LEE WILLIAMS
Newcomers to the City: A Study
of Black Population Growth in
Toledo, Ohio, 1910-1930
Negroes no longer live in a few houses
in a widely separated
section. They have come to constitute in
themselves a good
size city.1
Beginning around 1915, increasing
numbers of Afro-Americans
pushed out of the south into northern
and midwestern urban commu-
nities, large and small. The massive
migration of blacks to the north
is well known, but has been documented
chiefly for the largest northern
cities-New York, Chicago, and Cleveland
rather than for lesser cities.
This study seeks to view the process in
a smaller, less publicized city,
Toledo, Ohio, and to explore the general
conditions in housing and
employment confronting the black
community in the two decades after
1910.2
Between 1910 and 1930, the number of
black residents in Toledo rose
from 1,877 to 13,260, an increase of
more than 336 percent. During this
same period, the total population of the
city grew by only 64 percent,
from 168,497 to 290,718. These
percentages represent the net decennial
growth of the black and white
communities; they do not show the
number of residents who moved in or out
of the city on a monthly or
yearly basis. Despite the lack of such
data, it can be stated that within
the space of a single decade, 1910-1920,
the Afro-American population
soared from 1,877 to 5,691 and
represented 2.3 percent of the city's
Lee Williams is Assistant Professor of
History at the University of Arkansas at Little
Rock.
1. Toledo Blade, June 6, 1923;
Toledo Observer, November 10, 1923.
2. For a discussion of black migration
and its impact, see, George W. Groh, The Black
Migration: The Journey to Urban
America (New York, 1972). There are
several excellent
studies dealing with the formation of
black community life in the larger northern cities
and the impact of incoming southern
black migrants. See, for example, Gilbert Osofsky,
Harlem: The Making of a Ghetto, Negro
New York, 1890-1930 (New York, 1968);
Allan
Spear, Black Chicago: The Making of a
Negro Ghetto, 1890-1920 (Chicago, 1967);
and Kenneth Kusmer, A Ghetto Takes
Shape: Black Cleveland, 1870-1930 (Urbana,
Illinois, 1976).
6 OHIO HISTORY
243,164 residents. During the next decade, this figure
increased to 13,260
or 4.6 percent of Toledo's total population of 290,718.
As shown in the
following table, the net black population increases
between 1910 and
1930 departed sharply from those of earlier years.3
Black Population of Toledo, 1880-1930
Percent Increase
Total Black Percent Total Black
Year population population Black population population
1880 50,137 928 1.9 58.7 51.6
1890 81,434 1,077 1.3 62.4 16.05
1900 131,822 1,710 1.3 61.9 58.7
1910 168,497 1,877 1.1 27.8 9.8
1920 243,164 5,691 2.3 44.3 203.2
1930 290,718 13,260 4.6 19.6 133.0
Source: U.S.
Bureau of the Census Reports, 1880-1930.
The growth of black Toledo brought significant changes
in the compo-
sition of its population. In 1900, almost 45 percent of
the city's 1,710
black residents were native Ohioans. Twenty years
later, only one-fourth
of the Afro-American population of 5,691 were born in
Ohio and by
1930 this percentage had decreased to roughly 22
percent. Moreover, the
intervening years between 1900 and 1930 witnessed
important shifts in
3. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Compendium of the
Tenth Census, 1880: Population,
Part I (Washington,
D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1883), Table XXIV: 398; U.S.
Bureau of the Census, Eleventh Census of the United
States, 1890: Population, Part I
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1895),
Table 19: 475; U.S. Bureau of the
Census, Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900:
Population (Washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Office, 1902), Table 81: 105; U.S.
Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth
Census of the United States, 1910: Abstract with
Supplement for Ohio, Statistics on
Population (Washington,
D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1913), Table V: 635; U.S.
Bureau of the Census, Fourteenth Census of the
United States, 1920: Population,
Montana- Wyoming (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1922), III, Table 23:
536; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the
United States, 1920-1932 (Washington,
D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1935), Table 13: 12.
While the Toledo City Directories
occasionally cited those residents who left the city,
the doubtful reliability of these sources
rendered a systematic compilation of out-going persons
untenable. There are similar and
related problems inherent in the use of federal census
data. For a critical discussion of the
"decennial census," see Sidney Goldstein, The
Norristown Study: An Experiment in
Interdisciplinary Research Training (Philadelphia, 1961), 95.
Newcomers to the City
7
the origins of migrants to the city. For
example, in 1900 13.3 percent of
Toledo's black residents born outside
Ohio were natives of the midwest-
ern states of Indiana, Illinois,
Michigan, and Wisconsin. By 1930, less
than one-tenth of the Afro-American
population were natives of these
same midwestern states. Similarly, the
1900 black population received
only 12.3 percent of its 1,710 members
from the states of Kentucky,
Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi, and
about this same percentage
from the Virginias, Carolinas, and
Georgia. By 1930, this was no longer
true. While one-fourth of all the blacks
in Toledo were natives of the
Virginias, Carolinas, Georgia, and
Florida, more than 45 percent
(almost one-half of the total population
of 13,260) were born in the
four states of Kentucky, Tennessee,
Alabama, and Mississippi. The
greatest number of these Afro-Americans,
35 percent, were native
Tennesseans. In all, the generation from
1900 to 1930 witnessed a
decided shift in the origins of black
newcomers to Toledo from the
midwest to greater numbers from the
southwest and the "deep south."4
Despite their southern nativity, an
indeterminate number of Afro-
Americans entered Toledo via other
northern industrial communities.
Indications are that these southern-born
migrants underwent a "falling
back" process as they left such
cities as Detroit and Chicago to settle
in Toledo. In part, these newcomers
considered Toledo's relatively small
Negro population as one which offered a
greater degree of "elbow
room" from the overcrowding that
plagued larger communities. In
short, it was a place that
"promised expanded opportunities" and yet
was small enough for one to "put
down roots and raise a family."
Beyond the selection of Toledo as a
second or perhaps even third desti-
nation for migrants, the community
shared in the World War I north-
ward drive of southern black Americans.5
There is no attempt here to recapitulate
the numerous and well-
4. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Twelfth
Census of the United States, 1900: Population,
I (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing
Office, 1901), Tables 30-32: 718-21; U.S.
Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the
United States, 1920-1932, Table 16: 34-36. For a
discussion of the directional changes in
black migratorial movements, see Warren C.
Thornthwaite, "Internal Migration
in the United States, A Study of Population Redis-
tribution," Bulletin Number One (Philadelphia,
1934), 14; U.S. Bureau of the Census,
Changing Characteristics of the Negro
Population, by Daniel O. Price (A 1960
census
monograph) (Washington, D.C.: Government
Printing Office, 1969), 215; and Philip M.
Hanser, "Demographic Factors in the
Integration of the Negro," Daedalus, 94 (Fall,
1965).
5. Toledo Blade, August 9, 1929;
Emmett L. Wheaton, "The Social Status of the
Negro in Toledo, Ohio" (Unpublished
Master's Thesis, University of Toledo, Toledo,
Ohio, 1927), hereinafter cited as
Wheaton, "The Social Status of the Negro in Toledo";
also see Emmett J. Scott, "Leaders
of Negro Migrants of 1916-1918," Journal of Negro
History, IV (July, October, 1919), 290-340; and Scott, Negro
Migration During the War
(New York, 1920, reprinted Arno Press
and New York Times, 1969), 126-27.
8 OHIO
HISTORY
discussed reasons prompting the
migration of southern Negroes to the
urban north. There is, however, one area
of the migrant's experiences
that is often neglected in the
literature on migratorial movements. This
concerns the "special
attachment" of some migrants to the homes left
behind. In general, researchers have
been primarily interested in causa-
tion as a factor in migration. There was
little reason, it appears, to
question the migrant equally about the
positive and negative aspects of
his or her life in the south. At least
one black Toledoan, Edward
Williams, when asked about the memorable
times of his life in Georgia
before his migration to the city in
1924, stated that some things could
not be replaced with the journey north.
While opportunities appeared
to be greater outside the south, the new
community, at least initially,
could not erase certain memories of life
on the farm. There was no
regret, said Williams, in leaving the
oppression of his native Georgia.
Neither was there remorse in escaping
the periodic drudgery that
accompanied the hard and uncertain
nature of farming. For Williams,
there was, in the new environment, a
"sense of community lost and
belonging" that once played an
important role in the everyday lives of
neighbors.6
Other blacks attempted and eventually
succeeded in recreating a farm
routine and familiar way of life in the
Toledo area. Joe Jordan left
Georgia in 1923 for the lure of
"steady wages" in the city's industries.
Once in Toledo, Jordan "found only
low pay and poor living condi-
tions." "I didn't have but
these two hands to support a family," said
Jordan, "and I couldn't do
it." In 1940, Jordan left the city for the
outlying area of Spencer Township where
he purchased ten acres of
land and began to farm once again.
Mississippian Henry Smith also
came to Toledo in 1923. Smith, like
Jordan, eventually left the city for
the rural life of Spencer Township. It
was "the only place we could get,"
stated Smith, "where we could
settle down and have a farm" once
again. Martin Washington entered Toledo
from Mounds, Illinois in
1929. As the son of a farmer, Washington
soon grew restless with
life in the city and became a part of
the growing number of Afro-
Americans who acquired farms in the
rural areas surrounding Toledo.7
Although the sentimental attachment to
the farm or home life of the
south was not shared by every migrant,
it did form a significant force
6. Interviews with Edward Williams,
Toledo, Ohio, June-August, 1976. For a dis-
cussion of the diverse attitudes and
sentiments of southern migrants, see Arna Bontemps
and Jack Conroy, They Seek a City (New
York, 1945), xvi-xviii; Eugene B. Brody, ed.,
Behavior in New Environments:
Adaptation of Migrant Populations (Beverly
Hills,
California, 1969).
7. Abner Katzman, "The
Farmers," Toledo Blade, Sunday Magazine (August 3,
1975), 8-10, hereinafter cited as
Katzman, "The Farmers."
Newcomers to the City
9
in the lives of some of those who
arrived in the urban north between
1915 and 1930. The lingering memories of
rural life have been captured
and expanded as a group phenomenon in
the prose of journalist Dwayne
Walls. He writes:
Leaving the farm is not an easy thing to
do. The farm is home, even when
home is a shack owned by the man up the
road. It is a nail beside the kitchen
door where the hat has been hung for
thirty years.It is the old cane-bottomed
chair under the shade tree, where ice
water tastes so good at the end of a
summer's day. It is the smell of manure
and old harness leather, and the
memory of young love carved on the barn
door: [LTW loves MMY]. It is the
church and the graveyard, where parents
and brothers and sisters and babies
are buried. It is the debt still owed to
the landlord - a debt that never seems to
go away no matter how good the crop.8
There were, then, at least three
distinctive forces that found a place in
the growth of such a community as black
Toledo during the two decades
after 1910. One set "pulled"
blacks ever northward. A second set, the
brutalities in the south (both mental
and physical), "pushed" many
Afro-Americans out of their native
states. Still a third set, the loss of
both a "sense of community"
and the prospects of the unknown,
was at work creating doubts and identity
problems for many migrants.
It is unlikely that this third set of
factors can ever be fully measured.9
II
Of all the possible reasons prompting
the migration of blacks to the
north, the wartime economy accompanied
by growing restrictions upon
the flow of an immigrant labor supply
must be considered as major
factors in creating greater industrial
prospects for the Afro-American.
As early as 1914, Toledo's major
industrial concerns looked to the war
in Europe as an important boost to the
growth and prosperity of local
business and labor. "With business
in Europe at a standstill," said John
North Willys, President of
Willys-Overland Motor Company, "America
will become the factory, the forge, the
farm, and the one big source
from which the other nations of the
world must of necessity draw their
supplies." Toledo's Commerce Club
concurred with Willys and pre-
dicted that the city would experience
excellent business conditions
"during the next five
years."10
8. Dwayne E. Walls, The Chickenbone
Special (New York, 1970), 59.
9. Toledo Blade, June 6, 1923.
For a discussion of the psychological implications
of migratorial movements, see Demitri B.
Shimkin, "Black Migration and the Struggle
for Equality: A Hundred-Year
Survey," in Joseph W. Eaton, ed., Migration and Social
Welfare (New York, 1971), 80-103.
10. John North Willys to the Toledo Blade,
August 21, 22, 1914.
10 OHIO
HISTORY
Even as certain Toledo business and
civic leaders looked forward to
a boom for the local and national
economy, the country's supply of
foreign laborers began to decline. By
1914, in fact, the number of
immigrants who entered Toledo and the
nation had been drastically
reduced. A survey of this reduction in
foreign-born whites to the city
is suggestive of the coming availability
of increased economic prospects,
even as common laborers, for black
newcomers. Around the turn of
the twentieth century, more than 12,300
foreign-born whites entered
Toledo. From 1901 to 1910, this number
declined to 8,444. Between
1911 and 1914, only 5,049 foreign-born
whites arrived in the city and
during the next four years, this number
fell to 1,200. This figure
increased to slightly more than 3,000
between 1920 and 1924, but
dropped to around 2,200 from 1925 to
1930.11
Similarly, the number of incoming
foreign-born whites declined across
the nation as the "long
debate" concerning the "fitness" of newer
immigrant strains intensified during the
first three decades of the
twentieth century. And while
Afro-Americans were not spared the
onslaught of a body of racist literature
during the period, the steady
reduction in the number of white
immigrant laborers paved the way for
the largely unskilled southern Negro to
enter the industrial north.12
III
In the summer of 1917, Toledo's leading
newspaper, the Blade,
admonished its readers to accept
"Negro immigration as a permanent
dilution of the white population."
On an historical note, the Blade's
use of the words "permanent
dilution" smacked of the "Negrophobia"
that swept Toledo in July, 1862. At that
time, violence had erupted
in the city not only from actual
increases in black numbers but from
the "prospect" of an expanded
Negro population. Such fear had cer-
tainly found a prominent place across
much of the north in the days of
slavery, secession, and civil war-but
this was another time. During the
11. Toledo Blade, August 27,
1914; June 21, 1915; and May 6, 1916.
12. Toledo Blade, October 6,
1919; June 24, 1920; May 9, 1923. For a discussion of
European immigration and its curtailment,
see Oscar Handlin, ed., Immigration As a
Factor in American History (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1959), 167; John Higham,
"Origins of Immigration
Restriction, 1882-1897: A Social Analysis," in Stanley N. Katz
and Stanley E. Kutler, New Perspective
on the American Past, II (Boston, 1969), 90;
Higham, Strangers in the Land:
Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925 (New
Brunswick, New Jersey, 1955); and
Stanley Coben, "A Study in Nativism: The American
Red Scare of 1919-1920," Katz and
Kutler, New Perspectives on the American Past, II,
205. For a black American view of
Immigration, see the Crisis, "Immigration Quota,"
Editorial, 36, no. 8 (August, 1929),
278, and William H. Grier and Price M. Cobbs, Black
Rage (New York, 1968), 172.
Newcomers to the City
11
summer months of 1917, old fears and
suspicions were rekindled. The
Blade called attention to the citizenship of blacks and their
right to
"move about in America as it
pleases them." The fact that the newspaper
found it necessary, almost a
half-century after the Fourteenth Amend-
ment, to remind its readers that
Afro-Americans were citizens, is
indicative of many of the fears
engendered by the massive interstate
movement of Negroes.13
In preparation for black newcomers to
the city, the Blade warned
against "allowing the growth of
squalid quarters of disease and crime."
Moreover, the city should "make
things uncomfortable for vagrants
and use a stern hand to deal with
imported thieves and thugs." The
application of vagrancy laws to a
migrant population, however, could
be grossly more complicated than whether
or not a person held a job.
In short, such provisions, especially
during the frenzied years of the
First World War, needed a certain
compassion for the disorientated
newcomer as well as the welfare of the
host community. As migrants
increased during the summer of 1917,
Toledo offered "loafers" (va-
grants) a simple choice: "work or
prison." And while such an ultimatum
proved largely ineffective in stemming
the tide of Afro-Americans,
Toledo, cautioned the Blade, had
a duty to guard against any threats,
both economic and social, to the larger
community.14
The migration of Afro-Americans to
Toledo included a number of
employees of the New York Central and
Penn Central Railroads.
Among these blacks, Mary Welch, an
ex-slave and native of Martin,
Tennessee, came to Toledo via
Carbondale, Illinois in 1917. It is
possible that she was among the
"896 Negroes," aboard "sixteen
railroad cars," who entered the
city in late May of that year. As the
wife of a Penn Central employee, Welch
and her family occupied a
"company house" along Bryne
Road in the southwest of the city. Other
migrants, and perhaps most, were not so
fortunate: they took their
shelter in hastily erected camps of
railroad cars. In some of these settle-
ments, the railroads and their agents
observed marginal rules of good
health and sanitation. In others,
however, the living conditions were
deplorable.15
13. Ibid.; also see Richard Weiss
and Gary B. Nash, eds., The Great Fear: Race in the
Mind of America (New
York, 1970); Toledo Blade, June 1, 1917. In July, 1862, Toledo
was the scene of violence as a white mob
of striking dock workers and citizens attempted
to drive blacks from the city and
discourage further Afro-American in-migration. See
the Toledo Blade, July 7-11,
1862; and Frank R. Levstik, "The Toledo Riot of 1862:
A Study of Midwest Negrophobia," Northwest
Ohio Quarterly, XLIV (Fall, 1972), 104.
14. Toledo Blade, May 22, 1917;
June 1, 1917.
15. Toledo Blade, May 23, 1917;
June 17, 1917; October 15, 1972.
12 OHIO HISTORY
On May 22, 1917, Toledo health
authorities responded to several
anonymous complaints concerning
conditions in some of the city's
railroad camps. On the East Side, law
officers arrested agent Edward M.
Cosner of the New York Central Railroad.
According to health officials,
Cosner's practice of housing
"fifteen to twenty Negroes in one box car"
was a health hazard not only to the inhabitants
but to the entire
community. Shortly after the Cosner
incident, the Commerce Club
convened a meeting of city officials and
New York Central authorities.
Civic authorities also invited Charles
Cottrill, a prominent black
community leader, "to the conference
to speak for black laborers."
There are no indications that city
officials proposed measures to halt
the human habitation of box cars or
required improvements in the
standard of living. Cottrill offered the
most incisive comments when he
stated that due to economic conditions,
incoming blacks had little choice
where or in what they lived. Most of
these "Negroes," stated Cottrill,
"are unable to buy or rent houses
and must be housed in box cars." 16
For other blacks, both newcomers and old
settlers, the limits to where
they could live in the city consisted of
areas and homes uncontested by
native white and foreign populations.
The largest concentration of
Negroes were located in the Pinewood,
Canton, Stickney, and Summit
Street districts. Since the turn of the
twentieth century, the Pinewood
area to the southwest had witnessed the
fastest growth in black residences.
In 1890, for example, only 5.5 percent
of a representative sample of
two hundred Toledo Afro-Americans resided
in this area. Between 1895
and 1900 this percentage increased to
10.5 percent, and by 1910 over
32 percent of the sample group listed
their residences there. The growing
concentration of Negroes in this and
other areas resulted from tradi-
tional residential restrictions as well
as the expansion of whites into more
attractive neighborhoods in West Toledo.
As whites relinquished their
hold over certain housing in the
southwest, blacks were able to widen
their areas of residence. The migration
of southern Negroes served to
broaden the earlier, and less visible,
street or block segregation in the
city. When Afro-Americans breached the
walls of black habitation,
whites reacted adversely. This was
especially true in East Toledo where
white ethnic groups maintained distinct
enclaves.17
16. Toledo Blade, May 23, 1917;
July 17, 1917.
17. Between 1890 and 1915, The Polk's
Toledo City Directories designated blacks
listed in the directory by race. Two
hundred blacks were selected on a random basis from
the 1890 listing for the purpose of
noting residential clustering as well as tracing move-
ments in dwellings and employment. The
two hundred members of the sample group
were also studied to determine their
representative character to that of the general
population according to the percentage
and kinds of jobs held and those enumerated
in the federal census. Also see Toledo Blade,
July 13, 1917; Early Adams, "Correlation
of Housing Conditions with the Health
and Growth of Children in Toledo" (unpublished
Newcomers to the City
13
In July, 1917, an unidentified black
rented a house in East Toledo
"adjacent to an area of Bulgarian
immigrants." Shortly after his arrival,
he received a scrawled note which read:
"No let to Nigger. Place bum
[sic]. I your friend." It is
uncertain whether this black stayed
in the area for very long. According to
the Blade, there had been "several
intimations of hostility between negroes
[sic] and aliens." This was,
however, the first reported threat of
violence. 18
During the summer of 1919, East Toledo
was again the scene of
racial tension as 146 white residents
signed a "pact" (restrictive
covenant) attempting to bar Negroes from
"Vinal, Albert, and adjacent
Streets." Jason Spaulding, an area
resident, filed the "agreement bearing
the 146 signatures" with the County
Recorder's Office. Interestingly,
this neighborhood pact came two years
after the United States Supreme
Court's decision in Buchanan vs
Warley declared the use of such devices
to segregate residences as
unconstitutional. East Toledoans, perhaps
reflecting the larger society's rather
tenuous commitment to enforce
this decision, were either unaware of or
cared little for the court's
opinion. What they did care about,
according to the agreement, was
a "pledge of moral support towards
ridding the community of un-
desireable characters, especially
Colored people." "We refuse," said
the residents, "to rent or sell
property to them." "We believe," con-
cluded the signers of the covenant,
"that every self-respecting Colored
person will take advantage of this
opportunity to find a home elsewhere
among those who do not object to their
presence." This residential
covenant did not go unnoticed by the
local chapter of the National
Association for the Advancement of
Colored People. The organization
promised that "some action would be
taken," but what that action was
remains unknown.19
Black residents were not new to East
Toledo. Even in the nineteenth
century, there had been a small
settlement in the general area. With the
arrival of newcomers during the First
World War, the traditional areas
of Negro residences (sections of certain
streets or blocks) threatened to
overflow their borders. The catalyst in
East Toledo's racial troubles
appears to have been the existence of
highly concentrated and lasting
enclaves of white ethnic groups, among
them such foreign-born residents
as the Hungarians and Bulgarians. These
immigrant enclaves in East
Master's Thesis, University of Toledo,
Toledo, Ohio, 1930); and Everett Johnson,
"A Study of the Negro Families in
the Pinewood Avenue District of Toledo, Ohio,"
Opportunity: Journal of Negro Life, VII (New York, National Urban League, August,
1929), 243-45.
18. Toledo Blade, July 13, 1917.
19. Toledo Blade, June 5, 1919;
also see Joseph Tussman, ed., The Supreme Court
on Racial Discrimination (New York, 1963), 279-81.
14 OHIO HISTORY
Toledo did not undergo the rapid and
even moderate change that took
place, for example, within the ranks of
expanding Polish and Irish
settlers to the southwest in the city.
The slower rate of neighborhood
change among certain immigrant groups
was due to a variety of reasons,
ranging from nativist sentiment against
newer immigrants to a desire
on the part of some foreign-born
residents to share mutually-held
cultural amenities. Moreover, certain
geographical features, a smaller
land area, and the Maumee River also
precluded large-scale residential
expansion in East Toledo. These and
other features strained race
relations in the area20
In the period to 1930, it is uncertain
to what extent white residents
throughout Toledo entered into
restrictive covenants or "Neighborhood
Improvement Associations" to bar
Afro-Americans from certain streets
or neighborhoods. However, the latter
"pact or agreement" operated
under a variety of generic names that
produced the same general
results-racial segregation. Unlike the
more explicit restrictive cove-
nants, these associations did not bear
the outward appearance of
exclusion. When East Toledoans launched
their "Citizens' Realty Plan"
in late December, 1919, they simply
reported that it was a "a holding
and developing company aimed at the
development of the right kind of
property." There were no references
to race, only to the development
of the "right kind of
property." Exclusion was implied, however, and
sufficient to foster and maintain
residential segregation.21
Whether associated "for
improvement" or explicitly to exclude
"undesireable elements,"
property owners had to have the cooperation
of others. Undoubtedly, the most
important outside parties to a
restrictive covenant were local realtors
and boards. While there is little
to directly link the city's real estate
commission with the covenant and
Citizens Realty Plan of East Toledo, it
is unlikely that realtors were
unaware of the aims of community
residents. This is given greater
meaning when one considers that from its
inception in 1908 until 1950,
the "Code of Ethics" of the
National Association of Real Estate Boards
included the following provision:
20. Toledo Blade, June 5, 1919.
In a survey of two hundred blacks from various
sections of the city between 1890 and
1915, there was a distinct clustering of Negro
residents wherever they lived. Of those
who lived in East Toledo, the majority were
located on Yondotta and Vinal Streets.
See Polk's Toledo City Directories, 1890-1915.
21. Toledo Blade, December 18,
1919. For a discussion of restrictive covenants and
neighborhood improvement associations,
see Herman H. Long and Charles S. Johnson,
People vs Property: Race Restrictive
Covenants in Housing (Nashville,
Tennessee, 1947),
3-4, hereinafter cited as Long and
Johnson, People vs Property; and The Report of the
Commission on Race and Housing, "Where Shall We Live?" (Berkeley and Los
Angeles,
California, 1958), 1-20.
Newcomers to the City
15
A realtor should never be instrumental
in introducing into neighborhoods ...
members of any race or nationality . .
.whose presence will be clearly detri-
mental to property values in that
neighborhood.
And while East Toledoans cited in their
restrictive covenant of 1919 the
depreciation of property values and the
general presence of "colored
families" as their major
complaints, the reduction of land and property
values hinged more on the reactions of
whites than blacks. If, for
example, whites fled the presence of
incoming Negroes, the cry of
property value loss by realtors served
to enhance their profits while
simultaneously increasing racial
hostility. In all, Toledo's realtors could
ill-afford to engender the wrath of
irate white property owners.22
IV
There were areas in the city,
customarily referred to as the "tender-
loin," in which residents said
little, at least publicly, about those who
came in search of housing. As early as
1906, sections of Erie, Jackson,
Beech, Ontario, and Canton Streets were
singled out as social problems
for Toledo. There, blacks and whites
inhabited the city's older and
more dilapidated housing and lived,
according to juvenile authorities,
like "rabbits in a warren, Colored
and whites all mixed up together."
In a sense, poor housing and poor
migrants were made for one another.
"Based on what they get for their
pitifuly scanty dollars," reported
Toledo's City Journal in 1918,
these residents "are paying the highest
rents for squalid vermin-ridden quarters
that in many cases are not fit for
the housing of animals." Neither
was the general area free from wartime
rent profiteering, as the City
Journal cited repeated instances of land-
lords charging $4 per week and more for
"two small, dark, and damp
basement rooms." Others rented
"fancy cellars" to newcomers for as
much as $22 per month. Still other
holders of rental properties on
Huron, Tenth, Locust, and Illinois
Streets (in the near downtown area)
exacted, at times, more than the human
market could bear. Many of
these dwellings did "not have
running water except that which seeped
through leaky roofs and cellar
doors." They were, said the City Journal,
the homes of the poor, the desperately
poor migrants, natives, and
foreigners who were forced to take
"such quarters because they had . . .
no choice."23
22. The Toledo Chapter of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored
People, "Containment of Minority
Groups Through Housing" (Unpublished pamphlet,
nd), 9 (Local History Room, Toledo-Lucas County Public
Library); also see Henry E.
Hoagland, Real Estate Principles (New York,
1955), 400-15.
23. Toledo Blade, October 15,
1906; May 19, October 15, 1916; September 3, 1917;
16 OHIO HISTORY
It was more than an uphill struggle for
these residents as they searched
the city for affordable housing. The
unemployed poor faced a double risk,
for Toledo's "watchful eye"
for vagrants presented the possibility that
such persons would be "warned
out" of the city and sent penniless in
search of new homes. Moreover,
unemployment meant that rents could
not be paid. In the event of the
latter, some landlords, rather than evict
non-paying tenants, kept "rent
accounts" that could be paid once
employment was secured. With each week
or month of unemployment,
the landlord became more the master and
the tenant the "slave." "Like
fat spiders," stated the City
Journal, landlords who kept rent accounts
"settled down on their prey and
watched the struggle with cold-blooded
glee." They have, continued the City
Journal, "a double pack of slaves
who are bound to turn over to them
every dollar they make, over and
above the amount they must retain for
food." Here was an urban
parallel to the infamous sharecropping
system of the rural south. Only
housing replaced land and crops in the
landlord-tenant relationship.
For those who found themselves chained
to exorbitant rents or devious
land contracts, self-extraction
bordered on the impossible. Moreover,
landlords in Toledo were not compelled
to maintain standards for their
dwellings. The city did not have either
a housing or comprehensive
building code in 191824
The exorbitant rents charged for some
Toledo dwellings did not
escape the attention of public
officials. In August, 1919, Mayor Cornell
Schreiber authorized Assistant
Prosecutor for Lucas County, Swamp
Doty, to investigate housing and food
prices. The inquiry into rents
and food prices had more implications
than a breach of moral propriety
by landlords and store owners. Some
officials believed that profiteers
were in direct violation of the wartime
Lever Act regulating prices on
certain consumer goods and services. It
is unknown whether Doty
actively sought to prosecute
profiteers. Exorbitant rents, however,
continued well into 1920. "Scores
of families," reported the Blade, have
"had their rents boosted from
fifteen to sixty-six and two-thirds
percent." In one such case, a
black soldier returned to Toledo after
eighteen months of service to find
"the rent on his modest quarters"
increased from $15 to $25 per month.
Unlike those who maintained
special rent accounts in 1918, some landlords,
perhaps due to the failure
also see Supplement to the Toledo
City Journal, "Housing Conditions in Toledo," no. 13
(Toledo: The Commission of Publicity and
Efficiency, May 20, 1916), 2-3; and Toledo
City Journal, III, No. 48 (November 30, 1918), 554-55. Perhaps the
vermin of rat-infested
housing in Toledo was most graphically
illustrated when authorities discovered the half-
devoured face of a black corpse on
Canton Street in 1917.
24. Toledo City Journal, III, no.
48 (November 30, 1918), 555.
Newcomers to the City 17
of such methods, refused (in 1919-1920)
to accept credit and gave
tenants an ultimatum to "come
across or get out."25
Toledo was not alone in the rash of rent
profiteering during and
after the First World War. Between 1919
and 1921, several bills were
introduced in the Ohio Legislature to
curb steep rents. Fearing that such
legislation would take too long to
enact, Toledo officials looked beyond
the state to such cities as Seattle, Washington,
and nearby Detroit for
rent plans. In these cities, outlandish
rents were eased, if not controlled,
through a variety of measures including
landlord licenses, bonds, and
taxation based on rents received. While
Toledo contemplated the use of
similar measures, it did not enact them.
It is possible that such devices
failed to become law for the same reason
that left the city without an
effective housing code in the period
1918 to 1922. According to an
investigative report of the City
Journal, Toledo did not have a housing
code because "the men who would
have much to do with the framing
of its provisions were now in government
service." As property owners,
many of these officials would, in
effect, enact measure that stood to
affect themselves directly. Here,
profits seemed to outweigh any moral
conviction leading to better housing
with reasonable rents. Undoubtedly,
some viewed their roles as simply
providing a service for the countless
thousands who arrived in the city in
search of shelter.26
A nationwide housing shortage during
World War I also served to
stimulate the growth of profiteering in
Toledo and across the nation.
As newcomers crowded into urban
communities, the available housing-
good, poor, and otherwise-went to the
highest bidder. In May, 1920,
Toledo's City Council considered two
measures aimed at curbing
excessive rates: "One proposed
ordinance would permit landlords
to charge rents based on the valuation
of the property held," while a
second measure "made it a
misdemeanor, punishable by fine, for
landlords to fail to keep up repairs on
property as agreed at the time of
leasing." Again, these proposed
measures either failed to be enacted
or were simply ignored, as the Blade reported
a year later that "city
housing" remained "a
menace." As late as 1920-1921, housing codes
were still being proposed as "20 to
30 percent of Toledo's entire
population lived under crowded
conditions." In the Canton Street
district, black and white families continued
to crowd into available
housing where they paid rents
"disproportionate to the conditions of the
dwellings." Some of these
ill-ventilated homes were without indoor
25. Toledo Blade, August 9, 1919;
September 4, 1919; December 11, 1919; and
May 18, 1920.
26. Toledo Blade, May 18, 1920; Toledo
City Journal, III, no. 48 (November 30,
1918), 555.
18 OHIO
HISTORY
water supplies. While there are no
indications that the quality of such
dwellings improved, rents in Toledo did
stabilize in the early months
of 1922. Perhaps the appeals of city
officials, the fluctuation in
newcomers, and the enforcement of
existing building provisions played
important roles in the stabilization of
rents. Still, Toledo continued to
have a shortage of housing well into the
decade of the 1920s. For those
residents who faced constant hardships
in acquiring dwellings due to
socioeconomic factors, it was not until
1933 and the Great Depression
that Ohio enacted a "low-rent"
housing law.27
V
There were other Toledoans, black and
white, who escaped the high
and unstable rents of 1920-1923. These
residents either owned or were
buying their homes. To be sure, the
general residential crisis (both in
availability and cost) had an effect
upon home buyers and renters alike.
This was especially true for black
Toledoans. "While the white popu-
lation," stated Toledo's Observer
in 1923, "suffers to some extent
because of inadequate housing
conditions, white people get the first
choice whenever new houses are
built." "Moreover," continued the
newspaper, "only a very small
proportion of the Negro population
can afford to meet the large down
payments required on new houses
in the city. Hence, altogether too many
Colored people are forced to
live in old, unsanitary houses." In
a large measure, Afro-American
residents, with their jobs as laborers,
janitors, porters, and servants,
could only fill-up the deserted housing
of whites as they expanded across
the city. 28
Unfortunately, home ownerships are not
distinguished by race for
the Toledo community in 1920. However,
50.6 percent of the city's
residents, black and white, were renters
while 24.4 percent owned their
homes free of encumbrances. The
disposition of the remaining percent-
age of homes is not known. In 1923,
approximately 12 percent of the
more than 2,000 black families in the
city owned their homes free and
15.6 percent were buying their places of
residence. More than 72 percent
of the community's black families were
renters. It cannot be stated,
however, that these figures reflect all
segments of the Afro-American
27. Toledo Blade, May 25, July
15, 1920; April 6,1921; February 3, 1922; also see
Toledo City Journal, V, no. 20 (May 15, 1920), 222; Toledo City Journal, IX,
no. 1
(January 5, 1924), 7; and The National
Association of Housing Officials, Housing and
Redevelopment Directory, 1952-53 (Publication no. N316, September, 1952), 159.
28. Toledo Observer, November 10,
1923; also see U.S. Bureau of the Census,
Fourteenth Census of the United States,
Population: 1920, II, Tables 7, 12:
1286-88,
1294-97; and Everett Johnson, "A
Study of the Negro Families in the Pinewood Avenue
District of Toledo, Ohio," 243-45.
Newcomers to the City
19
population. Homeownerships were held
primarily by the native Ohio
segment of the population. To these
must be added a small group of
newcomers who apparently sold their
farms or other property once the
decision to move had been made.29
Among both "older" and
"newer" urban residences, there has been,
at least periodically, the necessity to
sublease portions of their dwellings
to others. In 1930, the year of
available data for lodgers, there were
13,260 Afro-Americans in Toledo. This
population included 3,198
families, of which 21.5 percent either
owned or were buying their
homes. There is no distinction between
those who owned their homes
outright and those with encumbrances.
In 1930, 75.6 percent or slightly
more than three-fourths of the city's
black families were renters. The
disposition of the remaining 2.9
percent black families is unknown.
Among Negro families who owned their
homes (both free and with
mortgages), 32.3 percent or almost
one-third subrented to lodgers.
This figure increased to 36.6 percent
for black renter families.30
The boarding phenomenon can be further
illustrated in a comparative
analysis of black and white residents
in Toledo. There were 36,689
native white families of native
parentage in the city in 1930. In home-
ownerships, these whites held 40.8
percent free and encumbered homes.
Again, there is no distinction between
those who owned their homes
outright and those with encumbrances.
However, 58.2 percent of the
city's native white families, both
homeowners and tenants, opened their
residences to lodgers. Among Negro
families, more than three-fourths
(79 percent) subrented to boarders.
This figure represents both home-
owners and tenants and is far above the
percentage of native whites
in the combined category who subrented
their dwellings. The city's
14,501 foreign families contained only
11.7 percent boarders in 1930.
Moreover, the foreign-born outdistanced
Afro-Americans in home-
ownerships, with 39.1 percent in the
combined category of free and
encumbered homes and only 61 percent as
renters.31
Without a clear distinction of ethnic
groups among the foreign-born,
it is uncertain, as with blacks,
whether specific nationalities, older
settlers, or newcomers had a greater
percentage of owned homes as
well as boarders. At the turn of the
century, the German and Irish
communities led all foreign-born and
foreign whites (those of mixed
29. Toledo Blade, October 27,
1906; Toledo Observer, November 10, 1923; and
Katzman, "The Farmers," 8-10.
30. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes
in the United States, 1920-1932, Table 45:
285; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth
Census of the United States, 1930: Families,
VI (Washington, D.C.: Government
Printing Office, 1933), Tables 5, 73: 67, 1015.
31. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth
Census of the United States, 1930: Families,
VI, Table 73: 67.
20 OHIO HISTORY
parentage) in economic and social
development as well as homeowner-
ships. Between 1919 and 1921, there
were increasing signs of upward
mobility, particularly in
homeownerships, among Polish residents.
They were becoming, stated the Blade,
"the greatest buyers of homes."
These homes were being purchased
largely in the Lagrange Street
area to the northeast in the city.
There is simply no way of determining
the number of lodgers who may have
resided in these homes.32
If black Toledo surpassed both native
whites and the foreign-born
in the percentage who had boarders in
their dwellings by 1930, so did
it outdistance some other black
communities. In the Ohio cities of
Akron, Cincinnati, Columbus, Dayton,
and Youngstown, the percent-
age of both homeowners and tenants who
took in boarders did not
equal that among Toledo's Negroes.
Similarly, black Toledo residents
surpassed the southern cities of
Atlanta and Birmingham in group
percentages who accepted lodgers. Black
Toledo resembled the cities of
Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, and
Detroit in the percentage of boarders
within the households of others. A
wider gap existed, however, between
these cities and black Toledo in free
and encumbered homeownerships.
In Toledo, approximately one-fifth of
the Afro-American families
held homes in the combined category.
Buffalo's black community
contained only 6.6 percent free and
encumbered homes, while Negroes
in Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit held
10.5 percent, 8.3 percent,
and 15 percent, respectively, in this
same category. 33
Despite the differences that obviously
existed in the histories and
traditions of such cities as Buffalo,
Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and
Toledo, they all shared, at least
numerically, in the boarding experience.
To be sure, the category of boarder
included a variety of persons having
diverse relationships to the homeowner
or holder of a dwelling. And
while such relationships are unknown
for the Toledo community, for
example, it is possible that some were
extended family members. During
the two decades after 1910, it was not
uncommon for recent southern
migrants to seek shelter in the homes
of relatives and even acquaintances.
Given the housing shortage in Toledo
and other cities, boarding may
have been widespread well before 1930.
These, as well as the social and
economic problems that plagued the
black community, made boarding
more than a mutual endeavor among
blacks to share certain cultural
amenities. In a very real sense,
boarding was a necessary institution
32. Toledo Blade, August 7, 1919;
U.S. Bureau of the Census, Twelfth Census of
the United States, 1900: Population, II, Table 115: 754. In 1900, the German element
in Toledo held 23 percent free
homeownerships followed by the Irish and British residents
with 20 percent and 15 percent,
respectively.
33. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes
in The United States, 1920-1932, Tables 38,
41,43,45:277,281,282-84.
Newcomers to the City 21
that became a prominent feature among
homeowners and tenants alike.
It can also be stated that boarding and
its ills or benefits varied widely
from community to community. Moreover,
high percentages of board-
ing did not automatically mean equally
high rates of homeownerships.
In all, "high rents, the pressures
of populations, and the low incomes of
most Negroes were all factors in the
large number of boarders."34
VI
How, then, did black Toledoans fare in
terms of the jobs or occupa-
tions that they held in 1920 and 1930?
In 1920, the community's black
female workers constituted 3.3 percent
of the total female labor force
in the city. These Negroes, like their
counterparts in the decades 1890-
1910, were most heavily concentrated in
the domestic and personal
services category of labor. Forty-four
percent of all employed black
females were servants in 1920 and they
comprised fifteen percent of
all the servants in the city. By
contrast, only 10 percent of all employed
white females were servants in the same
year. While information on the
ethnic backgrounds of these whites is
unavailable, it is possible that
sizeable numbers continued to be those of
"newer immigrant groups"
such as the Austro-Hungarians and the
Russians. In the category of
laundress, more than 31 percent of all
the employed black females held
jobs while only 1.7 percent of the
employed white females were laun-
dresses. In the broad and dubious
category of mechanical trades,
5.6 percent of the employed black
females held jobs. For the most part,
this percentage represented the opening
of greater opportunities in
industry for Negro females. When
compared to their white counterparts,
however, blacks trailed by more than 20
percent in the mechanical
trades.35
In the second decade of the twentieth
century, Afro-American males
evidenced slight improvement in the jobs
they held. These advances
came as a result of increased industrial
development in the city. In 1910,
less than one-half of one percent of the
employed black males were
iron molders, founders, and casters.
With the economic growth pro-
duced by the First World War, Negro
males comprised slightly more
than one percent of all the city's
workers in these same jobs in 1920.
Moreover, approximately 11.0 percent of
all the employed black males
in 1920 were iron molders, founders, and
casters. In the city's auto-
mobile factories, Afro-Americans
comprised 7.0 percent of the unspeci-
34. Ibid.; Toledo Blade, April
6, 1921, February 3, 1922; Toledo Observer,
November 10, 1923; also see Long and
Johnson, People vs Property, 3-4.
35. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fourteenth
Census of the United States, 1920:
Occupation, IV, Table 2: 1243-45.
22 OHIO HISTORY
fied laborers. Even as laborers, blacks
were negligible in the automobile
industry in 1910. A decade later, 2.5
percent of the city's mechanics
were Negroes. As semi-skilled and
skilled operatives within the auto-
mobile factories, the Afro-American's
share of the total jobs stood at
slightly more than one percent. Black
males were conspicuously absent
from the ranks of machinists and there
were few Negro apprentices
in any of the semi- and skilled
categories of labor between 1910 and
1930. This combined with a general
exclusion of blacks from organized
labor to pose a double hardship in
access to higher-paying jobs. Afro-
American males continued a long-standing
concentration in primarily
three job classifications. They
comprised 48 percent of Toledo's "street,
railroad, and store laborers," 27
percent of all the jobs as janitors, and
two-thirds of the non-store porters in
1920. Comparatively, white
males, as a group, did not evidence such
concentration in any of these
categories.36
By 1930, Negro males increased their slightly less than three percent
of the total labor force in 1920 to more
than five percent. Yet, blacks,
other than laborers, janitors, porters,
servants, and waiters, witnessed
little movement into the semi-skilled
occupations. Indeed, there was a
greater concentration in the unskilled
categories as blacks now com-
prised 82 percent of the city's porters
and 31 percent of its janitors. In
the category of iron molder, founder,
and caster, employed black males
decreased from 11 percent in 1920 to
less than 5 percent by 1930. In that
same year, Negro females came to
dominate the category of servant.
These workers comprised 61 percent of
the entire servant class, with
more than one-fourth (27 percent) of all
employed black females listed
as servants. Similarly, Afro-American
females continued their concen-
tration as laundresses and non-factory
laundry operatives. They also
came to dominate the category of
"elevator operator" by holding
62 percent of Toledo's total jobs of
this classification. At the same time,
Negro females declined from 5.6 percent
of the mechanical trades to
one percent in 1930. Among white males
and females, such concentra-
tion in certain categories and
under-representation in others did not
exist, at least for the opening year of
the century's third decade.37
Between 1920 and 1930, the economic
conditions among black resi-
dents in Toledo evidenced change or
improvement in some areas and
greater concentration in the more
traditional areas of Afro-American
employment. The growing
industrialization in the city brought limited
opportunities for many Negroes, especially
as classified laborers.
36. Ibid.
37. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth
Census of the United States, IV, Table 12:
1294-97.
Newcomers to the City 23
Undoubtedly, some newcomers saw this as
a move upward from their
previous economic conditions in the
south. For others, the circle only
tightened as the socioeconomic walls of
a new and often strange world
closed in upon them. In the clerical and
professional classes of work,
approximately one percent of the black
Toledo population held jobs in
1920 and 1930. These represented the
limits of the white collar occupa-
tions within the black community.
Comparatively, the total statewide
percentage of blacks in these two job
classifications stood a little above
two percent in 1920. The decline in
industrial-related jobs for blacks
in 1930 reflected the opening years of
the Great Depression. As jobs
decreased among all workers, they took a
sharp downward turn in the
Negro community. Some workers had just
begun to inch their way into
the "time clock" routine of
the industrial order as semi-skilled operatives
when the bottom fell out of the economy.
With this economic crisis at
the close of the century's third decade,
blacks could do little more than
increase their already disproportionate
share of the lowest-paying and
most menial jobs. In time, even these
forms of labor would be at a
premium.38
VII
Despite the increases in population and
the growing restrictions in
housing, Toledo did not experience the
violence that erupted in many
cities across the nation after 1916.
There are several reasons for this.
While the Afro-American population
mushroomed in the decades after
1910, blacks continued to comprise a
relatively small part of the total
population, 2.3 percent in 1920 and 4.6
percent by 1930. And while
gradient size alone cannot explain the
lack of racial violence, it is
significant to note that the black
community remained extremely small
in absolute numbers. In housing there
was little or no competition
for available dwellings, as blacks were
either "warned out" or restricted
from areas with substantial white
populations. The succession process
in housing appears to have operated
relatively well as the small Negro
population came to hold the abandoned
neighborhoods and housing
of the larger society, especially in the
southwest or Pinewood area of
the city. In jobs and occupations, only
the issue of black imported labor
by the railroads became the focal
point-for a brief period in 1917-
of opposition by the city's Central
Labor Union. Through tradition
and conventional racial attitudes, black
workers did not play a role in
the efforts of organized labor, even as
strikebreakers. In the main, the
38. Ibid.; Spurgeon Bell and
Ralph J. Watkins, Industrial and Commercial Ohio, I
(The Ohio State University: Bureau of
Business Research, College of Commerce and
Administration, 1928), 148, 165-68.
24 OHIO HISTORY
great majority of Afro-Americans
continued, as their pre-1910 counter-
parts had done, to hold non-union,
menial, and unskilled jobs. And
as already noted, there were few
apprentices being trained for other and
higher levels of employment. In all,
black Toledoans did not seriously
threaten either the social or economic
position of whites. 39
From within the largely all black world,
"older settlers" remained
relatively silent in their criticism of
any negative aspects wrought by the
growth in population. Still, there may
have been those who lamented
the arrival of newcomers and the
subsequent strain, both social and
economic, upon urban living. Others,
such as Reverand Benjamin
McWilliams of Third Baptist Church, Mrs.
W. F. Kennedy, Albertus
Brown, and Elvin B. Wanzo, bent all
efforts in reaching out to the
new arrivals, particularly in religious
and social areas. In 1925,
McWilliams instituted a series of
"tent meetings" to inform blacks of
available community services and to urge
newcomers to find church
homes. Churchmen and women, stated
McWilliams, should take the
lead in any effort to
"acclimatize" former rural, southern Negroes
"to the rather strenuous urban life
in the North."40
The growth of Toledo's black population,
by more than 336 percent
between 1910 and 1930, warrants a final
note. Afro-American migrants
appeared willing to "put down
roots" in this northwest Ohio community
and call it home. And while there were
new problems and even signs
of repression in the city, the growth in
population of AfroAmerican
residents is suggestive of a personal
understanding among these new-
comers of the human and even spiritual
implications conveyed in the
following migrant folk tale:
An unemployed black migrant, cold, wet,
and hungry, appealed to God for
advice. GO BACK TO MISSISSIPPI, the Lord
told him. You don't mean it,
Lord, the poor man replied, you're
jesting. The Lord repeated, GO BACK TO
MISSISSIPPI! Finally, the man relented:
very well, Lord, if you insist, I'll go.
But will you go with me? The Lord
answered: AS FAR AS CINCINNATI.41
The tide of southern black migrants
continued.
39. Toledo Blade, June 1, 1917;
Toledo Union Leader, May 10, 1918; and Toledo
Blade, April 28, 1919.
40. Ibid.; Toledo Blade, May
22, 1917; Toledo Blade, July 18, 1925; Charles M.
Brunson, A History of the Toledo
Council of Churches (Toledo, Ohio: May 17, 1937),
26-27, in Local History Room,
Toledo-Lucas County Public Library; Toledo Newsbee,
September 5, 22, 1925; The Ohio
Christian News, October 29, 1926; and Benjamin F.
McWilliams, "Interracial Activities
in Toledo," Southern Workman, 54 (April, 1925),
162-65.
41. Stanley Coben, "The Failure of
the Melting Pot," quoted in Thomas R.
Frazier, ed., The Underside of
American History: Other Readings, Second Edition,
Volume II: Since 1865 (New York, 1974),
156.