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“Lifting As We Climb”: The Cincinnati Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs (CFCWC) was organized May 6, 1904, during a meeting called by Mary Fletcher Ross at the Allen Temple A.M.E. Church. Gathering together eight existing African-American women’s clubs, the CFCWC sought to unite in their work promoting “the betterment of the community.” At a time when both government and private philanthropies overlooked the needs of Black Americans, CFCWC members helped to organize the city’s first kindergartens for Black children, taught in Cincinnati African-American public schools –including the Walnut Hills Douglass and Stowe schools—and raised money for the Home of Aged Colored Women. Since 1904, the Cincinnati Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs has ensured the civic and constitutional rights of all African Americans while meeting the needs of their city.
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James W. Rankin served four consecutive terms (1971-1978) in the Ohio House of Representatives. Born and raised in Cincinnati, he graduated from Withrow High School and The Ohio State University’s School of Social Work. While working in Cincinnati’s Seven Hills neighborhood, he ran for office to “involve the disadvantaged in the governmental processes that affected their lives.” He won his first bid and served the next seven years as a state representative for the 69th House district, later the reapportioned 25th district. Representative Rankin fought passionately for civil and human rights in education and public policy. He served on the Reference, Human Resources, and Finance committees. When Rankin died of pneumonia, aged 52, the Cincinnati Enquirer proclaimed him a “Friend of the Poor.”
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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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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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Crosley Field was the home of the Cincinnati Reds for almost 58 years. Opened in 1912 as Redland Field, the ballpark was renamed in 1934 when famed Cincinnati industrialist Powel Crosley Jr. purchased the team. Over its years of service, Crosley Field was home to Reds teams that won National League Championships in 1919, 1939, 1940, and 1961, and World Series titles in 1919 and 1940. The park also played host to the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in 1938 and 1953. Crosley Field famously held what was then acknowledged as the first night game under lights on May 24, 1935. Such visiting legends as “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Willie Mays, and Jackie Robinson played at Crosley Field. (Continued on other side)
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Founded in 1914, Holy Name High School was one of the first co-educational Roman Catholic high schools in Cleveland. Originally located at Harvard and Broadway Avenues, the school opened under the direction of Holy Name Parish with educational leadership of the Sisters of Charity from Cincinnati. In 1978, Holy Name High School moved to its present location in Parma Heights, the former home of Nazareth Academy. Throughout its history, Holy Name High School has served the community by providing a Catholic, college-preparatory education. The Holy Name spirit lives on through its alumni, who have made a difference around the world.