{"id":1010,"date":"2005-09-21T15:05:02","date_gmt":"2005-09-21T15:05:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/?p=1010"},"modified":"2014-01-06T16:35:43","modified_gmt":"2014-01-06T16:35:43","slug":"out-of-the-shadows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/nojh\/2005\/09\/21\/out-of-the-shadows\/","title":{"rendered":"Out of the Shadows: Informal Segregation in Warren, Ohio, 1954-1964"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Kenneth J. Bindas & Molly Merryman<\/em><\/h3>\n

Former educator and long-time Warren-area resident Cliff Johnson looked relaxed and\u00a0comfortable sitting for his interview. When asked what he remembered best about the\u00a01950s and early 1960s in the small northeast Ohio city of Warren, he talked about the\u00a0separateness that permeated his world and his discomfort with this invisibility: \u201cI\u00a0personally would rather have someone call me a bunch of dirty names and at least\u00a0acknowledge me as a person than to act as if I wasn\u2019t even there.\u201d Being invisible for\u00a0Johnson was \u201cprobably the worst thing to ever do to a human being.\u201d[1. Clifford Johnson, interviewed by Laurie Dangerfield, October 2002,\u00a0Documenting Justice\u00a0<\/em>DVD, produced by Molly Merryman and Kenneth J. Bindas, 2002. Hereafter\u00a0DJ<\/em>. These interviews were part of a community history project discussed in the text and involved the digital video interviewing of 14 people.]<\/p>\n

Historians studying the United States after 1945 have begun to investigate the
\neffect and pervasiveness of the Civil Rights movement on a local, less visible level.
\nHow did ordinary Americans, particularly outside the South, act and react to the social\u00a0and legal revolutions that swept the country through 1965? The people from Warren,\u00a0Ohio, offer an interesting case study through which we can begin to provide insight\u00a0into the complexities of this question. While many of the area\u2019s white residents would agree with their neighbor Delores Capan that \u201cthere was no problem here,\u201d the\u00a0recollected experiences of many African Americans assembled as part of this oral\u00a0history project suggest otherwise. Not only do these reminisces reveal a division over\u00a0how Warren residents recalled their collective past, they also point toward how these\u00a0perceptions affected everyday life and policing of this community. Perhaps most\u00a0significantly, the fact that the white majority believed the racial situation was not\u00a0problematic suggests the very temper of the invisibility African Americans faced and\u00a0suggests a larger collective meaning of the Civil Rights era on the city level.[2. Delores Capan, interviewed by James Atkins, April 2003, page 8. Community History Project, in author’s possession. Hereafter referred to as CHP.]<\/p>\n

In order to better understand this era and its effects on this local population, in\u00a0the fall of 2003 we co-taught a course at Kent State University, Trumbull, entitled\u00a0\u201cDocumenting Justice: Civil Rights in Warren, Ohio.\u201d The foundation of the course\u00a0involved teaching the students the theory and methodology of oral history and then,\u00a0working with them, interviewing local white and African American residents who were\u00a0young adults during the period 1954-1964.[3. The next semester Bindas taught a separate course that had students interview any resident of the city, which resulted in an overwhelming number of white respondents.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>Merryman directed two independent studies with students to add interviews with Geneva Owens and civil rights activist Staughton Lynd.] We chose the period after 1945 because it\u00a0corresponds with the emergence of the modern Civil Rights movement, many of those\u00a0who lived through the era were still alive and cogent, and enough time had passed to\u00a0allow for \u2018honest\u2019 responses. Using methodologies outlined by Gwendolyn Etter-Lewis,\u00a0Joan Sanger, Ronald Grele, Michael Frisch, and Paul Thompson, Bindas compiled a list\u00a0of questions* in the form of life narrative, supplemented with policing questions\u00a0developed by Merryman.[4. Gwendolyn Etter-Lewis, \u201cBlack Women’s Life Stories: Reclaiming Self in Narrative Texts,\u201d in Sherna Berger Gluck and Daphne Patai,\u00a0Women’s Words: The Feminist Practice of Oral History\u00a0<\/em>(New York: Routledge, 1991), 43-57; Joan Sangster, \u201cTelling Our Stories: Feminist Debates and the Use of Oral History,\u201d in\u00a0The Oral History Reader<\/em>, edited by Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson (New York: Routledge, 1988), 87-100; Ronald Grele, \u201cMovement without Aim: Methodological and Theoretical Problems in Oral History,\u201d in\u00a0The Oral History Reader<\/em>, (from his 1975\u00a0Envelopes of Sound<\/em>), 38-52; Michael Frisch,\u00a0A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History\u00a0<\/em>(Albany: SUNY Press, 1990), 15-28; Paul Thompson,\u00a0The Voice of the Past: Oral History\u00a0<\/em>(New York: Oxford University Press, 1988, 2 nd edition), 1-223, 220-245, 309-323. There are many sources that discuss the importance of such a community based project, including A. Glenn Crothers, \u201cBringing History to Life: Oral History, Community Research, and Multiple Levels of Learning,\u201d\u00a0Journal of American History\u00a0<\/em>88 (March 2002): 1446-1450; John Forrest and Elizabeth Jackson, “Get Real: Empowering the Student Through Oral History, “The Oral History Review<\/em>, 18 (Spring 1990): 29-33; Michael H. Ebner, “Students as Oral Historians,”\u00a0The History Teacher<\/em>, 9 (February 1976): 196-201; Roger D. Long, “The Personal Dimension in Doing Oral History,\u201d\u00a0The History Teacher<\/em>, 24 (May 1991), 309-312; Joanna Bornat, \u201cOral History as a Social Movement: Reminiscence and Older People,” in\u00a0The Oral History Reader<\/em>, Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson, eds. (London: Routledge, 1998): 189-205. The questionnaire was divided into four sections; the first section focused on personal information like birth date and place, school attendance, date of first job, and other general biographical questions.\u00a0<\/strong>The second section asked questions related to family and lifestyle, such as where they lived and shopped, their roles within the household concerning discipline, and their understanding of the community. The third section focused on getting a living and how they interacted within the community. The final section asked questions specific to race and the interconnection to national events during the time period.] The responses were added to traditional textual evidence\u00a0gleaned from the local newspaper, The Warren Tribune Chronicle<\/em>, NAACP and Urban\u00a0League reports, census data, and appropriate secondary literature. Taken together,\u00a0these sources paint a picture of a small northeast Ohio town in the midst of a social\u00a0transformation. While rarely spoken, the ideals of the Civil Rights Movement \u2013 that all\u00a0people have the inherent right to equality \u2013 encouraged both races to examine their\u00a0community and attempt to reconcile the way things had always operated with the\u00a0apparent way things were going to operate. Warren residents\u2019 recollections and how\u00a0they frame them provide valuable light into this era and help provide the necessary\u00a0backlight to understanding the impact of the larger national movement.<\/p>\n

A 1947 Urban League\/Community League study of African Americans in Warren\u00a0documented the pervasiveness of de facto<\/em> segregation in the community. The study\u00a0revealed that blacks lived in the worst sections of the community (the largest was an\u00a0area called the \u201cflats\u201d near the dump), few owned their homes, and eight of ten of the\u00a0housing units were deemed substandard. Their children attended neighborhood\u00a0schools and scored well below the norm in reading and arithmetic. There were few\u00a0playgrounds and there was a disproportionate arrest percentage both for adult and\u00a0juvenile crime. Contrary to widely held beliefs, there were few black-owned businesses\u00a0and few non-entertainment-based businesses in the neighborhood. The black\u00a0community \u2013 much of which was forced to live in areas where authorities allowed\u00a0brothels to flourish \u2013 also suffered from higher rates of infant mortality and\u00a0unemployment. Those that could find work faced union discrimination and\u00a0disproportionate representation in the domestic trades in a city with few black city\u00a0employees, no black firemen, and no black teachers (or even teacher\u2019s aides). The\u00a0report painted a portrait of a small northeast Ohio city mired in de facto<\/em> segregation and\u00a0a black population made invisible and marginal by the dominant white system. Even\u00a0the local public swimming pool in Warren tried to prevent black entrance by leasing it to a community group called the Veterans Swim Club, a membership-only organization\u00a0that blacks were not allowed to join. Protests by locals ensued, and the NAACP brought\u00a0suit against the city for this practice, eventually winning and opening the pool to all in\u00a01948.[5. Stephen Grant Meyer,\u00a0As Long As They Don’t Move Next Door: Segregation and Racial Conflict in American Neighborhoods\u00a0<\/em>(New York: Rowan & Littlefield, 2000); \u201cA Review of the Problems and Activities of the Warren Urban League: as They Relate to the Needs of the Colored Population of Warren, Ohio,\u201d by Warren M. Banner, Director of Research and Community Projects, National Urban League, April, 1948; \u201cSwim Pool Season Ends,\u201d\u00a0Warren\u00a0<\/em>Tribune Chronicle<\/em>, 8 September 1947, Section A, page 1; \u201cCourt Hears Swim Pool Protest Case,\u201d\u00a0Warren Tribune Chronicle<\/em>, 24 September 1947, Section A, page 1, 6. For an interesting take on a similar situation, see James Patterson Smith, \u201cLocal Leadership. The Biloxi Beach Riot and the Origins of the Civil Rights Movement on the Gulf Coast, 1959-1966,\u201d inSunbelt Revolution: The Historical Progression of the Civil Rights Struggle in the Gulf South, 1866-2000\u00a0<\/em>, Samuel C, Hyde, Jr., ed. (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003), 210-233.]<\/p>\n

Looking through The Warren Tribune Chronicle<\/em> underscores the depth of the\u00a0invisibility of African Americans in the area during the period. While Warren\u2019s\u00a0population continued to grow from 42,837 in 1940 to 63,494 in 1970, and the percentage\u00a0of African Americans in the city increased from 8.8% of the population in 1950 to about\u00a011% by 1970, the paper contained few stories concerning the issues of this growing\u00a0minority. There were many other articles covering myriad local issues like roads,\u00a0zoning, politics, law, business and union activities. Articles featuring local African\u00a0Americans focused on athletics, churches, criminal activity, or were lumped under a\u00a0section titled \u201cFor Colored Subscribers\u201d during the early part of the 1950s. While the\u00a0paper usually ran AP reports when looking for stories focusing on national situations\u00a0like the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Freedom Rides, the March on Washington, or the\u00a0passage of the Civil Rights Act, it rarely attempted to discuss these national occurrences\u00a0against the backdrop of the local racial situation. The editorial page regularly weighed\u00a0in on other national issues like the Cold War, unions, politics and business, but the only\u00a0mention of race and its local ramifications came in light of the 1954 Brown v. Board of\u00a0Education<\/em> ruling. In one of the only editorials that tackled the sensitive issue of race, the\u00a0editors identified the Supreme Court ruling as \u201chistoric\u201d and \u201cnot surprising,\u201d yet\u00a0ignored Warren\u2019s own de facto<\/em> segregation by suggesting that \u201csegregation in the\u00a0schools of the south will of course be a major change for that section of the country,\u00a0where it has been the custom for so long.\u201d The paper echoed the attitudes of its white\u00a0majority, as local resident Wesley Shaffer recalled when asked about his reaction to\u00a0these events, \u201cI guess they weren\u2019t for us . . . you know because around here everything\u00a0was smooth.\u201d In the final analysis, the Warren newspaper, which balanced its pro-business\u00a0editorial policy against its overwhelming Democratic base readership, neither\u00a0explored nor ignored the local African American population. Rather, it rarely bothered\u00a0to delve into the many problems that plagued this community because it did not see the\u00a0situation as being as problematic as it was in the South. During the early 1960s, the\u00a0paper ran more stories about the black population, yet continued the earlier trend by\u00a0ignoring issue related stories and focused instead on human interest or community\u00a0relations stories.[6. Meyer,\u00a0As Long As They Don’t Move Next Door<\/em>, 6-10, 212-215; U.S. Bureau of the Census,\u00a016 th Census of the US, 1940, Volume I, Population\u00a0<\/em>(Washington D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 1942), 815; US Bureau of the Census,\u00a0US Census Population: 1950, Volume II, Characteristics of the Population, Part 35, Ohio<\/em>, (USGPO, 1952), 35-54; US Bureau of the Census,\u00a0US Census Population, 1960. Detailed Characteristics.\u00a0<\/em>Ohio\u00a0<\/em>. Final report PC (1)- 37D\u00a0<\/em>(USGPO, 1962), 37-538, for employment comparisons, 37-614-867; \u201cSegregation Decision,\u201d\u00a0Warren Tribune Chronicle<\/em>, 19 May 1954, Section B, page 8; Wesley Shaffer interviewed by Nikki Shaffer, 22 March 2003, no page number, CHP; After the most recent census, an interesting article appeared in the local paper detailing the continued residential segregation amidst the increase in the African American population. Matt Walcoff and Raymond L. Smith, \u201cCensus shows a more diverse Warren,\u201d\u00a0Warren Tribune<\/em>, 25 March 25 2001, Section A, pages 1, 2. See also Raymond L. Smith, \u201cCensus a mixed bag for Mahoning Valley,\u201d\u00a0Warren Tribune<\/em>, 20 March 2001, Section A, pages 5, 11.]<\/p>\n

The oral history interviews reveal the decidedly different ways in which the two\u00a0racial groups saw their collective past. Most of the white respondents agreed that there\u00a0were few racial problems in the Warren area and that segregation and racism were\u00a0southern phenomena. White residents like Alice Surrena remembered that while some\u00a0people in Warren did not want to drink out of the same water fountain as black\u00a0residents, it was far different from the south where blacks would have to \u201cstep off the\u00a0sidewalk to let a white person pass.\u201d Paul Starnes told his interviewer that down south\u00a0\u201cthey wouldn\u2019t [allow blacks to] eat in the same restaurants,\u201d and then said without\u00a0recognizing the contradiction, that he could not \u201crecall ever seeing a black person\u201d in the diners downtown. Betty Sloan did not \u201cremember ever seeing any black men down\u00a0in Warren.\u201d[7. Alice Surrena, interviewed by Sarah Surrena, 17 March 2003, page 9; Paul Starnes, interviewed by Danielle Wojnarski, 6 April 2003, page 12; Betty Sloan, interviewed by Joshua Sloan, 28 March 2003.]<\/p>\n

For most white residents the city\u2019s black population was simply out of sight and\u00a0mind \u2013 people who accepted their situation without complaint. For example, Ruth\u00a0Johnson told her interviewer that the reason no blacks worked on the railroad was \u00a0because she didn\u2019t \u201cthink any of the black people cared to work for the railroad.\u201d\u00a0Emma Buckner\u2019s understanding of the segregated eating establishments in Warren had\u00a0less to do about race and more about people belonging to different \u201csocial clubs.\u201d The\u00a0responses from these white informants suggest that the Warren newspaper was just a\u00a0part of the general societal tendency toward marginalization and invisibility of the\u00a0black population. Mary Homlitas, reflecting on her lack of knowledge about the issue\u00a0of race, defensively told her grandson interviewer \u201cwe did what we were told to do,\u00a0lived according to the law. That was it.\u201d But others, like Merrill Hall, realized that the\u00a0city was segregated culturally and financially, as \u201cblack people knew where they would\u00a0be unwelcome.\u201d[8. Ruth Johnson, interviewed by Laurie Tonn, April 2003, page 8; Emma Buckner, interviewed by Trisha Buckner, April 2003; Mary Homlitas, interviewed by Scot Homlitas, March 2003, all CHP.]<\/p>\n

For the African Americans interviewed, there was no doubt as to the flagrancy of\u00a0Warren\u2019s racism. Olive Reese loved to go to the movies and there were three theaters in\u00a0the downtown area; but in each, blacks were only allowed to \u201csit upstairs.\u201d Morris Hill,\u00a0who in 1966 became one of the few black police officers in Warren, recalled that the\u00a0segregation was done in a way that \u201chid it more than anything.\u201d \u201cThey tried to keep\u00a0the segregation out of the eye of the public, but you could feel it and you could see it\u201d if\u00a0you were black, he said. Frederick Harris placed the pervasiveness African American\u00a0invisibility in Warren into the larger context, explaining, \u201cwe thought this is the way it\u00a0was everywhere \u2013 this is the way it works.\u201d But he also saw the contradiction and\u00a0dehumanization in the system, particularly when recalling how his mother had to go to\u00a0the basement of the local courthouse to go to the black bathroom. \u201cShe was my mother\u00a0\u2013 there was nothing wrong with my mother!\u201d[9. Olive Reese, interviewed by Sherry Bacon-Graves,\u00a0DJ\u00a0<\/em>; Morris Hill, interviewed by Holly Davis, November 2002,\u00a0DJ<\/em>; Frederick Harris, interviewed by Theresa Davis, November 2002,\u00a0DJ<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

The African American informants recalled with tremendous detail the ways in\u00a0which Warren made sure they stayed in their place. JoAnn Turner remembers the problems associated with buying her first house in Warren during the early 1960s. The\u00a0first realtor took her and her husband to the worst areas of town and simply told them\u00a0these were the only houses he would show them. Dejected, they found another agent\u00a0who sugar-coated the situation better, saying up front that he would show them \u201cthe\u00a0nicest that I have that you<\/em> can buy.\u201d The hurdles in the community were complex.\u00a0Bertha Barber remembered the difficulty black girls had in securing a job after high\u00a0school graduation: \u201cwhite girls that didn\u2019t go to college went to the factories\u201d (which\u00a0didn\u2019t hire black girls), while \u201cblack girls went to the hotels and housecleaning\u00a0[because] that\u2019s the only thing that we could get.\u201d Education as a means to\u00a0advancement meant little in Warren, as Muriel Robinson related that after she\u00a0graduated (in the upper third of her class) she could not even get an interview when the\u00a0new bank opened in downtown. It hurt her because she knew the \u201cgirls \u2013 white from\u00a0her class \u2013 who got the job\u201d to be less qualified. Black men also had to settle for low\u00a0paying jobs. \u201cPackard Electric,\u201d James Johnson told his interviewer, \u201conly hired people\u00a0from the black community to clean bathrooms and things. They didn\u2019t work in\u00a0production.\u201d One exception to the occupational limitation was Isnell Rumph. She got a\u00a0political appointment in the latter part of the 1950s as the Clerk of the City Council, an\u00a0important position for a black woman at the time. Yet, she still faced the de facto<\/em>\u00a0invisibility of the region. She recalled that when candidate John F. Kennedy visited\u00a0Warren in 1960, she posed with him along with the City Council, Mayor, Chief of\u00a0Police, and other notables. However, when the photograph ran the next day in the\u00a0Warren newspaper along with the story of the visit, she was \u201cblocked out.\u201d It upset\u00a0her, but she \u201cheld [her] head up and prayed and kept on.\u201d[10. JoAnn Turner, interviewed by Kristy Rider, May 2002, CHP; Bertha Barber, interviewed by Renee Pisan, October 2002,\u00a0DJ<\/em>; Muriel Robinson, interviewed by Paula Johnson, October 2002,\u00a0DJ<\/em>; James Johnson, interviewed by Michael Ciferno, October 2002,\u00a0DJ\u00a0<\/em>; Isnell Rumph, interviewed by Dino Haidaris, April 2002, CHP.]<\/p>\n

The African American respondents understood that there were many places they\u00a0were not welcome. There were no signs prohibiting them, but rather an informal\u00a0understanding that segregated the city. One of the most obvious places of this de facto<\/em>\u00a0segregation was the area\u2019s restaurants. \u201cNo restaurants would let blacks in\u201d to eat,\u00a0Bertha Barber recalled. They would however employ blacks to \u201cwash dishes, wait\u00a0tables, or work downstairs in the laundry with the linen.\u201d Lou Tabor told his\u00a0interviewer that becoming a young black adult in Warren in the late 1950s and early\u00a01960s meant recognizing \u201cwe could not go to restaurants and be served.\u201d After the 1964\u00a0Civil Rights Act, though, he and many others began going wherever they wanted to eat,\u00a0much to the consternation of some local whites. Rosalie Price, a white resident, recalled\u00a0that eateries \u201cwould not let them [blacks] sit with the white people.\u201d Annemarie\u00a0Graziosi worked in a downtown Warren restaurant at the time and when the \u201cfirst\u00a0black person came in\u201d to eat around that time, the staff didn\u2019t know what to do. After\u00a0the manager talked with him, they served him dinner but were afraid that \u201cmaybe if he\u00a0came in other whites wouldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amidst this de facto<\/em> social segregation, the city of Warren hired three black police\u00a0officers during the civil rights era, including the department\u2019s only female officer,\u00a0Geneva Owens. The city of Warren hired its first black police officer, a man named\u00a0Walter Rogers, in 1941; and Owens was hired in 1945.[11. Civil Service Documents, property of Warren Police Department.] After their respective\u00a0retirements, the two married and lived together until Walter\u2019s death. Their careers\u00a0spanned the civil rights era, and both are considered leaders and legacies among\u00a0contemporary African American and female officers.<\/p>\n

When asked about racial segregation in Warren\u2019s restaurants and movie theaters,\u00a0Geneva Owens said: \u201cI heard about those days, but I don\u2019t remember them myself, you know. . . .They couldn\u2019t treat a police officer like that.\u201d[12. Geneva Owens, interviewed by Paula Johnson, February 2003, DJ<\/em>.] In this understated sentence,\u00a0Owens both acknowledged the existence of racial segregation, and its cultural rather\u00a0than legal basis: as Owens was well-known as a police officer to white business owners\u00a0and other community members, the informal (i.e. non-legally sanctioned) rules of\u00a0segregation were not applied to her.<\/p>\n

Included among Owens\u2019 duties was controlling the city\u2019s juvenile population,\u00a0and in upholding her job, she was perceived by some as being an agent of racial\u00a0segregation. Frederick Harris, a lifelong Warren resident and public safety director at\u00a0the time of his interview, remembers her in this way:<\/p>\n

We would go to the high school football games \u2013 I would stand there and\u00a0watch in the wintertime. . . . at halftime, the girls would go into the\u00a0bathroom; well, all the black girls. She [Geneva Owens] would go in there\u00a0and make them come out. They weren\u2019t allowed to go in there, while the\u00a0white girls could stand in there and get warm. . . . We would ride from the\u00a0high school and switch buses to go to the east side. Well, we would stand\u00a0in Kresge\u2019s because by the window they had a nice big heater. . . . Well,\u00a0we wasn\u2019t allowed to stand there. And the white kids would laugh at us\u00a0because we had to stand there like this [crosses arms, pulls head down\u00a0and shakes] in the cold, waiting on the bus and they were standing in the\u00a0warm. Now Geneva couldn\u2019t tell the white kids anything \u2013 see, she was\u00a0strictly for us. And she enforced it: \u2018get out, get out, get out \u2013 you don\u2019t\u00a0belong here, get out\u2019.<\/em>[13. Frederick Harris, interviewed by Theresa Davis, October 2002, DJ<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

Geneva Owens remembers this aspect of her job differently:<\/p>\n

I had nothing to do with them catching the bus. My job was to see that\u00a0they didn\u2019t loiter in the stores\u2026. If you were a school child and were\u00a0loitering or violating the law, you had to move. It didn\u2019t make any\u00a0difference what color you were\u2026 I have never been called or asked \u2026about segregating anybody.<\/em>\u00a0[14. Geneva Owens, interviewed by Paula Johnson, 2003, DJ<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

However, Paula Johnson, an African American Warren resident and a student\u00a0interviewer, added this observation to subject Geneva Owens during a break from\u00a0asking questions: \u201cOh, I remember you policing us\u2014we were afraid of you. Our\u00a0parents used to say \u2018straighten up or else Miss Owens will come for you\u2019.\u201d[15. Ibid<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

African American interview subjects had complicated views of policing during\u00a0the civil rights era. On one hand, police officers were regarded with suspicion, as\u00a0agents of segregation serving a community structure not friendly to the needs and\u00a0concerns of its African American minority population. On the other hand, respondents\u00a0spoke with pride about the existence of black police officers and noted that there were\u00a0not the problems with police brutality \u201clike today\u201d (and a far cry from the blatantly\u00a0abusive actions of southern white police against black citizens in the same time period).\u00a0Warren resident Muriel Robinson recalled:<\/p>\n

At that time, there were some black officers on the police, but I don\u2019t\u00a0remember the number. . . they walked up and down the street, and you\u00a0could always go up and talk to them, you know. You didn\u2019t have then . . .\u00a0police brutality like it is now. Now it may have been, but at that time I\u00a0was not aware of it. All I knew was to see a policeman was a friendly\u00a0person in my neighborhood.<\/em>[16. Frederick Harris, interviewed by Theresa Davis, October 2002, DJ<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

\u201cI got sworn in as a policeman on the Warren Police Department in 1964,\u201d\u00a0recounts Morris Hill. He tested so high on the civil service examination that Police\u00a0Chief Manley English was told to hire him, despite his reluctance to do so. \u201cI overheard\u00a0him, he said \u2018I\u2019ve got my quota of coloreds and I don\u2019t want any more\u2019.\u201d English\u00a0refused to interview Hill, so Hill went to the city mayor and safety director, who\u00a0returned to the police department with Hill. \u201cThe mayor and the safety director went in there and I could hear them at that point when they closed the door. They totally\u00a0chewed the chief\u2019s butt out.\u201d After the two left, the chief called Hill into his office.<\/p>\n

He [the chief] said, \u201cwell, it seems like you got a lot of clout\u2026 they told\u00a0me I have to hire you this week\u201d. So at that point in time he told me: \u201cI\u2019ll\u00a0tell you what, to be a policeman with the Warren Police Department, you\u00a0got to know how to spell\u201d. He went and got a college dictionary and he\u00a0gave me a piece of paper, and he called of a bunch of words out of the\u00a0dictionary for me to spell. I guess I must have done pretty good. Because\u00a0when he got finished with me he said \u201cwell I can see that you can spell\u00a0and they told me I got to hire you\u201d.<\/em>[17. Morris Hill, interviewed by Holly Davis, November 2002, DJ<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

I rode with a senior officer names Walt Rogers. He was one of the \u2013 he\u00a0was the first black policeman on the Warren Police Department. They\u00a0called him \u2018number one\u2019. It made you feel proud to ride with the man\u00a0they called \u2018number one\u2019, because he knew everything, and he knew how\u00a0to train you to be the best police officer you could be, . . . There was only\u00a0one policewoman on the Warren police department in 1964 \u2014 her name\u00a0was Geneva Owens. And they would not hire any more women, period.<\/em>[18. Morris Hill, interviewed by Holly Davis, November 2002, DJ<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

Geneva Owens corroborated Morris Hill\u2019s account, while also describing a\u00a0different kind of discrimination she faced. \u201cIt was in the Warren Tribune<\/em> that they were\u00a0having a competitive test for a police woman. And I read that, and I applied and took\u00a0the test \u2013 the civil service exam \u2013 and I passed it. And one day I got a call and said I\u00a0passed it, and I was going to be the police woman, and I was happy and excited.\u201d\u00a0However, she went on to note that in 1945, \u201c. . . when I started as a police woman with\u00a0the Warren police department \u2013 I did not make the same thing as the policemen. My\u00a0wages were lower from theirs because I was a female.\u201d[19. Geneva Owens, interviewed by Paula Johnson, February 2003, DJ<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

Owens noted that over the forty-year span of her career, she faced more\u00a0opposition and discrimination for being a woman than for being black. She was not allowed to compete with men for supervisory roles because she was the only\u00a0policewoman, a category regarded differently from that of police officer. \u201cWho you\u00a0going to supervise?\u201d was the response she received from the police chief, to remind\u00a0Geneva of her distinct position as the department\u2019s only woman.[20. Ibid<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

\u201cThey started out as being a police woman, and I did that until the women\u2019s\u00a0liberation came into effect, and then they made me a police officer. And that made me\u00a0equal with the men, and that\u2019s when my wages were increased to be the same as that of\u00a0a police officer, and that made me eligible to take the promotional examinations, so\u00a0that\u2019s when I could compete with the sergeant and lieutenant,\u201d Geneva added. She\u00a0retired from the police department in 1984 as a lieutenant.[21. Ibid<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

Both Geneva Owens and Morris Hill indicated throughout their interviews that\u00a0they believed that African American police officers like themselves, Walter Rogers and\u00a0a handful of others had an important place in their city, especially to the African-American community. In fact, Morris Hill indicated that it was the lack of African\u00a0Americans represented in the police department that influenced his decision to become\u00a0a police officer. \u201cYou didn\u2019t have very many black policemen on the police force.\u00a0Every time you had a problem it was a white policeman who come to rescue a black\u00a0person. And some of them was using force at that point in time and turning the young\u00a0kids against the police department.\u201d[22. Morris Hill, interviewed by Holly Davis, November 2002, DJ<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

Warren resident Olive Reese noted that because African Americans were not\u00a0well-represented in the police ranks, she was aware that members of the black\u00a0community were reluctant to call the police for assistance: \u201cWell, actually, we tried to\u00a0not be bothered calling them, because sometimes they wouldn\u2019t always listen to us. So sometimes we didn\u2019t always call them and we tried to take care of our own situations\u00a0the best way we could.\u201d[23. Olive Reese, interviewed by Sherry Bacon-Graves, October 2002, DJ<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

One interview subject expressed frustration that the African American police\u00a0officers, who were in positions of establishment power relative to other blacks, didn\u2019t\u00a0get involved or voice concerns about racial segregation and even racially motivated\u00a0police violence. Fred Harris remembered,<\/p>\n

I could not understand why African American policemen didn\u2019t do more\u00a0to help us, because there were things going on \u2013 especially when I was in\u00a0high school \u2013 there were things going on with the police, the way they\u00a0were abusing us \u2013 that I could not understand why an African American\u00a0policemen didn\u2019t step forward and challenge some of these abuses. You\u00a0know, rolling up those <\/em>Life magazines and <\/em>Look magazines . . . They were\u00a0thick magazine, and they would roll them up and pop us in the head with\u00a0them. At the time, the nightsticks \u2013 it was legal \u2013 they had lead pipes\u00a0running down the middle of these. And boy, they would whack us in the\u00a0legs, and it would leave marks \u2013 for nothing, for nothing.<\/em>[24. Frederick Harris, interviewed by Theresa Davis, October 2002, DJ<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

Geneva Owens said she had no recollections of racially-motivated police\u00a0violence. \u201cI never knew nothing about that,\u201d she said. But she did remember racism\u00a0directed toward her in her role as a police officer: \u201cI think it was about the first or\u00a0second arrest I can recall being called a nigger. But that didn\u2019t bother me because I was\u00a0reared to never accept that name. If you call me a nigger, I just ignore you because I\u00a0don\u2019t consider myself a nigger.\u201d[25. Geneva Owens, interviewed by Paula Johnson, February 2003, DJ<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

In talking about his fellow black officers, Morris Hill recounted this story: \u201cThey\u00a0were treated with respect by all their fellow police officers, except the first time that\u00a0James Junior made sergeant. . . . We had this one white police officer \u2014 his name was\u00a0Lenny Bowers. James Junior came out of the office and told Lenny to do something.\u00a0And Lenny looked at him and told him \u2018I don\u2019t take no orders from no nigger,\u2019 like that. . . The sergeant just looked at him and didn\u2019t say anything.\u201d[26. Morris Hill, interviewed by Holly Davis, October 2002, DJ<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

The officers also noted the power in having a badge. Sometimes the power of the
\nbadge shielded African American officers from the effects of segregation and other\u00a0aspects of racism. While other black Warren residents had to adhere to the unwritten\u00a0codes of segregation, Geneva Owens noted that police officers were not treated like\u00a0that, possibly because, in a pattern different from that in the American south, Warren,\u00a0Ohio didn\u2019t have laws like those southern codes commonly known as \u201cJim Crow laws,\u201d\u00a0that specifically detailed segregation. In Warren, segregation was part of the cultural\u00a0fabric, mostly enforced informally through social conventions. As a result, Geneva\u00a0Owens witnessed a change in how whites treated her when they realized she was a\u00a0police officer. \u201cI always wore plain clothes, but the moment I would show my badge, I\u00a0got respect.\u201d[27. Geneva Owens, interviewed by Paula Johnson, February 2003, DJ<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

However, the power of the badge could also be a negative, enforced by racist\u00a0police officers. \u201cSome policemen get badge happy, and they use their authority to go\u00a0out there and hurt people \u2013 the people that they are sworn to protect,\u201d acknowledged\u00a0Morris Hill.[28. Morris Hill, interviewed by Holly Davis, October 2002, DJ<\/em>.] Fred Harris concurred, saying, \u201cWhen you give a person a badge and a\u00a0gun, and that badge says you have the power to arrest anybody \u2013 it\u2019s the only\u00a0occupation in the United State of America that says you have the right to take a life, to\u00a0shoot somebody\u2014so it does strange things to you when you have these kinds of\u00a0powers. It make little guys into big guys when they have a gun and they can legally\u00a0shoot you.\u201d Harris went on to recount specific examples of police brutality and misuse\u00a0of power directed and him and other African Americans.[29. Frederick Harris, interviewed by Theresa Davis, October 2002, DJ<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

Warren residents also provided stories of police officers misapplying the law to
\nuphold segregation or to harass African American citizens perceived as stepping out of\u00a0\u201ctheir place.\u201d Interview subjects recounted other examples of police officers enforcing\u00a0the informal rules of segregation, such as stopping African Americans when they were\u00a0in neighborhoods that the dominant society believed should be white-only. Fred Harris\u00a0remembered,<\/p>\n

When I was in high school, I worked for that caterer, and I went out there\u00a0to pick up some knives and forks that we had forgot\u2014out there on\u00a0Country Club Drive . . . I had a station wagon full of forks and knives,\u00a0and, catering equipment, and those policemen stopped me and made me\u00a0get out and spread eagle on the car and they frisked me, and they\u00a0followed me to Mr. Crady\u2019s house . . . he was having a party. And they\u00a0took me and made me go back to his house and knock on the door, and\u00a0those two policemen stood there, and Mr. Crady had to vouch for me, that\u00a0I was working at that party. And they said \u2018okay\u2019 and walked away–because I had no business being there on Country Club Drive because I\u00a0was black, you see.<\/em>[30. Ibid<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

Clifford Johnson, a retired principal and high school basketball coach, recalled\u00a0this situation occurring after he and his family became the first African Americans to\u00a0live in a neighborhood near the city\u2019s country club: \u201cThe first couple of weeks, when I\u00a0was jogging, I had a personal police escort to follow me around. And it turned out I did\u00a0know the police chief, so I called him and I told him \u2018what a wonderful town this is \u2013\u00a0how you protect your joggers\u2019. And obviously he got the message and for some reason\u00a0I was never followed.\u201d[31. Clifford Johnson, interviewed by Laurie Dangerfield, October 2002, DJ<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

Even though African Americans perceived that this treatment was wrong, they\u00a0also perceived that they had little recourse, even if there were no specific \u201cJim Crow\u00a0laws\u201d in the Warren city ordinances. For example, Fred Harris recalled that \u201cThey let it be know that we wasn\u2019t welcome. And we didn\u2019t challenge it because we thought this is\u00a0the way it is everywhere. This is the way it works. I mean, we didn\u2019t necessarily like it,\u00a0we wasn\u2019t stupid, but you have to remember now, this is before the 1964 Civil Rights\u00a0Act\u2014this was legal.\u201d[32. Frederick Harris, interviewed by Theresa Davis, October 2002, DJ<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

The interviews reveal an interesting dichotomy concerning the framing of race.\u00a0For the black informants, empowerment came from their ability to openly discuss the\u00a0past in racial terms. This was particularly true as they were imparting their experiences\u00a0to young white students with little understanding of the pervasiveness of the region\u2019s\u00a0segregation. They used the interview to frame their experience as one that made them a\u00a0better and stronger person. Muriel Robinson looked directly into the camera and\u00a0expressively told her interviewer that to document all the instances of prejudice and\u00a0racism would take far too long. The importance, she said, was understanding that \u201cas a\u00a0person [this was a journey she] was supposed to travel.\u201d Her experiences made her\u00a0\u201caware of who [she] was through the racism and prejudice . . . and it made [her] a wise,\u00a0knowledgeable person.\u201d From the modern perspective their experiences reflect the\u00a0general acceptance of African Americans into mainstream society, so there is a pride in\u00a0the way they frame their responses. Theirs was a difficult journey and as survivors\u00a0their stories reflect the empowerment and consciousness change to which they were a\u00a0party. They recall vividly not only specific events, but how these events made them feel\u00a0and the legacy of that feeling.[33. Muriel Robinson, interviewed by Paula Johnson, October 25, 2002, DJ<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

As for the white respondents, theirs was a different framing. To talk in the\u00a0present day about racism and to admit complicity to the system that supported it was\u00a0difficult. Instead, they chose to frame the situation in the manner described above:\u00a0namely, that it was not a problem in Warren and that generally everyone got along as\u00a0long as they stayed in their place. Given the tumultuous history of Civil Rights in the\u00a0United States, their understanding and conception of race underwent some alteration.\u00a0This is not unusual in oral history, as Luisa Passerini\u2019s study on Italian fascism\u00a0suggests. In her interviews, she found that because of the negative view of fascism by\u00a0those that came after, the informant\u2019s ability to discuss the times they lived under\u00a0fascism fell under two broad categories: those who told their stories without any\u00a0mention of fascism and those who recalled how it had affected their lives. Both Italian\u00a0groups had gone through the same period, but chose different ways to recall this shared\u00a0past.[34. Luisa Passerini, \u201cWork ideology and consensus under Italian fascism,\u201d in\u00a0The Oral History Reader<\/em>, 53-62.]<\/p>\n

The white informants for this study followed a similar tack, using denial or social\u00a0acceptance as the way to better reframe their collective past. The difference between\u00a0how the two groups recalled the racial experiences \u2013 through the eyes of those who\u00a0experienced the negative effects and therefore were quick to set the record straight and\u00a0those who did not suffer this discrimination and in many ways benefited with regards\u00a0to housing, education, and employment and thus were reluctant to discuss their tacit\u00a0complicity \u2013 helps us to better understand how the framing of race has changed since\u00a0that era. Within the interview itself, Ronald Grele reminds us, the \u201cactive participation\u201d\u00a0of the interviewer, whether through the phrasing of questions, gestures, body\u00a0movements, even clothing often serve as cues to direct the flow of what he labeled the\u00a0\u201cconversational narrative.\u201d The interviewer and interviewee share cultural symbols\u00a0and language and the establishment of this informal relationship help maintain the flow\u00a0of the interview.[35. Ronald Grele,\u00a0Envelopes of Sound: The Art of Oral History\u00a0<\/em>(Chicago: Precedent, 1975), 127-154.]<\/p>\n

Although white informants discussing race were united racially and (in general)\u00a0culturally with their white interviewer, an historical separation existed concerning civil\u00a0rights. Most of the interviewers were born after the Civil Rights Era and grew up\u00a0during a time when racially disparaging comments were considered incorrect, mean,\u00a0and without an exact definition, racist. It had to be difficult for the informant to discuss\u00a0race openly with their conversational cohort, for it might reveal a less than flattering\u00a0side of their personal history. Instead, they framed the racial situation with words and\u00a0phrases that suggested segregation and even violence while denying the totality of the\u00a0racism that permeated Warren. Phrases like \u201cthat\u2019s the way things were,\u201d or \u201ceveryone\u00a0got along and stayed in their place\u201d suggest the division between the lived experience and the recalled experience. While on the surface these phrases were true of the\u00a0situation, they reveal little of the reality that had to be observable to the informants. But,\u00a0given the nature of how race and segregation had come to be framed, their ability to\u00a0talk in more frank terms was impossible. Had the interviews taken place in 1956, 1964,\u00a0or even 1978, the responses might have revealed more of the ingrained racism present,\u00a0but would also be mitigated by its historical situation.<\/p>\n

Similarly, when the black informants discussed their situations, they did so with\u00a0a new framing of race that allowed them to be more critical of the past. In this situation,\u00a0the modern framing of race allowed for them to discuss more freely their feelings about\u00a0the situation and how the racism affected their daily lives. Society had created an open\u00a0space for their conversational narrative that had been closed for many years. Had the\u00a0interviews taken place in the same years mentioned above, certainly the stories would\u00a0have been framed differently. But in the new century, their stories took on an almost\u00a0religious evocation, where stories of injustice and ignorance were defeated by courage,\u00a0truth and a commitment to righteousness. This abstraction of the interview relationship\u00a0is the most significant, according to Grele, because it reveals not just the historical\u00a0recollection, but the \u201clarger community and its history\u201d as each informant and\u00a0interviewer views it. They expose \u201chidden levels of discourse\u201d which open up new\u00a0understandings as to how both groups view their history and their place within it.[36. Ibid<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople kill me today,\u201d Norman Smith said as he shook his head. \u201cThey really
\ndon\u2019t realize the price that we paid for freedom here (in Warren).\u201d In his interview,\u00a0Fred Harris said: \u201cWhen I die, I\u2019m no longer here, I\u2019m the last of my group \u2013 we was the\u00a0last group that actually faced legal discrimination, so when we\u2019re no longer here, our\u00a0children, our grandchildren, they have no idea what we went through. My son doesn\u2019t\u00a0know \u2013 he\u2019s never heard this, \u2018cause I\u2019ve never told him.\u201d Muriel Robinson shook her\u00a0head and somberly stated: \u201cAs we tell the world we are a great nation, there is nothing\u00a0great about being racist, prejudice against a people because of the color of their skin.\u201d\u00a0The Warren oral history projects revealed how racism and segregation in this northeast\u00a0Ohio city made black residents invisible within their community. But more\u00a0importantly, it allowed the community to be witness to these same people coming out\u00a0from the shadows and perhaps allowed both sides to see their memories as collective\u00a0and thus open the potential for future histories of this tumultuous era to be written with\u00a0more attention to the personal and individual participant.[37. Norman Smith, interviewed by Cindy Martin,\u00a0DJ<\/em>; Frederick Harris, interviewed by Theresa Davis, October 2002,\u00a0DJ<\/em>; Muriel Robinson, interviewed by Paula Johnson, October 2002,\u00a0DJ<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

Appendix: Community History Project Drs. Kenneth J. Bindas & Molly Merryman Kent State University\u00a0\u2014 Trumbull Oral History Permission to Use\/Disclaimer<\/em><\/h4>\n

Please fill in the below information, date, and sign. Please print.
\nName of Interviewer
\nName of Interviewee
\nDate of Interview Location of Interview Current Address, Interviewee
\nCurrent phone, interviewee<\/p>\n

As a participant in the Warren-area Community History Project I agree to allow the video and\u00a0audio tapes and transcripts of this interview to be used for research purposes by scholars and\u00a0students with no restrictions and without legal recourse (if there are restrictions, please line out\u00a0“no restrictions” and list restrictions on the back).<\/em><\/p>\n

Section I: Biographical<\/strong><\/p>\n

In this section we want to know basic biographical information to create an accurate historical portrait of your life experience.<\/p>\n