when compared to the white population. Dr. Benjamin Grant, the first African American doctor to work for primarily white Gary Methodist Hospital, recounts times where African American patients would be forced to “die in the hall” while beds in dual occupancy rooms lay empty, for the sole reason that a white patient was already occupying one of the beds in the room. [3] Strong began working closely with the NAACP and other organizations, diligently attempting to form a picketed protest that could not be overlooked. In a letter directed to Gary clergy members, she urged them to take action and to support this cause by announcing information about the movement to their congregations. [4] Strong assured the clergy that their demonstrations would be held to the “highest level of Christian conduct”, and asked that they dedicate a portion of their offerings that month to her cause. [5] Her call was answered, and the clergy endorsed the cause by condemning segregation, which allowed Strong to turn her attention to Indiana Governor Matthew Welsh. She wrote to the Governor, insisting that the hospital’s refusal to release clear statements about how they planned to correct their unequal and heavily segregated healthcare was of the utmost importance for the growing population of African Americans in Gary. [6]
Following negotiations with the Methodist Hospital, it was understood that new protocol would be implemented over time at the hospital, eventually moving to a “first-come first-serve” basis with patients. [7] The hospital, despite agreeing to these terms, did not begin implementing new policies right away, which prompted Strong to once again reach out and request a meeting with the hospital committee. She was met with nearly a month of waiting while the hospital pushed aside her requests, insisting that they could not discuss it until their next committee meeting. [8] Finally, after much deliberation and years of unequal hospital treatment, Methodist Hospital implemented their new “first-come first-serve” policy. The committee was even convinced, thanks to a determined and resolute Strong, that “there should be more African American representation on the board. [9]
Strong was also a driving factor in key police reform that emerged following an incident in 1973 where a state trooper wrote “NIG” in the box meant for race while processing an African American’s paperwork. [10] This blatant act of racism sparked immediate outrage from the community and Strong. She not only sought fervently for the immediate termination of the involved officer’s job, but also for serious and permanent police reform. The NAACP demanded that reform include updated screening processes, hiring practices, and the elimination of discriminatory practices. [11] Strong also pointed out that of the total 1,400 Gary police department employees, a mere 14 were African American; “and four of those were janitors." [12]
On October 9, 1981 Jeannette Strong passed away at 61 years of age after serving in the NAACP for over 20 years, and as an active Democratic politician who acted as 1st District vice chairman. [13]
Source
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[1] James B. Lane, “City of the Century: A History of Gary, Indiana,” 1978, 279.
[2] Ibid.
[3] “Physicians Recall Integrating Hospitals”, The Post-Tribune, May 2, 1996.
[4] Jeannette Strong, “Letter to the Clergymen of Gary,” July 19, 1963.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Jeannette Strong, “Letter to Indiana Governor Matthew Welsh,” July 25, 1963.
[7] “Report of Meeting Between Members of Methodist Hospital Follow-Up Committee and Bishop Richard C. Raines,” February 19, 1964.
[8] “Civil Rights Co-Ordinating Committee,” The Methodist Hospital of Gary, INC, October 5, 1963.
[9] “Report of Meeting Between Members of Methodist Hospital Follow-Up Committee and Bishop Richard C. Raines”
[10] “State Police Charged with ‘Blatant Discrimination’, The Post-Tribune, January 26, 1974.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] “Jeannette Strong, Former NAACP Chief, Dies at 61,” The Post-Tribune, October 9, 1981.
Contributor
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Student Author: Joel Sharp
Faculty/Staff Editors: Dr. Ronald V. Morris, Dr. Kevin C. Nolan, and Christine Thompson
Graduate Assistant Researchers: Carrie Vachon and JB Bilbrey
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Information about rights held in and over the resource
PHOTO & VIDEO:
Courtesy Chicago Tribune https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/ct-ptb-virtual-civil-rights-st-0405-story.html
1950s-present
Civil Rights Movement
Gary
Healthcare
Integration
Lake County
NAACP
-
https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/53cee980cea3c96e50ecc76954f8a46e.png
e7bd1e267f4dcd04735a94d819cdf41a
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Places
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St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church, Gary
Description
An account of the resource
The St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church in Gary, Indiana, was founded in 1916, with six members. Less than a year later in July 1917, the church acquired two lots at 1938 Adams Street to erect a building and provide their African American congregation with a sanctuary for worship.[1] Within nine years, the congregation expanded to 3,500 people under Reverend Martin Van Buren Bolden, who founded the Northern Indiana District Association as well as the State Convention while serving as pastor of St. Paul.[2] Following Bolden’s lead in forming a relationship with the Gary community, his successor Reverend William Franklin Lovelace continued the church’s community outreach. Throughout the Depression era St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church served the public with hot meals, medical expenses, funerary expenses, and was always available to serve as a roof over anyone’s head; regardless of skin color. [3], [4]
Following Lovelace’s passing in 1942, Dr. Lester Kendel Jackson took over as pastor, and he continued the Church’s community-focused legacy. Jackson was very vocal in the community regarding discrimination and the adverse effects of segregation. He shared his own powerful accounts of persistent discrimination with the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. As a result, for the first time in history, such a council publicly and almost unanimously voted to condemn racial discrimination.[5]
In 1963, the church burned down, despite being less than a block away from a local fire station. Many suspected the tragic event was a result of Jackson’s outspoken approach to combating racism and discrimination. [6] Although the fire was never investigated by authorities, many church members believe that it was an act of retaliation in response to the work Jackson did to integrate businesses including the Gary National Bank, Marquette Park, Littons Clothing Store, and the Post-Tribune.[7] As Jackson stated “We lost everything we had. They intended it for evil, but God used it for good [8]”. Jackson and the church refused to be silenced, and in 1966 hosted a two-service event at their new building. The first service was for the congregation, as they had been waiting three years for their new sanctuary, but the second service drew the most attention. The second service involved incredibly prominent members of the community, including Robert Gasser and Dale Belles, the president of the Gary National Bank and head publisher of the Post-Tribune, respectively.[9] St. Paul continued to host prominent figures, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as it worked with the community to eradicate racist policies and to integrate jobs previously unavailable to African Americans, such as conductors and motormen at the Gary Transit Company. [10]
St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church continues to hold services at its historic building on Grant St., built after the suspicious fire in 1963. The congregation continues its legacy of community outreach and activism, and improving the lives of Gary’s African American community. [11]
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
[1]History of St. Paul Baptist Church. Reverend L. K. Jackson Papers, Indiana University Northwest Library, Calumet Regional Archives,
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Jerry Davich. “Gary Church Turns 100, Faces New Challenge,” Post-Tribune, March 4, 2016. https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/opinion/ct-ptb-davich-gary-church-turns-100-st-0304-20160304-story.html
[5] History of St. Paul Baptist Church
[6] “St. Paul Missionary Baptist Continues 100th Anniversary Events in August,” The Chicago Crusader, August 4, 2016. https://chicagocrusader.com/st-paul-missionary-baptist-continues-100th-anniversary-events-august/
[7]Ibid.
[8] Jerry Davich
[9] “Two Services to Open St. Paul Baptist Church Sunday,” The Gary Post-Tribune, January 15, 1966.
[10] “Gary Church Turns 100, Faces New Challenge.”
[11] “St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church,” Facebook, accessed July 2, 2020. https://www.facebook.com/StPaulMBGary/
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Student Author: Joel Sharp
Faculty/Staff Editors: Dr. Ronald V. Morris, Dr. Kevin C. Nolan, and Christine Thompson
Graduate Assistant Researchers: Carrie Vachon and JB Bilbrey
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PHOTO & VIDEO:
Courtesy Chicago Tribune https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/opinion/ct-ptb-davich-gary-church-turns-100-st-0304-20160304-story.html
1900-40s
1950s-present
Church
Gary
Integration
Lake County
religion
-
https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/faf2388f3c9ab7929c9bb6c2cf4943f2.jpg
808aec862d2265a84890c280c4276c11
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Dublin Core
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Ralph Waldo Emerson High School
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Ralph Waldo Emerson High School was the first high school built in Gary, Indiana. Emerson High School was constructed in 1909 by St. Louis architect William Ittner.[1] William A. Wirt, superintendent of Gary school systems, played a large part in designing the building. Desiring to implement his innovative “Work-Study-Play” philosophy of education, in which students took vocational and athletic classes along with traditional high school courses, Wirt required the building to contain amenities such a foundry, large gymnasium, and printing shop. The three-story school building was intended to be a “total learning environment,” separated physically from the growing industrial city by a park and surrounding athletic fields.[2] While the design and teaching methods employed at Emerson were cutting edge for the time period, the school largely failed to provide for the educational needs of Gary’s growing population. Upholding policies of segregation, the school prevented most African Americans from joining the student body. In 1927, when 18 African American students transferred to Emerson High School, tensions boiled over, and white students staged a school walkout to protest the admittance of their African American classmates.[3]</p>
<p>Since Gary’s founding by the United States Steel Corporation in 1906, the city’s public schools had been segregated by residential boundaries and school board policies. As the African American population began to grow during the 1920s, African American families were sequestered into crowded, low-income neighborhoods. “The Patch,” later named Midtown, was one such neighborhood. The only school in The Patch, located on Virginia Street, could not meet the needs of its many students and was overcrowded by the late 1920s. In an effort to alleviate the school and push educational reform, Superintendent Wirt decided to allow 18 African American honor roll students to transfer to Emerson High School.[4]</p>
<p>On September 19, 1927, the 18 African American students entered Emerson High School for the first time. Superintendent Wirt did not expect the strong backlash that quickly followed. Within the first week, the new students began receiving harsh threats from their white classmates. According to former student Hazel Bratton Sanders, “the white students would line up on both sides of the sidewalk and stretch their arms over us.” As the African American students were forced to walk under them like an arch they yelled insults like “'Go away, darkies. This isn't your school.'”[5] The students were also subject to verbal abuse, and many were pushed and spit on by white students.[6]</p>
<p>Fearing that the admittance of the African American students would lead to more integration, white students and families planned a mass demonstration. On September 26, 1927, approximately 600 white students staged a school walkout at Emerson High School and refused to return until the African American students were removed. Protests continued for multiple days, and by Wednesday, over 1350 participants were involved.[7] Superintendent Wirt attempted to threaten the strikers, but the all-white school board sided with the demonstrators. The protests ended when the school board struck a deal with white protesters. Rather than integrating Emerson High School, the city would build an all-African American school and send the African American students back to their old school in “The Patch.”[8]</p>
<p>Three students appealed the decision to gain re-admittance into Emerson High School, but their appeal was denied. The new school for African American students, Theodore Roosevelt High School, was built in the center of Midtown and opened in 1931. For the students mistreated at Emerson in 1927, Roosevelt High School came too late. Although Roosevelt was a beautiful facility with many amenities, the decision to build the all-African American school in favor of integrating existing schools perpetuated the segregation of Gary public schools.[9]</p>
<p>Emerson High School was officially integrated in 1948, but the trauma sustained by the African American students never faded.[10] Due to Superintendent Wirt’s pioneering work in educational reform, Emerson High School has been deemed historically significant and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.[11] Declining enrollment in the 1970s, was the impetus for the transition into a magnet school in the early 1980s. With inadequate funds to maintain the building, the school board made the difficult decision to close Emerson School for the Visual and Performing Arts in 2008, just one year shy of the building’s centennial anniversary. Since its closure, the historic school has stood empty, quickly decaying due to the weather and vandalism.[12] While the building is listed under the National Register, there are currently no plans to restore the Emerson High School.[13]</p>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
[1] Jerry Davich, “Is writing on wall for Gary's Emerson school?” Chicago Tribune, July 9, 2015, https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/opinion/ct-ptb-davich-dead-body-emerson-st-0710-20150709-story.html
[2] National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, “Emerson, Ralph Waldo, School,” United States Department of the Interior National Park Service, 1995, https://secure.in.gov/apps/dnr/shaard/r/217fb/N/Emerson_School_Lake_CO_Nom.pdf
[3] Carole Carlson, “Gary’s Roosevelt High was built for a growing city’s black students when schools resisted integration. Now it’s shuttered with an uncertain future,” Chicago Tribune, February 28, 2020, https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/ct-ptb-gary-roosevelt-history-st-0301-20200228-duwcmtbiqbeqpko76y7uw7u2mm-story.html
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] “Emerson School,” American Urbex, 2011, http://americanurbex.com/wordpress/?p=1370
[8] Carole Carlson, “Gary’s Roosevelt High was built for a growing city’s black students.”
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] “Emerson, Ralph Waldo, School,” United States Department of the Interior National Park Service.
[12] “Emerson School of Gary, Indiana,” Sometimes Interesting, June 12, 2013, https://sometimes-interesting.com/2013/06/12/emerson-school-of-gary-indiana/
[13] Davich, “Is writing on wall for Gary’s Emerson school?”
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Student Author: Mary Swartz
Faculty/Staff Editors: Dr. Ronald V. Morris, Dr. Kevin C. Nolan, and Christine Thompson
Graduate Assistant Researchers: Carrie Vachon and JB Bilbrey
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<a href="https://npgallery.nps.gov/AssetDetail/NRIS/95000702">National Register of Historic Places</a>
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PHOTO & VIDEO:
Ralph Waldo Emerson School in Gary, attributed to Nyttend, Public domain, via Wikimedia commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ralph_Waldo_Emerson_School_in_Gary.jpg
1900-40s
1950s-present
Architecture
education
Gary
Integration
Lake County
National Register of Historic Places
Segregation
-
https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/c6fc0dd797dd211617eb6dab1395c304.jpg
054723b57755ceaea5b43e9c0579f1bb
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Places
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Gary Methodist Church
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Constructed in 1925, Gary Methodist Church once towered as the largest Methodist Church in the Midwest.[1] Originally named City Church, the impressive structure is located on 6th Avenue and Washington Street.[2] Development of the church was headed by Dr. William Grant Seaman, who had served as the pastor of Gary Methodist Church since 1916. Pastor Seaman intended the new building to serve as a place of religious revival for Gary’s citizens. Disliking the prominence of brothels and bars in the area, he hoped that the church would be the first step in shifting the community’s focus back to Christian culture and religion and building a larger congregation. U.S. Steel, the primary provider of jobs in Gary at the time, donated the plot of land and half the money needed for construction, approximately $400,000 of the $800,000 total cost. A well-known and reputable company, Lowe and Bollenbacher constructed the building in 21 months.[3] Once completed, the Gothic nine-story church contained stained glass windows, a magnificent vaulted sanctuary, oak-carved chancel and altar, and four-manual Skinner organ donated by Elbert Gary.[4] Seaman Hall, the second building on the property, included a fellowship hall, staff offices, a kitchen and dining area, a gymnasium, Sunday school rooms, a theater-sized screen, and a stage for concerts and community productions.[5]</p>
<p>The first service was held in the newly constructed Gary Methodist Church on October 3, 1926. After only a year, the congregation at Gary Methodist Church had grown to include over 1,700 individuals. The congregation reached its peak in the 1950s with over 3,000 members.[6] Despite Gary Methodist Church’s location in the heart of Gary’s industrial community, the congregation remained largely middle-class and white for its entire existence. Pastor Seaman sought integration and claimed that the church had the responsibility to minister to the immigrant populations and African American residents of Gary. He encouraged diverse civil and religious gatherings and hosted a race relations service in 1927, where members of nearby African American churches visited Gary Methodist Church to share services. Pastor Seaman’s beliefs about race were paternalistic however, and he believed that only white citizens should serve as leaders in the church. Although Pastor Seaman held racist beliefs himself, his admonishment of the Ku Klux Klan and aims to promote diversity provoked disdain in many white church members. As a result, Pastor Seaman was forced from Gary Methodist Church and transferred to an Ohio ministry in 1929.[7]</p>
<p>After Pastor Seaman’s expulsion, Gary Methodist Church ministered less to the city’s African American and immigrant populations. While few African Americans had actually attended church at Gary Methodist Church when Seaman was pastor, Seaman Hall had been utilized as a place for social gatherings and events. As the challenging years of the Great Depression and World War II threw Gary’s citizens into turmoil, churches became instrumental support services. Gary Methodist Church provided public relief and entertainment, such as theater shows and musical performances on Seaman Hall’s beautiful stage, but the events were likely restricted to white workers of Gary.[8]</p>
<p>While Gary Methodist Church made a few half-hearted attempts to promote membership among immigrant and African American families through events like Race Relations Sundays, the church did not come close to fulfilling Pastor Seaman’s mission of diversity until Reverend S. Walton Cole took over leadership. Under Reverend Cole’s pastorship, church members were encouraged to confront their own prejudices and welcome new members from diverse backgrounds. Reverend Cole was awarded the first Roy Wilkins award by the NAACP for his work promoting civil rights.[9]</p>
<p>The push to expand and revitalize Gary Methodist Church did not last long, however. For decades, the church had been dwindling in attendance. Following World War II, there were large number of layoffs in the steel working industry.[10] By 1973, most white families had moved to suburbs outside of Gary, and only around 320 members remained a part of the congregation. As the neighborhoods around Gary Methodist Church started being occupied by African American families, the church was unable to draw new members. Segregated since its construction in 1926, the church could not escape its history of discrimination. In addition to its shrinking congregation, the church became unable to foot the great cost of maintaining the massive building. After only 50 years of use, the Gary Methodist Church finally closed its doors in 1975.[11]</p>
<p>Gary Methodist Church, once the most magnificent church building in the Midwest, now stands in ruins. Seaman Hall was used as a satellite campus of Indiana University for a time, but the sanctuary was completely abandoned. Unattended, weathering the elements, the church quickly fell into disrepair. The damage was made worse when a fire destroyed parts of the building in 1997. In 2008, a large section of the roof caved, leaving only the shell of the structure.[12] Only as recently as 2019 was the church site granted a historical marker, signifying the great mark it left on the city of Gary.[13] Currently, the city is planning to transform the area around the church into a park and keep Gary Methodist Church as a historical centerpiece.[14]</p>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
[1] “Gary's Abandoned City Methodist Church,” Architectural Afterlife, last modified October 24, 2018, https://architecturalafterlife.com/2018/10/24/garys-abandoned-city-methodist-church/ <br />[2] <span>“City United Methodist Church of Gary, Indiana,” Sometimes Interesting, last modified June 16, 2013, https://sometimes-interesting.com/2013/06/16/city-united-methodist-church-of-gary-indiana/<br />[3] “Gary’s Abandoned City Methodist Church.”<br />[4] “City United Methodist Church of Gary, Indiana.” “City Methodist Church,” Atlas Obscura, accessed June 10, 2020, https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/city-methodist-church.<br />[5] “City United Methodist Church of Gary, Indiana.”<br />[6] “Gary’s Abandoned City Methodist Church.”<br />[7] Nicole Poletika, “City Church: Spirituality and Segregation in Gary,” Indiana History Blog, May 13, 2019, https://blog.history.in.gov/city-church-spirituality-and-segregation-in-gary/<br />[8] Ibid.<br />[9] Ibid.<br />[10] “Welcome to City Methodist Church: About the Church,” City Methodist Church, accessed June 10, 2020, http://www.citymethodistchurch.com/CityMethodistChurch-about.htm<br />[11] Poletika, “City Church: Spirituality and Segregation in Gary.”<br />[12] “Gary’s Abandoned City Methodist Church.”<br />[13] Pete S. Joseph, “Gary's City Methodist Church gets historical marker.” The Times of Northwest Indiana, September 18, 2019, https://www.nwitimes.com/business/local/garys-city-methodist-church-gets-historical-marker/article_c606c730-f210-584a-a098-6315a504cca8.html<br />[14] “Gary’s Abandoned City Methodist Church.”</span>
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Student Authors: Mary Swartz and Natalie Bradshaw
Faculty/Staff Editors: Dr. Ronald V. Morris, Dr. Kevin C. Nolan, and Christine Thompson
Graduate Assistant Researchers: Carrie Vachon and JB Bilbrey
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PHOTO & VIDEO:
Gary City Methodist Church, attributed to Takingactioningary, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gary_City_Methodist_Church.JPG
1900-40s
1950s-present
Church
Gary
Integration
Lake County
NAACP
religion
-
https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/6c7099b0194aa732bed6e60dbc4e0819.jpg
b601ed2201b3f7aad34495e83f219d5e
Dublin Core
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Places
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Andrew Means Park Manor
Description
An account of the resource
<p>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]</p>
<p>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]</p>
<p>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]</p>
<p>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.</p>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
[1] <span>Indiana Landmarks. African American Landmarks. Indiana Landmarks, 2019. Accessed May 21, 2020. https://www.indianalandmarks.org/2019/02/andrew-means-gary-developer/<br />[2] Allison Shuette. Didn’t Want Us To Grow Up Thinking the World Was Terrible. Welcome Project, 2017. Accessed May 21, 2020. https://welcomeproject.valpo.edu/2017/01/27/didnt-want-us-to-grow-up-thinking-the-world-was-terrible/<br />[3] The Great Migration, 2020. https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/great-migration. Accessed May 22, 2020.<br />[4] Indiana Landmarks.<br />[5] African American businessman, Andrew Means,of Gary Indiana. He is successful in real estate and construction. https://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675045071_Negro-Americans_Leslie-Builders-and-Contractors_construction-site_buildings. Accessed May 22, 2020.<br />[6] Indiana Landmarks.<br />[7] Leroy W. Jeffries. Blueprint for better negro business. Negro Digest. December 1961. Accessed May 21, 2020. https://books.google.com/books?id=b7MDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA62&lpg=PA62&dq=%22means+park+manor%22+gary&source=bl&ots=Qgmdcz3Y7Z&sig=ACfU3U1sL9M0rnOo3H_srKnYBY2JdKQ-fg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiHnMC4nZrpAhXGKM0KHYMUAfIQ6AEwB3oECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22means%20park%20manor%22%20gary&f=false<br />[8] Indiana Landmarks.<br />[9] Allison Shuette.<br />[10] Leroy W. Jeffries.<br />[11] Andrew Hurley. Environmental Inequalities: Class, Race, and Industrial Pollution in Gary, Indiana, 1945-1980. 1993. University of North Caroline Press.</span>
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Student Author: Mary Swartz
Faculty/Staff Editors: Dr. Ronald V. Morris, Dr. Kevin C. Nolan, and Christine Thompson
Graduate Assistant Researchers: Carrie Vachon and JB Bilbrey
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PHOTO & VIDEO:
Courtesy Indiana Landmarks https://www.indianalandmarks.org/2019/02/andrew-means-gary-developer/
1900-40s
1950s-present
Entrepreneurship
Gary
Housing
Integration
Lake County
-
https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/42d92e4525c9d714165d223a15b170ea.jpg
9fad549b7daa654bb09c99e2ac1bfb08
Dublin Core
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Title
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People
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Title
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Clifford E. Minton, Gary
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Gary’s Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) was located in a massive stone building that faced north on Fifth Avenue. Funded by Elbert Gary and designed by architect Joseph Silsbee in 1909, the impressive structure served as a sporting and recreation center, dining facility, library, and temporary dormitory until its closure in 1976.[1] Although the YMCA was intended to provide entertainment and support for the young men of Gary, a large portion of Gary’s male population was excluded from enjoying the facility. The Gary YMCA, like many YMCAs throughout the United States, enforced strict segregation during the first half of the nineteenth century, barring African American men from membership. It was not until the 1960s that the Gary Urban League won the right to integrate Gary’s branch of the YMCA.[2]</p>
<p>African American communities throughout the country had long embraced the mission of the YMCA. Anthony Bowen, a freedman from Washington D.C., founded the first YMCA for African Americans in 1853. Although the YMCA movement was stalled by the social and financial hardship African Americans faced in many areas of the United States during nineteenth century, many cities had constructed African American YMCA branches by the early 1910s. These facilities served as meeting spots for African Americans to openly discuss politics, safe resting places for African American travelers, and learning centers where young African American men received education in business and management.[3]</p>
<p>In the early 1900s, almost all business and entertainment establishments in Gary were owned by white proprietors. Gary’s large African American community, prohibited from entering these establishments, was deprived of recreation facilities. At the recommendation of clergyman John W. Lee, who conducted a survey of the social and economic conditions of Gary’s African American neighborhoods for the Calumet Church Federation, Gary’s First Baptist Church established an African American YMCA community center at 19th Avenue and Washington Street in 1919.[4] This new symbol of recreation and opportunity only operated for a few short years, however, as the facility was forced to close when the Great Depression hit Gary. After the shuttering of the African American YMCA, pressure to integrate Gary’s main YMCA building mounted.[5]</p>
<p>The YMCA’s national policy of segregation ended in 1946 “when the National Council passed a resolution calling for local associations to ‘work steadfastly toward the goal of eliminating all racial discriminations,’ dissolved its Colored Work Department and abolished racial designations in all its publications.”[6] Local YMCAs responded to these institutional changes with varying degrees of compliance. At Gary’s branch of the YMCA, harsh segregation persisted for decades after the national policy of segregation ended. Clifford E. Minton, an active leader in Gary’s Civil Rights Movement and the long-time executive director of the Gary Urban League, spearheaded a campaign to integrate the facility.[7] Under Mayor George Chacharis, Minton successfully integrated Gary’s YMCA in the early 1960s.[8]</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Clifford Minton’s YMCA victory was short-lived, as the Gary YMCA closed only a few years after its integration. Facing competition from for-profit recreational centers, Gary’s YMCA was unable to stay afloat during the recession of the mid-1970s and shut down operations in 1976.[9] While the old YMCA building was demolished after the closure of the facility, postcards bearing its striking image can be viewed on the Digital Commonwealth website today.[10] The integration of Gary’s YMCA was only one of Clifford Minton’s many accomplishments as a Civil Rights leader and executive director of the Gary Urban League.</p>
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[1] <span>“Y.M.C.A. Building for Gary Indiana,” Searching for Silsbee, last modified November 6, 2010, http://jlsilsbee.blogspot.com/2010/11/y-m-c-building-for-gary-indiana.html. Melissa G. Burlock, “The Battle Over a Black YMCA and its Inner-City Community: The Fall Creek Parkway YMCA as a Lens on Indianapolis’ Urban Revitalization and School Desegregation 1959-2003” (M.A. diss., Indiana University, 2014), 72.<br />[2] Calumet Regional Archives, “Clifford E. Minton Papers,” Indiana University Northwest, accessed May 19, 2020, https://cra.sitehost.iu.edu/cra_records/cra160.shtml. Dharathula H. Millender, Gary’s Central Business Community, (Charleston: Acadia Publishing, 2003), 102.<br />[3] “A Brief History of the YMCA and African American Communities,” University of Minnesota Libraries, accessed May 19, 2020, https://www.lib.umn.edu/ymca/guide-afam-history.<br />[4] James B. Lane, City of the Century: A History of Gary, Indiana, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978), 70. Neil Betten and Raymond A. Mohl, “The Evolution of Racism in an Industrial City, 1906-1940: A Case Study of Gary, Indiana,” The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 59, No. 1 (January 1974): 59, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2717140.<br />[5] Indiana History Blog, “City Church: Spirituality and Segregation in Gary,” Indiana Historical Bureau of the Indiana State Library, accessed May 19, 2020, https://blog.history.in.gov/city-church-spirituality-and-segregation-in-gary/<br />[6] “A Brief History.”<br />[7] Calumet Regional Archives, “Clifford E. Minton Papers.”<br />[8] Millender, Gary’s Central Business Community.<br />[9] Burlock, “The Battle Over a Black YMCA.”<br />[10] “YMCA Gary, Indiana, ‘the steel city’” Digital Commonwealth Massachusetts Collection Online, accessed May 19, 2020, https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:6w929s87c.</span>
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Student Author: Natalie Bradshaw
Faculty/Staff Editors: Dr. Ronald V. Morris, Dr. Kevin C. Nolan, and Christine Thompson
Graduate Assistant Researchers: Carrie Vachon and JB Bilbrey
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PHOTO & VIDEO:
Y.M.C.A., Gary, Indiana, "The Steel City", attributed to Springfield College Archives and Special Collections, Public domain, via Picryl.
https://picryl.com/media/ymca-gary-indiana-the-steel-city-9ec6fb
1900-1940s
1950s-present
Gary
Integration
Lake County
Organization
Segregation
YMCA
-
https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/8b959d1cc5a2fb23ddf988b626b3f9bc.jpg
a862821672612a789c4d74d84be6e0a4
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People
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Juanita and Benjamin Grant, M.D.: Mercy Hospital, Gary
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Juanita C. Grant and her husband Benjamin F. Grant were community leaders who promoted racial equality in Gary, Indiana during the Civil Rights Movement. The Grants sought to improve conditions for the African American population of Gary by establishing community organizations, helping gain access to essential resources, and organizing a coalition of leaders to serve the city’s African American community. Most notably, Benjamin and Juanita Grant successfully lobbied Gary’s oldest hospital, Mercy Hospital (now St. Mary Medical Center) to allow African American doctors admitting privileges in 1945.[1]</p>
<p>Juanita Grant has been described as a “bold and unique voice” in the early years of the Civil Rights era, who transformed her community in ways that can still be seen in Gary today.[2] Despite losing her mother at a young age and attending school at a time when it was difficult for African American students to find support in Indiana, Juanita Grant was an ambitious learner who earned her bachelor’s degree at Indiana State College in Terre Haute and her master’s degree in Social Work at Ball State University. As a resident of Gary and leader in the African American community, she co-founded and established the Jack and Jill of America Inc. chapter in Gary, organized local Girl Scouts and Brownies groups, and supported Gary’s historic Stewart Settlement House.[3] Benjamin Grant was also a very influential Civil Rights leader among Gary’s African American population. He was a lifetime member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and served as the co-chair of Gary’s branch of the organization during the 1940s. A practicing physician and surgeon, Dr. Grant launched a campaign to advocate for the medical rights of African American medical professionals and patients.[4]</p>
<p>During the early twentieth century, medical facilities were heavily segregated in Indiana. African American doctors, nurses, and patients faced severe discrimination. In Indianapolis, training facilities for nurses were separated by race, and finding employment at a public hospital was virtually impossible for African American doctors. Indianapolis City Hospital, the only hospital in the Indianapolis that admitted African American patients, turned away African American doctors seeking internships and pressured African American nurses to receive training outside Indiana.</p>
<p>The hostility that African American doctors and nurses encountered was also felt by African American patients seeking medical care in Indianapolis. At Indianapolis City Hospital, African American patients were sequestered in a “Jim Crow wing” in the basement of the building, where they were often crowded into small areas and given inadequate care.[5] Segregation in the medical system was worse in other areas of Indiana, however, for outside the state capital, “there were no public hospitals in Indiana that admitted African Americans; blacks were entirely dependent on private medical institutions.”[6]</p>
<p>Like most hospitals outside of Indianapolis, Gary’s Mercy Hospital refused to admit African American patients when it first opened. Established in downtown Gary by the Gary Land Company in 1907, Mercy Hospital was a white-owned, private hospital staffed first by the Sisters of St. Francis and later by the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ.[7] It was not until the 1930s that Mercy Hospital began to accept African American patients, and even then, they were placed in segregated wards.[8] African American doctors employed at Mercy were denied admitting privileges.</p>
<p>As a practicing doctor in Gary, Benjamin Grant was aware of how limited medical resources were for the city’s large African American population. In 1945, with the help of his wife, Dr. Grant began lobbying to integrate Mercy Hospital and permit African American doctors admitting privileges. The Grant’s effort to provide better healthcare for Gary’s African American population was successful. In 1945, Mercy Hospital granted African American doctors admitting privileges, a move that provided Gary’s African American community with more access to medical care and better treatment within the hospital.[9]</p>
<p>In the immediate years after the hospital’s integration, Mercy Hospital thrived as Gary’s premier medical institution. The hospital trained nurses and interns, built specialized departments, and gained international recognition as the birthplace of musician Michael Jackson. As U.S. Steel jobs declined in the 1970s, Mercy Hospital began to suffer, as much of Gary’s white community relocated to neighboring cities. In an attempt to revitalize the medical facility, Mercy Hospital underwent a restructuring in the mid-1970s. The West Wing of the hospital was built, and Mercy Hospital was renamed St. Mary Medical Center. These updates, however, were not enough to stave off the decline of the aging building. By the early 1990s, St. Mary’s had lost millions of dollars and was in danger of closing.[10] In 1993, Summit Medical Management purchased St. Mary Medical Center, renaming it Northwest Family Hospital. After two years of economic loss and unsuccessful restructuring attempts, Summit “declared the situation terminal” and decided to close St. Mary Medical Center.[11] Although the Mercy Foundation fought to keep the hospital open, and private interests attempted to purchase the building, no one could afford to maintain costly hospital operations. In November 1995, St. Mary Medical Center was closed. While much of the building stands abandoned today, the newest addition of the hospital, the West Wing built in the mid-1970s, serves as the headquarters of Gary’s police department.[12] The remains of St. Mary Medical Center, or “Mercy” as longtime residents call it, stands as a monument to Gary’s oldest hospital and a legacy of the pioneering work of Juanita and Benjamin Grant.[13]</p>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
[1] “Juanita C. Grant Foundation,” Juanita C. Grant Foundation. Accessed May 12, 2020, https://www.jcgfdn.org/history1. Times Staff Report, “St. Mary hospital for sale. Gary medical center lost $3.6,” The Times of Northwest Indiana, March 18, 1993, https://www.nwitimes.com/uncategorized/st-mary-hospital-for-sale-gary-medical-center-lost/article_ddf6c861-694d-57b0-9d6b-ec6159a40a52.html.
[2] “Juanita C. Grant Foundation.”
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Emma Lou Thornbrough, Indiana Blacks in the Twentieth Century (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), 64.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Downtown Gary Scattered Sites (19001-680).
[8] Thornbrough, Indiana Blacks in the Twentieth Century, 64.
[9] “Juanita C. Grant Foundation.”
[10] Ursula Bielski, Haunted Gary (Charleston: The History Press, 2015), 30.
[11] Robin Biesen, “Hospital closes. Gary’s Northwest Family succumbs to its,” The Times of Northwest Indiana, November 22, 1995, https://www.nwitimes.com/uncategorized/hospital-closes-gary-s-northwest-family-succumbs-to-its/article_2908a57a-0d3e-58f9-92c0-e9917e41422a.html
[12] Bielski, Haunted Gary, 31.
[13] Times Staff, “St. Mary.”
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Student Author: Natalie Bradshaw
Faculty/Staff Editors: Dr. Ronald V. Morris, Dr. Kevin C. Nolan, and Christine Thompson
Graduate Assistant Researchers: Carrie Vachon and JB Bilbrey
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PHOTO & VIDEO:
Hoosier State Medical Association Meeting 1956, Indiana Historical Society, M0510.
https://images.indianahistory.org/digital/collection/dc018/id/3389/rec/5
1900-1940s
1950s-present
Civil Rights Movement
Gary
Healthcare
Integration
Lake County
Segregation
-
https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/bd782ac322021e30251eb539e63917c4.jpg
725dbc9c60634f23188e4207f88f5cf1
Dublin Core
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Title
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Places
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Froebel School, Gary
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Built in 1912, Froebel High School was one of the first schools in Gary, Indiana to accept African American students, decades before most other schools were desegregated. By 1944, approximately 40% of the school’s students were African American. Despite being an integrated school, African American students were still expected to remain in certain areas of the building, could not participate fully in extracurricular activities, and were often disliked and mistreated by many of their white classmates. Tensions continued to rise, until September 18, 1945 when around 1,400 white students took part in a massive walkout protest against the integration policies of Froebel High School.[1]</p>
<p>In their protest, white students pleaded that Froebel High School become a school designated for white students only, threatening to transfer schools if their demands were not met.[2] As a result of the ongoing protest, Gary African American ministers of all faiths banded together to form the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance (IMA) and defended the principal’s decision to maintain an integrated environment within the school.[3][4] The IMA released an appeal to Gary’s citizens, saying “It is indeed regrettable to note that after the nation has spent approximately 190 billion dollars, the colored citizens of Gary have sent about 4,000 of their sons, brothers, and husbands to battlefields around the world and have supported every war effort that our government has called upon us to support, in a united effort to destroy nazism and to banish from the face of the earth all that Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo stood for; to find in our midst those who are endeavoring to spread disunity, race-hatred, and Hitlerism in our community.”[5]</p>
<p>Despite the support of the IMA in favor of the school’s integration decision, otherschools joined the walkout. The Gary Post-Tribune reported that some members of the Froebel neighborhood supported the strike as they “feel their homes and churches have depreciated in value” with the influx of African American home-owners in the neighborhood.[6] The hate strike lasted well into November, but threats to continue the strike lasted into the following year. On August 27, 1946, the Gary Board of Education issued a policy technically ending segregation. However, in all practicality segregation within Gary schools continued to exist, supported by discriminatory policies. Lower grades at Froebel School more quickly adjusted to integration, while in 1948, African American students in grades 8-12 at Froebel still faced persistent discrimination when it came to the swimming facilities, band, theater, class offices, and other extracurricular activities.[7]</p>
<p>In 1951, Froebel School enrolled 56% African American students. After a transfer policy was enacted that allowed children to transfer to other schools for “better social adjustment”, Froebel School enrollment was 95% African American by 1961, while the district it served was 65% African American. The transfer policy in effect allowed segregation to continue. Other practices, such as offering fewer academic courses, hiring less qualified teachers, and overcrowding at predominately African American schools, coupled with school feeding patterns based on race, perpetuated de facto segregation.[8]</p>
<p>Due to declining enrollment and after several reductions of grade levels served, Froebel School finally closed in 1977 as part of district cost-cutting measures. The location of Froebel School and its role in school desegregation is commemorated with an Indiana Historical Bureau marker.[9]</p>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
[1] D.L. Chandler. Little Known Black History Fact: Froebel High School. Black America Web. Accessed April 30, 2020. https://blackamericaweb.com/2018/09/18/little-known-black-history-fact-froebel-high-school/
[2] Casey Pfeiffer. A Challenge to Integration: The Froebel School Strikes of 1945. Indiana History Blog, 2017. Accessed April 30, 2020. https://blog.history.in.gov/a-challenge-to-integration-the-froebel-school-strikes-of-1945/
[3] Casey Pfeiffer.
[4] D.L. Chandler.
[5] Casey Pfeiffer.
[6] Students’ Walkout Mixed in Race Hate. The Indianapolis Recorder. September 29, 1945.
[7] Ronald Cohen. The Dilemma of School Integration in the North: Gary, Indiana, 1945-1960. June 1986. Indiana Magazine of History 82(2), pp. 161-184.
[8] Max Wolff. Segregation in the Schools of Gary, Indiana. February 1963. Journal of Educational Sociology 36(6), pp. 251-261.
[9] Indiana Historical Bureau. State Historical Marker, Froebel School. Accessed May 7, 2020. https://www.in.gov/history/markers/4109.htm
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Student Author: Mary Swartz
Faculty/Staff Editors: Dr. Ronald V. Morris, Dr. Kevin C. Nolan, and Christine Thompson
Graduate Assistant Researchers: Carrie Vachon and JB Bilbrey
Relation
A related resource
<a href="https://www.in.gov/history/markers/4109.htm">Indiana Historical Bureau: Historical Marker</a>
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
PHOTO & VIDEO:
Froebel High School, Gary, Indiana, attributed to Tichnor Brothers, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Froebel_High_School,_Gary,_Indiana_(75204).jpg
1900-40s
1950s-present
education
Gary
Indiana Historical Bureau Marker
Integration
Lake County
School
Segregation
-
https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/e4716236586c699b58ea6cf484b26f39.jpg
12b51dd66edb5a981707db6c53fc2433
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Places
Dublin Core
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Title
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North Gleason Park, Gary
Description
An account of the resource
<p>North Gleason Park in Gary was first developed in 1920. Originally named Riverside Park, it was renamed after the U.S. Steel Superintendent and park board president William P. Gleason in 1933. The park board segregated the park into north and south parcels using the Little Calumet River as a divider. The north section of the park was designated for African American patrons, the south for Gary’s white residents.[1] The funding for the two sides of the park was never equal, with the south side of the park enjoying more and better quality amenities than the north side, including an 18-hole golf course in South Gleason as opposed to the 9-hole course in North Gleason. Despite the inequality, the African American community in Gary embraced North Gleason Park as their own place to unwind and enjoy.[2]</p>
<p>One of the most popular attractions in North Gleason Park was the 9-hole golf course. Bonded by the love of the sport, golfers at North Gleason Park developed the “Par-Makers” in 1949, a social club that enjoyed hosting tournaments and encouraging competition. The Par-Makers developed a scholarship fund, created a youth golf program, and contributed their time to support local causes within the African American community. The club worked to eliminate exclusion at South Gleason Park’s 18-hole golf course, even using professional boxer Joe Louis to persuade the Gary park board to allow African Americans to play at the South Gleason course.[3] Ann Gregory from Gary, who became the first African American golfer to play in a USGA Championship, also helped break the racial barrier at Gleason Park. After being told she could not play at South Gleason Park by a staff and a groundskeeper, Gregory remarked that “My tax dollars are taking care of the big course and there's no way you can bar me from it. Just send the police out to get me" and she proceeded to play all 18 holes on the south side.[4] Through persistent efforts by African American golfers, the South Gleason Park golf course became integrated by the 1960s.[5]</p>
<p>The North Gleason Park pavilion was another popular space for Gary’s African American community and was used primarily as a boxing gym, but also for meetings and gatherings. Boxing greats such as Angel Manfredy (a popular contender in the 1990s) and “Merciless” Mary McGee (Women's Super Lightweight Champion of the World in December of 2019)[6] were trained in the pavilion under the instruction of retired police officer, John Taylor. Taylor was known for bringing young people in off the streets and turning them into boxing champions.[7] Today, efforts are being made to add the North Gleason Park pavilion to the National Register of Historic Places. Currently, the pavilion is in severe disrepair after years of neglect.[8] However, multiple groups and individuals from Gary have stepped up to offer their labor in hopes of repairing the pavilion for use once again.[9][10]</p>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
[1] <span>Indiana Landmarks. Divided History. Indiana Landmarks, 2018. Accessed May 5, 2020. https://www.indianalandmarks.org/2018/11/seeking-a-save-for-gary-north-gleason-park-pavilion<br />[2] Indiana Landmarks. Divided History.<br />[3] Indiana Landmarks. Divided History.<br />[4] Rhonda Glenn. Pioneer Gregory Broke Color Barriers. USGA, 2005. Accessed May 7, 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20090826005546/http://www.usga.org/news/2005/February/Pioneer-Gregory-Broke-Color-Barriers<br />[5] Indiana Landmarks. Divided History.<br />[6] Joseph Phillips. Gary’s First boxing champion “Merciless” Mary McGee looks to successfully defend her title on Saturday Night, February 8. Accessed May 7, 2020. https://chicagocrusader.com/garys-first-boxing-champion-merciless-mary-mcgee-looks-to-successfully-defend-her-title-on-saturday-night-february-8<br />[7] Joseph Pete. Preservationists fighting to save historic boxing gym at Gary's North Gleason Park Pavilion. NWI Times, 2019. Accessed May 7, 2020. https://www.nwitimes.com/business/local/preservationists-fighting-to-save-historic-boxing-gym-at-gary-s/article_b56b9379-41b1-5bbe-8383-aefbdfacd040.html<br />[8] Joseph Pete. Groups hope to save historic Gary site. The Journal Gazette, 2019. Accessed May 7, 2020. https://www.journalgazette.net/news/local/indiana/20191117/groups-hope-to-save-historic-gary-sit<br />[9] Indiana Landmarks. Cleanup Kicks Off North Gleason Pavilion Preservation. Indiana Landmarks, 2019. Accessed May 5, 2020. https://www.indianalandmarks.org/2019/12/cleanup-kicks-off-north-gleason-pavilion-preservation<br />[10] Indiana Landmarks. Cleanup Kicks Off North Gleason Pavilion Preservation.</span>
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Student Author: Mary Swartz
Faculty/Staff Editors: Dr. Ronald V. Morris, Dr. Kevin C. Nolan, and Christine Thompson
Graduate Assistant Researchers: Carrie Vachon and JB Bilbrey
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Information about rights held in and over the resource
PHOTO & VIDEO:
Courtesy Indiana Landmarks https://www.indianalandmarks.org/2018/11/seeking-a-save-for-gary-north-gleason-park-pavilion/
1900-40s
1950s-present
athletics
Attraction
Gary
Integration
Lake County
Segregation
-
https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/64408b4e80b6d2e11d9e2eabaee2e452.jpg
306a20deaf5d9182797ccacbdc788064
https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/6b6b850b39871aac303ba44613a6baf2.jpg
98d2a6e316cfbd92beeb2e393bc79054
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Places
Dublin Core
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Gary Roosevelt High School
Description
An account of the resource
<p><span data-contrast="auto">Theodore Roosevelt </span><span data-contrast="auto">H</span><span data-contrast="auto">igh </span><span data-contrast="auto">S</span><span data-contrast="auto">chool</span><span data-contrast="auto"> in Gary, Indiana,</span><span data-contrast="auto"> also known as Gary Roosevelt,</span><span data-contrast="auto"> </span><span data-contrast="auto">can trace its origins to 1908 when </span><span data-contrast="auto">the Gary</span><span data-contrast="auto"> school board </span><span data-contrast="auto">issued the segregation of all public schools. The first school for African American children in Gary </span><span data-contrast="auto">was built</span><span data-contrast="auto"> that same year. </span><span data-contrast="auto">As the population grew</span><span data-contrast="auto">, African American students were</span><span data-contrast="auto"> also</span><span data-contrast="auto"> educated in other segregated schools and in portable classrooms, and by </span><span data-contrast="auto">1921,</span><span data-contrast="auto"> those portable classrooms were located at</span><span data-contrast="auto"> </span><span data-contrast="auto">the </span><span data-contrast="auto">present location of</span><span data-contrast="auto"> Gary </span><span data-contrast="auto">Roosevel</span><span data-contrast="auto">t</span><span data-contrast="auto">.[</span><span data-contrast="auto">1]</span><span data-contrast="auto"> </span><span data-contrast="auto">Public school segregation remained in effect</span><span data-contrast="auto">, but a few African American students </span><span data-contrast="auto">were</span><span data-contrast="auto"> </span><span data-contrast="auto">allowed to enroll</span><span data-contrast="auto"> in white schools</span><span data-contrast="auto"> (in segregated classes)</span><span data-contrast="auto"> if space</span><span data-contrast="auto"> existed. </span><span data-contrast="auto">Under this plan</span><span data-contrast="auto">, 18 African American high school students </span><span data-contrast="auto">were transferred</span><span data-contrast="auto"> to white Emerson School</span><span data-contrast="auto"> in 1927</span><span data-contrast="auto">. </span><span data-contrast="auto">In protest, o</span><span data-contrast="auto">ver 600</span><span data-contrast="auto"> white</span><span data-contrast="auto"> Emerson</span><span data-contrast="auto"> students conducted a four-day walkout known as the Emerson Strike.[</span><span data-contrast="auto">2]</span><span data-contrast="auto"> The strike </span><span data-contrast="auto">was ended</span><span data-contrast="auto"> when the Gary City Council agreed to </span><span data-contrast="auto">allocate</span><span data-contrast="auto"> funds to create an African American high school, to be named after President Theodore Roosevelt.[</span><span data-contrast="auto">3]</span><span data-ccp-props="{"335559739":160,"335559740":480}"> <br /> <br /></span><span data-contrast="auto">Theodore Roosevelt High School </span><span data-contrast="auto">was built</span><span data-contrast="auto"> in 1930</span><span data-contrast="auto"> exclusively for African American students.</span><span data-contrast="auto"> </span><span data-contrast="auto">The </span><span data-contrast="auto">Gary Roosevelt </span><span data-contrast="auto">building</span><span data-contrast="auto"> features design elements inspired by </span><span data-contrast="auto">Independence Hall</span><span data-contrast="auto"> in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.</span><span data-contrast="auto"> Additional classroom wings </span><span data-contrast="auto">were added</span><span data-contrast="auto"> in 1946 and 1968.[</span><span data-contrast="auto">4]</span><span data-contrast="auto"> </span><span data-contrast="auto">The </span><span data-contrast="auto">physical design of the</span><span data-contrast="auto"> Gary Roosevelt</span><span data-contrast="auto"> building </span><span data-contrast="auto">support</span><span data-contrast="auto">ed what </span><span data-contrast="auto">was known</span><span data-contrast="auto"> as the Gary System of Education or the Gary Plan. </span><span data-contrast="auto">Developed by Dr. William A. Wirt, the city’s first superintendent </span><span data-contrast="auto">of schools</span><span data-contrast="auto"> from 1907-1938</span><span data-contrast="auto">, the Gary Plan was a Progressive Er</span><span data-contrast="auto">a educational concept, with some elements of the system playing </span><span data-contrast="auto">a role in how schools function today.[</span><span data-contrast="auto">5]</span><span data-contrast="auto"> The Gary Plan emphasized both vocational training and college preparatory classes, </span><span data-contrast="auto">a lengthened school day</span><span data-contrast="auto"> that kept students “off the streets”</span><span data-contrast="auto">, and emphasized “work-study-play” </span><span data-contrast="auto">incorporating</span><span data-contrast="auto"> academics, vocational, and recreational activities into each school day.</span><span data-contrast="auto"> The Gary Plan</span><span data-contrast="auto"> maximized the utilization and capacity of the building, and even advocated students attending school on Saturday.[</span><span data-contrast="auto">6]<br /></span><span data-contrast="auto"> <br /></span><span data-contrast="auto">Although the official school board policy of public school segregation ended in 1947[</span><span data-contrast="auto">7]</span><span data-contrast="auto">, Gary Roosevelt, like virtually all of Gary public schools, remained segregated by the adjustment of school district and individual school boundaries.</span><span data-contrast="auto"> The school district boundaries </span><span data-contrast="auto">were based</span><span data-contrast="auto"> on the racial </span><span data-contrast="auto">mix</span><span data-contrast="auto"> of the various neighborhoods.[</span><span data-contrast="auto">8]</span><span data-contrast="auto"> </span><span data-contrast="auto">Wirt’s</span><span data-contrast="auto"> Gary </span><span data-contrast="auto">Plan </span><span data-contrast="auto">was </span><span data-contrast="auto">mostly </span><span data-contrast="auto">abandoned</span><span data-contrast="auto"> in favor of more mainstream educational ideas</span><span data-contrast="auto"> and in response to severe overcrowding due to a post-WWII population explosion in Gary. Adherence to segregation</span><span data-contrast="auto"> enforced</span><span data-contrast="auto"> by neighborhood racial boundaries, no matter the amount of population growth, meant that for almost 20 years, Gary Roosevelt students attended classes in rented portable classrooms or attended half-day sessions</span><span data-contrast="auto"> in an effort to ease the extreme overcrowding</span><span data-contrast="auto">.[</span><span data-contrast="auto">9]<br /></span><span data-ccp-props="{"335559731":720,"335559739":160,"335559740":480}"> <br /></span>Teachers at Gary Roosevelt have educated generations of African American children for nearly a century. The school is now known as the Theodore Roosevelt College and Career Academy, a charter school for grades 7-12. The building formerly known as Theodore Roosevelt High School is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its architectural importance, its role in the Progressive Era in education, and the integral part it played in Gary's segregated public school system.[10]</p>
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<span>[1] </span><span>Indiana NPS Roosevel</span><span>t, Theodore, High School. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. National </span><span>Park Service</span><span>. Accessed February 21, 2020.<br /></span><span>[2] </span><span>“Protest Walkout Grows” </span><span>Gary Post Tribune</span><span>, 27 September 1927.<br /></span><span>[3] </span><span>Cohen, Ronald D., </span><span>The Dilemma of School Integration in the North: Gary, Indiana, 1945</span><span>-</span><span>1960</span><span>. </span><span>Indiana Magazine of History </span><span>Vol. 82, No. 2 (June 1986):161</span><span>-</span><span>184.<br />[</span><span>4] </span><span>Indiana NPS Roosevelt, Theodore, High School.<br />[5] Wirt manuscripts, 1899-1957. Archives Online at Indiana University. http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/findingaids/view?doc.view=entire_text&docId=InU-Li-VAD7202. Accessed February 26, 2020.<br />[6] The Public School System of Gary, Indiana. Public Administration Service 1955. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015039523116&view=1up&seq=25. Accessed April 2019.<br />[7] “A Challenge to Integration: The Froebel School Strikes of 1945.” Indiana History Blog. https://blog.history.in.gov/a-challenge-to-integration-the-froebel-school-strikes-of-1945. Accessed February 26, 2020.<br />[8] Cohen, Ronald D.<br />[9] Ibid.<br />[10] Indiana NPS Roosevelt, Theodore, High School. </span>
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Student Authors: Jake Bailey and Robin Johnson
Faculty Editors: Dr. Ronald V. Morris, Dr. Kevin C. Nolan, and Christine Thompson
Graduate Assistant Researchers: Carrie Vachon and JB Bilbrey
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PHOTO & VIDEO:<br /><br />Theodore Roosevelt High School, attributed to T. Tolbert, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons <br />https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Theodore_Roosevelt_High_School,_Gary_Indiana.jpg <br /><br />PHOTO & VIDEO:<br />Roosevelt High School, attributed to Nyttend, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Roosevelt_High_School,_Gary.jpg
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<a href="https://npgallery.nps.gov/AssetDetail/NRIS/12001059" target="_blank" rel="noopener">National Register of Historic Places</a>
1900-40s
1929
1950s-present
education
Gary
Lake County
National Register of Historic Places
Segregation
-
https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/aa217bc3cf7c02abf491e3c2ae68216b.jpg
f160f7a28e1e0ff468093e4135bb8990
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Reverend Lester K. Jackson, St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church
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<p>Reverend Lester K. Jackson, who served at the St. Paul Baptist church in Gary, Indiana, was a twentieth century Civil Rights leader known for his outspoken nature in all matters related to racial equality. Jackson, like many Civil Rights leaders, focused his efforts on areas of discrimination both locally and throughout the country. His drive and ambition helped bring about multiple Civil Rights advancements in the post-World War II era.</p>
<p>In 1946, Jackson worked tirelessly on a court case alongside the New Jersey chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to overturn law that prohibited African Americans from swimming in the Atlantic Ocean. This case was tried all the way to the Supreme Court and was a major victory for Jackson and the early Civil Rights movement.<span>[1]</span></p>
<p>In Gary, Jackson fought for the integration of Marquette Park.<span>[2]</span> In 1949, he endorsed an organization called “Beachhead for Democracy”, organizing a march from Gary City Hall to Marquette Park to commemorate the anniversary of black troops landing at Salerno Beach, Italy during WWII.<span>[3]</span> Gary mayor, Eugene Swartz, although agreeing with the notion that African Americans had the “right to use all city facilities,” refused to let police protect the demonstration.<span>[4]</span> Reverend Jackson called out businesses and other organizations within the city for their racist and discriminatory policies.<span>[5]</span> Jackson forced the Gary Transit Company to hire black conductors and motormen.<span>[6]</span> He would help to integrate the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), public beaches, and all public transportation. Jackson and the St. Paul Missionary Church fought for equality and justice in Gary, and “it was [their] integral efforts to improve employment opportunities and living conditions for African Americans and the Civil Rights struggles in the City of Gary that many whites in the community literally had problems with.”<span>[7]</span></p>
<p>Jackson’s efforts in Gary put him in a national spotlight, especially with President Dwight D. Eisenhower, with whom Jackson had met with other African American ministers of the period to discuss their movement toward equality. He corresponded with other leaders including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., President John F. Kennedy, and President Lyndon B. Johnson. Jackson would congratulate or criticize these leaders for their success or failure on Civil Rights matters. In his letter to President Johnson, dated March 12, 1965, he criticized the President for his actions toward Vietnam and his lack of attention for his own citizens being beaten and segregated in the South. Jackson urges the President to take action for the people and not to turn a blind eye to domestic affairs.<span>[8]</span></p>
<p>Jackson communicated with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in January 1966, inviting Dr. King to speak at a service for St. Paul Missionary Church’s new building. Jackson exemplifies his nature in these letters, very outspoken regarding all matters of civil rights. Dr. Martin Luther King Sr. supported this testament at a banquet honoring Jackson in 1973, referring to him as “the Daddy of the militant civil rights movement”<span>[9]</span> Many would consider Jackson just that, an outspoken leader, militant when he deemed necessary, calculated in his efforts, and relentless in his never-ending battle for civil liberties and equal rights.</p>
Jackson passed away on March 2, 1977. He lived a life dedicated to his church, his people, and defending civil rights for all. Jackson was relentless in his Civil Rights efforts and his actions impacted generations of African Americans.
<p></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1"><span></span></a></p>
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[1] “Obituary” March 1977. Accessed April 8, 2019. <br />[2] Indiana Landmarks. “The Many Surprises of Gary’s Marquette Park. Accessed February 14, 2020. <br />[3] Lane, James B. ""The Old Prophet" Reverend L.K. Jackson of Gary, Indiana." Traces, Fall 2017, 29-35. Accessed April 7, 2019. <br />[4] Ibid. <br />[5] Davich, Jerry. “Gary church turns 100, faces new challenge.” Chicago Tribune. March 4, 2016. Accessed February 14, 2020. <br />[6] Lane, James B. ""The Old Prophet" Reverend L.K. Jackson of Gary, Indiana." Traces, Fall 2017, Page 35. Accessed April 7, 2019. <br />[7] Woodson-Wray, Carmen M. “St. Paul Missionary Baptis continues 100th Anniversary events in August”. Accessed February 19, 2020. <br />[8] Jackson, Lester K. Letter to President Lyndon B. Johnson. March 12, 1965. Accessed April 8, 2019 <br />[9] Lane, James B. ""The Old Prophet" Reverend L.K. Jackson of Gary, Indiana." Traces, Fall 2017, Page 35. Accessed April 7, 2019.
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Student Authors: Jake Bailey and Robin Johnson
Faculty/Staff Editors: Dr. Ronald V. Morris, Dr. Kevin C. Nolan, and Christine Thompson
Graduate Assistant Researchers: Carrie Vachon and JB Bilbrey
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PHOTO & VIDEO:
Marquette Park Pavilion (Gary, Indiana), attributed to chicagogeek, Public domain, via Wikimedia commons.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Marquette_Park_Pavilion_(Gary,_Indiana).jpg
1900-1940s
1950s-present
Civil Rights Movement
Gary
Integration
Lake County
law
NAACP
religion
Religious Leaders
-
https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/4a218092aee376db501a20b98b03c6cf.jpg
87487413a606132a83f2600a4ad5a581
https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/b0f5b6ea3c8bbbe5ceaff6a5dcf2b99e.mp3
079bb0b1155d635c3899022bf401bd77
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Interview 1 with Junifer Hall (Congresswoman Katie Hall)
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<a href="https://digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/items/show/53">Congresswoman Katie Hall</a>
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Junifer Hall, the daughter of Representative Katie Hall, describes her mother's childhood in Mound Bayou, Tennessee, including the racial profile of the community and her mother's financial circumstances growing up.
<strong>***Transcript***</strong><em><br /><br />Junifer Hall</em>: Katie Beatrice Green Hall was born on April 3rd, 1938 in the small Delta Mississippi town of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, and Mound Bayou is located approximately 100 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee. Mound Bayou was founded by two former slaves of the brother of Jefferson Davis, who we know was the president of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War, and my mother grew up very poor. Her family were cotton farmers in Mound Bayou. They didn’t have a lot of resources, fame or wealth, very poor as she liked to describe herself during those years. Mound Bayou is the only African American, all-African American town in the United States of America, even until this day. You will have a few Asians, but 99.9% African American, and during the days of my mother’s youth, Mound Bayou was a thriving town with African American-owned banks and businesses. A hospital was located in Mound Bayou, and even though she did not experience racism directly, she was very well aware of the segregated times in which she lived.
https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/6cd32e9fd34cfbfd16b7475562c99f9e.mp3
f33cf8bc497995eec199a36229e3afbb
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Interview 2 with Junifer Hall (Congresswoman Katie Hall)
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<a href="https://digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/items/show/53">Congresswoman Katie Hall</a>
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Junifer Hall, the daughter of Representative Katie Hall, shares how her mother attended Mississippi Vocational College despite struggling economic circumstances, enrolling in college with $5 from her mother.
<strong>***</strong><strong>Transcript***</strong><br /><br /><span><em>Junifer Hall</em>: And her mother, Mrs. Bessie May Hooper Green, told her, “I can only spare five </span><span>dollars. This is all I have to enroll you in college,” so my mother said, “Let’s go. We’re going to </span><span>go over to the newly formed college,” Mississippi Vocational Co</span><span>llege, as it was called at that </span><span>time. It was founded in 1950, so five years later, in 1955, she and her mother went to Mound</span><span>—</span><span>to </span><span>Mississippi Valley, and during those days, you didn’t need an appointment to talk to the college </span><span>president or any of the officia</span><span>ls, so my mother and her mom went to President White’s office. </span><span>James Herbert White was the newly founded president, and they said, “I only have five dollars,” </span><span>my grandmother told him, “my daughter really wants to go to college. Would you take the five </span><span>doll</span><span>ars, and I can pay on a payment plan?” And he said, “of course.” And she could enroll,<br /><br /></span><span><em>Carrie Vachon</em>: Wow.<br /><br /></span><span><em>Junifer Hall</em>: and my mother often even likened herself to Mary McClay [McLeod] Bethune who </span><span>started Bethune College [Bethune</span><span>-</span><span>Cookman University in </span><span>Dayton Beach, Florida] in Florida </span><span>with only one dollar and fifty cents. </span>
https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/b3c547e344babe059e876800cf0d4c21.mp3
2fd560483d6f5210f5256b2593fb0e0a
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Interview 3 with Junifer Hall (Congresswoman Katie Hall)
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<a href="https://digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/items/show/53">Congresswoman Katie Hall</a>
Description
An account of the resource
Junifer Hall, the daughter of Representative Katie Hall, details her mother's move to Gary, Indiana and her work as a substitute teacher and eventual work as a social studies educator at Edison High School in Gary.
<strong>***Transcript***</strong><br /><br /><em>Junifer Hall</em>: A lot of people think, well, you were in Congress, you were in the Indiana General Assembly, but it was a long, difficult road before in the very early years. So after arriving in Gary, my mother was a political science major. She substituted for about two to three years in the Gary school system because at that time, you could not get a part-time, full-time job if you were pregnant or if you had small kids, so in the early 1960’s, I was born on March 12th, 1961, and she was still subbing, and in 1963-64, she was able to secure a position at Edison High School on Gary’s West Side teaching U.S. government and U.S. history, and during those days, Mrs. Hall, as the students fondly called her, was the second African American to teach social studies at Edison High School, which later became a junior high school.
https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/10c3cf514a083e1d39406db30ea8b3be.mp3
ab328658c4c5c220cd86a2dcf108b5d4
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Interview 4 with Junifer Hall (Congresswoman Katie Hall)
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<a href="https://digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/items/show/53">Congresswoman Katie Hall</a><br /><a href="https://digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/items/show/108">Mayor Richard Hatcher of Gary</a>
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Junifer Hall, the daughter of Representative Katie Hall, shares how her mother broke down barriers as one of the first African American leaders in the Gary, Indiana and statewide community. She describes the previous two African American elected officials in the 1950s and the limited representation at city hall outside of Mayor Richard Hatcher.
<strong>***Transcript***</strong><br /><br /><em>Junifer Hall</em>: She told her mother as a young child that “one day I want to go to Washington. I want to serve in the United States Congress,” so as most children, my grandmother thought that was such a noble dream at that time because it was not a reality for children of color in the Deep South in the [19]50s, [19]40s and [19]50s, and even when she moved North to Gary, there were not any major Black elected officials like there are today. As fate would have it in 1967, Richard Gordon Hatcher ran for mayor of the city of Gary, but when my mother and father first came to the city—well, she would come during college vacations starting around [19]57, [19]58. Gary was very segregated at that time, and even after she moved here in 1960, Gary was very segregated, and African Americans were limited to places where they could live, and it wasn’t the city that it is today, and before Mayor Hatcher was elected mayor, of course he was elected to the Gary City Council at large, and he introduced an ordinance which passed, the Open Door Housing that allowed African Americans to live anywhere they chose in the city of Gary, but unfortunately, that was not the case because of the severe racism, and with his election in 1967 as mayor, blacks on paper could live anywhere, but the reality was totally different for them, so there were no African American elected officials, mayor elected officials. I think she said, my mother would mention, there was Mr. Mitchell, who was in the fourth district in Gary, and then there was in the fifth district, there was Cleo Westin, who was elected in the late [19]50s, but there were not a lot of African American elected officials in the city of Gary, Indiana, and she told me at the mayor’s city hall, there was one African American lady who worked the switchboard, but she was very fair in complexion and demeanor, and you could barely tell that she was African American, so city hall was even something that was far-fetched. There were no black commissioners, no elected officials, no state representatives, none of that, so the role models were very, very limited.
https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/3761293d085ee96a29d7311ce3902eee.mp3
cf2005f1a1bd826a7bcb979cae895d59
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Interview 7 with Junifer Hall (Congresswoman Katie Hall)
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<a href="https://digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/items/show/53">Congresswoman Katie Hall</a><br /><a href="https://digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/items/show/108">Mayor Richard Hatcher of Gary</a>
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Junifer Hall, the daughter of Representative Katie Hall, details her mother's work writing legislation in support of the Genesis Convention Center spearheaded by Mayor Richard Hatcher of Gary and her work on the education committee supporting educational programs for all people in Indiana.
<strong>***Transcript***</strong><em><br /><br />Junifer Hall</em>: The big building, the Genesis Convention Center. She wrote the legislation for the Genesis Convention Center, Gary Deputy Mayor’s law. Chaired, while over the education committee, she wrote over 100 bills for education for all people in the state of Indiana, so it was a lot to help people, working class people, authored or co-authored a lot of legislation to help people in Indiana cities and towns, so we were very proud of her efforts here in the city of Gary. At that time in the [19]70’s, the business elite in this city did not want Gary to have a convention center, but Mayor Hatcher felt that the time was right for citizens to have something in this city that we could go to and be proud of because again, when they venture South, there were racism there, even in entertainment going to shows and things like that, and with Gary’s minority population, and for all people, not just for minorities, but for everybody to have something here that was very nice. He thought the Genesis Center would add to tourism, business and things of that nature, so it was a fight in Indianapolis just to get the Genesis Gary Center built, but eventually we got it built.
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Congresswoman Katie Hall
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<p>Katie Hall was born in 1938 in Mound Bayou, Mississippi. She graduated from Mississippi Valley State University in 1960. She then moved to Bloomington, Indiana to start her master’s degree at Indiana University.<span>[1]</span> She later taught social studies in Gary, Indiana, where she lived with her husband and their three children. Hall took part in local Gary political campaigns in the 1960s.<span>[2]</span> She was elected to the Indiana House of Representatives from 1974 to 1976, and to the Indiana Senate from 1976 to 1982. In 1982, Hall was nominated to represent her district from northern Indiana in the United States House of Representatives. White Democrats were concerned about her electability because of her race.<span>[3]</span> Gary’s population was primarily black, but Hall’s district was 70% white.<span>[4]</span> She nonetheless won with 56% of the vote and became the first black woman from Indiana elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.<span>[5]</span> Veteran lawmaker William Gray III stated: “She brought freshness of approach, a spirit of reconciliation to what had sometimes been a bitter battle.”<span>[6]</span> </p>
<p>Hall supported the reduction of urban and industrial unemployment in her district, and also supported a number of measures to solve crime, alcohol and drug abuse, particularly in cities. She endorsed the Fair Trade in Steel Act, a measure designed to revitalize Gary’s crumbling steel and manufacturing industry.<span>[7]</span> In addition to domestic concerns, Hall became involved in the fight against famine in Africa after a visit to Ethiopia.<span>[8]</span></p>
<p>In 1983, Hall introduced a bill to make Martin Luther King’s birthday a federal holiday stating that for him “equality always prevailed.”<span>[9]</span> This bill had detractors that criticized the large cost of a paid holiday for federal employees, and several Republican senators questioned the legitimacy of King’s legacy. President Ronald Reagan signed the bill into law in November 1983, and the first Martin Luther King, Jr. Day occurred in January 1986.<span>[10]</span></p>
<p>After retiring from Congress, she served as the vice chair of Gary’s housing board and became the city clerk in 1985. Hall passed away on February 20, 2012 in Gary, Indiana. Her work and legacy is immortalized in a marker from the Indiana Historical Bureau, installed in 2019, highlighting her effort to make Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day a reality.</p>
<a href="https://digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/show/232">Junifer Hall interview 1</a><br /><a href="https://digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/show/233">Junifer Hall interview 2</a><br /><a href="https://digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/show/234">Junifer Hall interview 3</a><br /><a href="https://digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/show/235">Junifer Hall interview 4</a><br /><a href="https://digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/show/236">Junifer Hall interview 7</a>
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<p><span>[1]</span> United States Congress. "Katie Hall (id: H000058)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. P.124<br /><span>[2]</span> House Office of History and Preservation. <em>Black Americans in Congress, 1870-2007</em>. Edited by Matthew Wasniewski. Third edition. Washington: United States Congress, 2008. P.530<br /><span>[3]</span><span> Ibid. P.532<br /></span><span>[4]</span> Catlin, Robert A. "Organizational Effectiveness and Black Political Participation: The Case of Katie Hall." Phylon 46 (September 1985). P.179<br /><span>[5]</span> Ibid. P.190<br /><span>[6]</span> House Office of History and Preservation. <em>Black Americans in Congress, 1870-2007</em>. Edited by Matthew Wasniewski. Third edition. Washington: United States Congress, 2008. P.530<br /><span>[7]</span> Ibid.<br /><span>[8]</span> United States Congress. "Katie Hall (id: H000058)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.<br /><span>[9]</span> House Office of History and Preservation. <em>Black Americans in Congress, 1870-2007</em>. Edited by Matthew Wasniewski. Third edition. Washington: United States Congress, 2008. P.532<br /><span>[10]</span><span> Origin of MLK Day Law. </span>Indiana Historical Bureau. Accessed February 10, 2020.</p>
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Student Authors: Emma Guichon and Robin Johnson
Faculty/Staff Editors: Dr. Ronald V. Morris, Dr. Kevin C. Nolan, and Christine Thompson
Graduate Assistant Researchers: Carrie Vachon and JB Bilbrey
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PHOTO & VIDEO:
Katie Beatrice Hall, attributed to U.S. Congress, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Katie_Beatrice_Hall.jpg
Relation
A related resource
<a href="http://www.state.in.us/history/markers/4447.htm">Indiana Historical Bureau: Historical Marker</a>
1950s-present
Gary
House of Representatives
Indiana Historical Bureau
Lake County
law
Oral History
Politics
Women
-
https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/3afb6f786b600ddd44bcaa0261f678b8.jpg
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H. Theo. Tatum, Principal Gary Roosevelt High School
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Harbart Theodore Tatum, known as H. Theo. Tatum, was born January 18, 1894 in Columbus, Texas. At the age of 15, he graduated as valedictorian of his class at Charlton-Pollard High School in Beaumont, Texas.[1] He continued his education at Wiley College, then Columbia University where he graduated with a Master of Arts in Educational Administration, with post-graduate study at the University of Chicago.[2] Tatum was first a teacher and later vice-principal of McDonough High School in New Orleans, Louisiana. <br /><br />In 1925, he moved to Gary, Indiana and served as principal of Virginia Street School and East Pulaski High School. In his book,<em> Children of the Mill: Schooling and Society in Gary Indiana, 1906-1960</em>, Ronald D. Cohen says that, “Virginia school principal H. Theo Tatum epitomized the mixture of racial pride and integrationist principles.”[3] In 1931, the East Pulaski school had an enrollment of 998 pupils and 27 teachers, and “H. Theodore Tatum, the principal has been here nearly ten years…[4] It is generally conceded by both races that Mr. Tatum has very few equals and no superiors among the administrators of the Gary school system.”[5] Tatum was an administrator in the Gary Public School System for 36 years.[6] Tatum was said to have “represented pride within the black community.”[7]<br /><br />In 1933, H. Theo. Tatum became principal of Roosevelt High School, an all-black school, and he world serve that role for over 20 years. Tatum was “a firm advocate of integration as promoted by the NAACP.”[8] Theodore Roosevelt High School (also popularly known as Gary Roosevelt) was the first and only exclusively African American high school in Gary. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012, both for its architecture and design, and for the role it played with the development of the city’s African American community.[9]<br /><br />In 1961, Tatum retired as principal of Gary Roosevelt High School. He served as the local chairman of the National Negro College Fund,”[10] and he had a life membership in the NAACP. He was also the President of United Council of Negro Organizations in Gary.[12]<br /><br />Tatum died at the age of 89 on June 16, 1983. After his death, his son-in-law, Randall Morgan Sr. and former teachers under Tatum, remembered him and his contributions to his community. Morgan stated, “Many local people did not know it, but Mr. Tatum had quite a national reputation. For about 12 years, he taught a graduate course at Hampton Institute during the summer. Black schoolteachers and administrators from all over the country came there to hear him. His classes were filled to capacity, giving lessons on administration. He was one of only a few blacks with that kind of expertise in education.”[13]<br /><br />Mrs. Ida B. King, a teacher under Tatum, said, “he wanted to expose the community to artists of color, to give incentive to graduating seniors and those growing up- since Roosevelt was kindergarten through 12th grade at the time.”[14] She goes on to say that, “young blacks were inspired during those years - in the 1940s and 1950s- to see their own people progress in spite of obstacles that racism tossed in their path.”
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[1] “The Service of Worship In Memory of H. Theo. Tatum. June 1983. <br />[2] Ibid. <br />[3] Cohen, Ronald D. <em>Children of the Mill: Schooling and Society in Gary, Indiana, 1906-1960,</em> 98. <br />[4] Bethea, Dennis A."The Colored Group in the Gary School System." <br />[5] Ibid. <br />[6] Woodson-Wray, Carmen M. "Retired Educator H. Theo Tatum to Be Honored." <br />[7] Cohen, Ronald D. <em>Children of the Mill: Schooling and Society in Gary, Indiana, 1906-1960.</em> <br />[8] Abell, Gregg. <em>National Register of Historic Places Nomination Roosevelt High School.</em> <br />[9] Ibid. <br />[10] “H. Theo Tatum Biographical Sketch.” <br />[11] “The Service of Worship In Memory of H. Theo. Tatum. June 1983. <br />[12] “H. Theo. Tatum Personal Information.” <br />[13] Williams, Vernon A. “Tatum a Roosevelt Tradition.” [14] Ibid.
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Student Authors: Molly Hollcroft and Robin Johnson
Faculty/Staff Editors: Dr. Ronald V. Morris, Dr. Kevin C. Nolan, and Christine Thompson
Graduate Assistant Researchers: Carrie Vachon and JB Bilbrey
Relation
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<a href="https://npgallery.nps.gov/AssetDetail/NRIS/12001059">National Register of Historic Places</a>
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PHOTO & VIDEO:
Theodore Roosevelt High School, Gary Indiana, attributed to T. Tolbert, Public domain, via Wikimedia commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Theodore_Roosevelt_High_School,_Gary_Indiana.jpg
1900-1940s
1950s-present
education
Gary
Integration
Lake County
-
https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/files/original/454b7a358d3243dcf77ad2d9a4ca0f05.jpg
9e61cfd0bb32f29fb379dea3675260a7
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Title
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Events
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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National Black Political Convention and West Side High School
Description
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<p>For three days in March 1972, the city of Gary, Indiana hosted approximately 8,000 black political leaders and citizens from across the nation.<span>[1]</span> These delegates came together to form the National Black Political Convention, “a distinctly black political movement” independent from both major American political parties.<span>[2]</span> Throughout the weekend, delegates aimed to discuss the future of African American people in America and to create a National Black Agenda that would address nationwide poverty and high unemployment rates of African Americans, along with the general alienation of African Americans from the political system across party lines.<span>[3]<br /></span> <br />The city of Gary was chosen to host the convention despite its relatively small size and few accommodations.<span>[4]</span> Gary had only one hotel at the time, but was chosen “because it was a predominantly black city governed by an elected black mayor, who was able to ensure a welcoming environment for the thousands of black delegates and visitors to the convention.”<span>[5]</span> In 1972, Gary had a population of about 175,000, half of which were African American.<span>[6]</span> Mayor Richard Gordon Hatcher had been elected in November 1967, and was the first African American mayor in Indiana’s history.<span>[7]</span> Along with Mayor Carl Stokes of Cleveland, elected the same year, Hatcher was also the first African American mayor “to head a major American city.”<span>[8]</span> Hatcher was the chair of the planning conference for the convention held on September 24, 1971, and offered Gary as a host city, saying that “We should do it at a place where Black people from all over the country could feel comfortable. Wouldn’t have to worry about the police beating them. Wouldn’t have to worry about getting cooperation from city officials.”<span>[9]</span></p>
<p>The National Black Political Convention took place in the gymnasium at Gary’s West Side High School, now called West Side Leadership Academy. West Side High School, built in 1968 to integrate students within the Gary School System, was the largest high school in Indiana at the time.<span>[10]</span> The convention hoped to cultivate a neutral space for its diverse delegates, where everyone “from members of Congress to street gang members from Chicago would feel welcome.”<span>[11]</span> The slogan “unity without uniformity” was the rallying cry of the convention, whose leaders hoped to create a united black political front without necessarily agreeing on methods of strategy or implementation.<span>[12]</span> The National Black Political Agenda which was ratified during the convention was supposed to be representative of the collective political will of African Americans nationwide.<span>[13]</span> From there, leaders of the convention “would then take this agenda to the Democratic and Republican National Conventions to determine which one of the two presidential candidates was more sympathetic to blacks.”<span>[14]</span> Then, the agenda was hoped to serve as a guide for the president in order to “guide his relationship with black Americans.”<span>[15]</span> However, the convention was plagued by division, especially over the issues of integration versus black nationalism, busing of African American children to white schools in order to end school segregation, and a controversial anti-Israel amendment to the agenda.<span>[16]</span></p>
<p>At a time when the country was still experiencing violent protests and racism, managing to host a black political convention of more than eight thousand African Americans represented empowerment and progress. Among the leaders was Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr., an activist who had worked alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He delivered a passionate speech on the significance of the convention. Other speeches focused on African American political and economic freedom, and also on tumultuous events such as the violence in Selma, Alabama, the Voting Rights Act and the deaths of major African American political figures like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. One of the major subjects of discussion was Pan-Africanism, an intellectual movement which sought to unite people from Africa or from African descent in a collective movement internationally.<span>[17]</span></p>
<p>The National Black Political Convention issued the Gary Declaration, a document which served as “an initial statement of goals and directions for [the delegates’] own generation, some first definitions of crucial issues around which Black people must organize and move in 1972 and beyond.”<span>[18]</span> For the delegates at the National Black Political Convention, the only way to implement a real change for African Americans nationwide was to develop an independent black politics and to ensure an equal representation of African American representatives in the government.<span>[19]</span> As the Gary Declaration states, the delegates at the National Black Political Convention found that historically, “both parties have betrayed [black Americans] whenever their interests conflicted with [black Americans’] (which was most of the time).”<span>[20]</span> The Gary Declaration ends with a clear call to action for all African Americans: “We begin here and now in Gary. We begin with an independent Black political movement, an independent Black Political Agenda, and independent Black spirit. Nothing less will do. We must build for our people. We must build for our world. We stand on the edge of history. We cannot turn back.”<span>[21]</span></p>
<p>The National Black Political Convention in Gary was a euphoric event, filling its delegates with hope for the future and a sense of true empowerment.<span>[22]</span> It represents a distinct moment in American history in which “a formidable collection of black Americans were energized by the possibility of stepping outside the confines” of mainstream white American politics.<span>[23]</span> However, the National Black Agenda and Gary Declaration were “more romantic than pragmatic,” creating an idealistic stance that was “so unrealistic as to be unrealizable.”<span>[24]</span> The convention failed in its goals of creating a clear consensus and energizing a nationwide coalition of black citizens which could influence mainstream American politics. Nevertheless, the energy the convention created in Gary has had a clear legacy in African American politics in the United States. The National Black Political Convention is credited with the organization of black voters and candidates which would lead to significant growth in the number of African American politicians elected nationwide; from 2,200 at the time of the convention in 1972 to more than 5,000 just ten years later.<span>[25]</span></p>
<p></p>
Source
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[1]Michael Puente, “Gary’s National Black Political Convention, 40 Years On,” WBEZ News Chicago, last modified March 9, 2012. <br />[2] Jerry Gafio Watts, Amiri Baraka: The Politics and Art of a Black Intellectual (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2001), 401. <br />[3] Puente, “Gary’s National Black Political Convention, 40 Years On,” 2012. <br />[4] Ibid. <br />[5] Watts, Amiri Baraka, 401. <br />[6] Puente, “Gary’s National Black Political Convention, 40 Years On,” 2012. <br />[7] Craig Lyons, “1967 Gary Election a ‘History Maker’ with Richard Hatcher as Indiana’s First African-American Mayor,” Chicago Post-Tribune (Chicago, IL), Oct. 28, 2017. <br />[8] Ibid. <br />[9] Watts, Amiri Baraka, 401.; Leonard N. Moore, The Defeat of Black Power: Civil Rights and the National Black Political Convention of 1972 (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2018), 65. <br />[10] Puente, “Gary’s National Black Political Convention, 40 Years On,” 2012. <br />[11] Moore, The Defeat of Black Power, 66. <br />[12] Watts, Amiri Baraka, 403. <br />[13] Ibid., 406 <br />[14] Ibid. <br />[15] Ibid. <br />[16] Ibid., 408-411. <br />[17] Robert Charles Smith, We Have No Leaders: African Americans in the Post-Civil Rights Era (New York, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996), 48. <br />[18]“(1972) Gary Declaration, National Black Political Convention,” BlackPast, last modified January 21, 2007. <br />[19] Ibid. <br />[20] Ibid. <br />[21] Ibid. <br />[22] Puente, “Gary’s National Black Political Convention, 40 Years On,” 2012. <br />[23] Watts, Amiri Baraka, 410. <br />[24] Ibid. <br />[25] Puente, “Gary’s National Black Political Convention, 40 Years On,” 2012.
Contributor
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Student Authors: Allison Hunt and Emma Guichon
Faculty/Staff Editors: Dr. Ronald V. Morris, Dr. Kevin C. Nolan, and Christine Thompson
Graduate Assistant Researchers: Carrie Vachon and JB Bilbrey
Rights
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PHOTO & VIDEO:
Pinback button for the Black National Political Convention, Public domain, via Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
https://nmaahc.si.edu/object/nmaahc_2013.201.1.23.7?destination=explore/collection/search%3Fedan_q%3Dthe%2520north%26edan_local%3D1%26edan_fq%255B0%255D%3Dtopic%253A%2522Civil%2520rights%2522
1950s-present
1972
Gary
Integration
Lake County
Politics
Segregation