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Walnut Hills has been home to a significant middle- and working-class Black community since the 1850s. In 1931, African American entrepreneur Horace Sudduth bought 1004 Chapel Street and then the row of buildings across Monfort, naming them the Manse Hotel and Annex. Throughout the 1940s, hotel dinner parties could move to the Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs house next door for dancing. A large addition to the Manse in 1950 created its own ballroom, 24-hour coffee shop, upgraded Sweetbriar Restaurant, and more guest rooms. It appeared in the Negro Motorist’s Green Book between 1940-1963, providing local, transient, and residential guests both catered meetings and top entertainment during the last decades of segregation. It closed in the late 1960s when the economic need for a first-class segregated hotel disappeared in the age of Black Power.
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Sarah Mayrant Walker was born enslaved in Charleston, South Carolina, and sent to New Orleans as a young girl to study under a French hair specialist in the art of hair and scalp treatment, and goods manufacturing. Brought to Cincinnati around 1840, she used her networks to build a hair salon empire that catered to elite and wealthy women. In 1859, Sarah single-handedly desegregated the Cincinnati streetcars when she successfully sued The Passenger Railroad Company after a conductor refused her passage and pushed her off the moving car. As a result, Black women and children could ride inside a streetcar while men could ride on the platform. She and her husband, Peter Fossett, founded First Baptist Church of Cumminsville circa 1870. Both are buried in the Union Baptist Cemetery.
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The Cathedral of St. Peter In Chains has ministered to Catholics in Ohio for more than 175 years. In 1840, Bishop John Baptist Purcell recognized the need for a cathedral to serve his growing catholic immigrant community and asked architect Henry Walter to draw up designs in neo-classic Greek style. The cornerstone was laid in 1841 and the Cathedral of St. Peter in Chains was dedicated November 2, 1845. It was promptly nicknamed the “White Angel” for its white marble façade. Abandoned in 1938 due to deteriorating conditions, it was renovated during the 1950s, and rededicated as the cathedral on November 3, 1957. The Cathedral of St. Peter in Chains was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. The Pope designated it a Minor Basilica in 2020.
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United Colored American Cemetery is among the earliest in situ African American cemeteries in Hamilton County. The 11.6 acres in Madisonville were purchased by the United Colored American Association (UCAA) after the legislated closure of their earlier Avondale cemetery. Many Avondale burials and headstones were moved prior to the new cemetery’s dedication on May 30, 1883. Designed by Adolph Strauch, United Colored American Cemetery features the looping roads and picturesque elements typical of his designs at Spring Grove and Eden Park. After the dissolution of the UCAA, Cincinnati mayor Charles P. Taft asked Union Baptist Church to take ownership and maintenance of the cemetery. Union Baptist assumed ownership in 1968 and burials continued until 2019. United Colored American Cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2022.
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Dunbar, or Corsica Hollow, was an African American neighborhood on the western edge of Madisonville. Its streets and lots were laid out in 1886 after Mahlon and Anna Leonard subdivided their 10-acre tract near Duck Creek and sold lots to African Americans. Many early Dunbar residents were from the South; some born there prior to emancipation. Prominent early citizens included Harriet Deatherage, Elihu Parks, Gandison Embry, Thomas Duett, and James Murphy. Dunbar was home to the New Mission Missionary Baptist Church, founded in 1907. Originally meeting in a one-room building, the extant congregation relocated to Ravenna Street in 1963. By the late 1920s, Dunbar had about forty houses, a grocery run by Henry Lowman, and a hair salon run by Flora Hector. (Continued on other side)
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Miranda Boulden Parker lived at 2644 Marsh Avenue from 1907 to 1915. She moved into the four-family rental home with her daughters Bianca and Portia, who both worked as teachers. Miranda Parker was the widow of John P. Parker, Ripley’s Underground Railroad hero, born into slavery who famously helped more than 400 fugitives escape to freedom. In March 1914, after several vacant apartments in their Marsh Avenue home were repeatedly vandalized, daughter Bianca assumed the role as building caretaker. When she appealed to the police for help against vandals breaking windowpanes, shutters, and transoms, the police made no effort to arrest the offenders. Instead, the Health Department issued a 24-hour eviction notice. Bianca Parker sued Norwood’s Health Officer and Chief of Police unsuccessfully. The Parker family left Norwood for the more welcoming and integrated Madisonville neighborhood.
Miranda Boulden Parker lived in a home on this site from 1907(1) to 1915(2). She was the widow of Underground Railroad hero John P. Parker, who had been born into slavery. They lived in Ripley, Ohio, where John P. Parker helped more than 400 fugitives escape to freedom.(3) After his death in 1900, Miranda and their daughters Bianca and Portia, both teachers, came to Norwood. Here they rented an apartment in a four-family dwelling where Bianca became the caretaker.(4) From 1913-‘14, vandals broke over 63 windowpanes, shutters, and transoms. Bianca appealed to the police for help. Instead, the police notified the Health Department, who gave the Parkers a 24-hour eviction notice. The Parkers moved out of Norwood after unsuccessfully suing the city. (123 words)
City of Norwood, Ohio
Norwood Historical Society
The Ohio History Connection
This park was established by the City of Norwood in 1923(5) for the purpose of preventing Black Americans from owning homes here.(6) From 1907(7) to 1922(8), a four-family house on this site was rented by Black families.(9) George and Sarah Hirst lived in one of those units. On July 5, 1922, the Hirsts purchased a vacant lot next door(10) to the four-family dwelling and hired a Black contractor to build them a home.(11) White neighbors, fearing that a “Negro colony” might be developing, petitioned(12) Norwood City Council to take action.(13)(14) The Council used the right of eminent domain to seize the vacant lot from George and Sarah Hirst.(15) The Council also seized several other adjacent lots and demolished the four-family dwelling, creating Marsh Park.(16) (125 words)
City of Norwood, Ohio
Norwood Historical Society
The Ohio History Connection