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 Athens’ black community has experienced ups and downs
On Feb. 10, 1976, President Gerald Ford encouraged Americans to “join me in tribute to Black History Month and the message of courage and perseverance it brings to all of us.” With his speech, what had been “Negro History Week” officially expanded to one month, February, which honored the trials and triumphs of historically oppressed black people in the nation and world.
In that same year, Mt. Zion Baptist Church, one of two black churches in Athens County, was making a comeback as the center of the black community in Athens and at OU. (The church building is still located at the corner of Carpenter and North Congress streets in Athens.)
By the 1970s, the black population in Athens had dwindled due to a lack of jobs open to African Americans, and the black community in Athens city had no strong center.
Read more from The Athens NEWS. | Photo credit: Dustin Franz, The Athens NEWS.
Related topics: History | Black History Month
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 This 6.75” x 3.25” (17.15 x 8.26 cm) photograph shows delegates registering for the 18th Ecumenical Student Conference on the Christian World Mission at Ohio University in 1959. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. visited the Ohio University campus from December 27, 1959 to January 2, 1960, when the student body was on winter break, to speak at the 18th Ecumenical Student Conference on the Christian World Mission, an international church collegiate youth conference. This conference was sponsored by the United Student Christian Council and the World’s Student Christian Federation. Billed as the “largest student conference in the free world, ” 3, 600 college students from 100 nations came to Athens, Ohio, to discuss the themes of “Racial Tensions” and “Technological Upheaval” among others. Many students came specifically to hear Dr. King. Several white students who participated in the conference faced action from their respective universities for meeting with students of other races to prepare for the conference.
Via Ohio Memory.
This line is outside Chubb Hall, and this is when 33/50 ran down Court Street (better picture of that here, MLK photo from inside the conference here).
If you reblog this post, please at least keep the click-through link to the source. This photo is part of our Old Photos Weekend II. For other old photos of the Athens area, click here.
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As little as 25 years ago, the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, disguised by the white hoods of their robes and bearing a symbol of white supremacy over their hearts, paraded through Athens carrying crosses and a centuries-long grudge.
But Ohio’s history with the Klan dates back to the 19th century, when a group of Civil War vets from the South founded the group to spread their theories about racial segregation to all corners of the country.
The Klan quickly decayed, but it reemerged soon after.
Read more from The Post.
Related topics: History | Black History Month
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 A dark mark: Davis’ grisly murder Athens County’s only lynching
In the fall of 1881, Christopher C. Davis — a biracial man from Athens County — was accused of the rape and assault of Lucinda Luckey, a widow for whom he had done some housework.
Rather than standing trial after his arrest, though, a mob of about 30 armed men took Davis from the Athens Jail and lynched him.
According to an article published in the Richwood Gazette Dec. 1, 1881:
“With a rope thrown about the culprit’s neck, he was led trembling from the jail. … Davis was led a distance of four blocks to the bridge of the Hocking Valley River, and while one end of the rope was being tied to the bridge … he was commanded to confess his guilt. He begged for his life and asked them if they would spare him if he confessed. He was told that if he confessed he would be returned to the jail and given a fair trial. He then confessed the horrible crime. He was pitched headlong from the bridge, falling a distance of nine feet, the fall breaking his neck.”
Read more from The Post.
Related topics: History | Black History Month
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A historical anomaly resided in Southeast Ohio in the 1800s: the Albany Enterprise Academy, one of the first black-owned and operated schools in the United States. Several of its students’ lives intertwined in ways that left an indelible impression on Athens.
The wedding of a local educator and a noted black American leader spread a stir of excitement throughout Athens County in the summer of 1886.
At that time, tuition was $3 per 12-week session at Albany Enterprise Academy, where Olivia Davidson was a student before she married Booker T. Washington
Read more from The Post.
RELATED: ICYMI, African-American Inventors Museum comes to Athens (WOUB).
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For Clifton J. Brown, what started as a personal hobby has grown into much more than that.
Brown began collecting artifacts from African-American inventors — such as the rolling suitcase or the microphone — and in time acquired a collection that he turned into a traveling museum.
The African American Inventors and Inventions Traveling Museum will be at Ohio University Feb. 8 from noon to 6 p.m. in Baker Theatre. The exhibit is free and open to the public.
Read more from The Post.
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