Ghosts of Black Walnut Hill's Past

 

Ashland Park

Happy November! I'm still recovering from a knee injury that I suffered this past May. I did have a voucher for a Reds home game, but again due to this evil spirit we call COVID-19, in person games have been out of the question this year, so I still decided to celebrate with the Black Baseball in Walnut Hills Walking Tour.

Peter H Clark, in addition to being principal of Gaines Colored High School, was considered the Father of Cincinnati's Black Baseball, having found the Cincinnati Vigilants. The game made a significant mark in baseball history as it connected baseball to education, thus the team consisted of student-athletes from the school. He is also the author of the first account of the Black Brigade, and was also the first African American socialist in the United States. According to the July 1874 issue of the Cincinnati Daily Times, a writer who went by the name of Vigilant Play gave an account of why white teams refused to play against one of the best Black teams in the country:

“Now, why the white clubs refuse to play our club, I can’t see,” wrote Vigilant Play, adding the claim that the Vigilants were “the champions of Ohio.” “The Vigilant Club is composed of as good players as the Arctics [a white team]. Is this giving our colored boys a show? The Arctics, Favorites and Hunkidories have to work for a living as well as we Vigilant boys do, and we will play any of the above-mentioned any day next week, except Sunday.

“It seems as if the white clubs are afraid of us,” he added boldly.

Philanthropist Jacob Schmidlapp, provided low cost housing, such as the former Gordon Hotel (pictured), for African American wage earners. In the early 1900s, rooms were priced $.50 per night, $1.75 per week.

Former Manggrum's Drugstore, Chapel Street. One of the first Black owned pharmacies in Cincinnati, the pharmacy was a vendor that sold tickets to Black performances, most notably the June Festival of Negro Music in Eden Park back in the 1940s.

Former Manse Hotel (left) and headquarters of the Cincinnati Federation of Colored Women's Clubs.

Listed in The Negro Motorist Green Book, the Manse Hotel, Black baseball players such as Jackie Robinson were guests.

To learn more about Dehart Hubbard, read this post.

Alms Hotel, home of the former WKRC jazz radio station.

Have a blessed week!

Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame & Museum

Now, I know that we are three weeks away from Opening Day here in the 'Nati, but I just wanted to get my party started early, so yesterday, I went to the Reds Hall of Fame & Museum to check out the Shades of Greatness exhibit as this year marks the 100th anniversary of the Negro Leagues. In August 2003, the Negro League Baseball Museum put out its one of a kind exhibit inspired by the Negro Leagues Baseball.

The RHFM contains exhibits showcasing both Reds and MLB history located on the 1st and 3rd floors, including one dedicated to the 1869 Red Stockings and was renovated in 2019. Guided tours of Great American Ballpark, Day Game Tours, Clubhouse tours, as well as private tours, are also available. There is also a gift shop as well as a theater.

I checked out both the Shades of Greatness and the Pursuit of a Dream exhibits, and let me tell you, these took me back to the glory days of baseball and being black where we dressed up and had respect for the game.

Oh, did I tell you that Cincinnati was the birthplace of American baseball?

If you want to jumpstart the party with me, here are some photos to get in the mood for the season. I'll try not to be too windy, but these are worth checking out! Enjoy and Go Reds!

DeHart Hubbard was the founder of the Cincinnati Tigers; yes, the same DeHart Hubbard who medaled in the 1924 Paris Olympics. 

Read more here.

P.S. & BTW, Barry Larkin led the Reds to win the 1990 World Series.

DeHart Hubbard

Last weekend during BLINK, the Riverfront Transit Center was put to use to accommodate roughly one million attendees. Typically, this is closed to the public except on rare occasions such as this, so I took a photo of this plaque of William DeHart Hubbard.

DeHart Hubbard was the first African American to win an Olympic gold medal in a single event: the long jump. Named after Douglass School's former principal A. J. DeHart, he was born in Cincinnati and attended the aforementioned school and Walnut Hills High School in the city. His father was a chauffeur for a well to do newspaper publisher. His father's employer held a contest to see who could sell the most newspaper subscriptions, with the prize being a college scholarship. Not only did he win the scholarship, but also his achievements both on the track field and in the classroom caught the attention of Lon Barringer of the University of Michigan. Upon graduation, Barringer convinced Hubbard to attend the university.1n 1924, Hubbard ran in the Paris Olympics, where he won his gold medal. The following year, he set the world record in the long jump, and and in 1926, tied the world record in the 100 yd dash. He then represented the United States at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

After his Olympic career ended, he became a supervisor of the Department of Colored Work at the Cincinnati Public Recreation Commission and worked there until 1941. He was also a manager of Valley Homes, a public housing project in Cincinnati and also worked for the Federal Housing Authority in Cleveland, Ohio. He was also friends with fellow realtor Donald Spencer, husband of civil rights activist Marian Spencer. According to his niece Dana Hubbard Blackwell, he rarely talked about his Olympic medals and records. There is even a letter that Hubbard wrote to his mother in 1924 on record at the Cincinnati History Library and Archives at the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal.

In addition to his track and field, he was an avid bowler and served as president of the National Bowling Association in the 1950s. In 1934, he founded the Cincinnati Tigers (not to be confused with the 1981-82 minor league ice hockey team), a professional baseball team that joined the Negro American League in 1937. The Tigers used Cincinnati Reds hand-me down uniforms and played at the now defunct Crosley Field. Hubbard was elected to the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1957 and inducted posthumously in 1979.

Heeere's Jennie!

Hays-Porter High Tech (former site of the Jennie D. Porter Middle School)

Jennie D Porter Park

Yesterday was my last day at my temporary assignment at an insurance broker, so today, I decided to walk around the West End some more and stumbled upon yet some more pieces of black history.

Jennie Davis Porter was the first African-American woman to earn a doctorate from the University of Cincinnati and one of the first African American female school principals in Cincinnati.

Porter was born to freed Tennessee slave William A. Porter and Edlinda Davis Porter. Her father was Cincinnati's first African American morticians.

Porter operated the Harriet Beecher Stowe Elementary School during the day and attended University of Cincinnati at night, ultimately earning her bachelor's master's, and doctorate degrees. Porter ran the school until illness forced her to take a leave of absence one year before her death in 1936. In addition, she published articles on African American education and social issues in national publications.

Among her students were DeHart Hubbard, the first African American to win an individual gold medal in the long jump at the Paris Olympics in 1924, and Theodore Berry, Cincinnati's first African American mayor (1972-1976).

The school itself closed in 1962, and the property of 1030 Cutter Street has gone through many incarnations before the school merged with the former Hays School in the early 2000s to become what is now Hayes-Porter High Tech.

A few blocks east of the school stands the Jennie D Porter Park, which was built by students of the former Jennie D Porter Middle School in the early 1990s.

Happy Friday Eve!