Saturday, February 2, 2013

Worcester Black History Project 1213



Black Worcester and the East Side

Thomas L. Doughton
When I was a child in the 1950s going to visit my grandparents, Carl and Gladys Hennessey Bates, on the East Side was often an adventure. They lived on the first floor at the corner of Arch and Carroll Streets; our cousin Lillian King and the Clash family lived in apartments upstairs. Their landlord was Miss Minnie, Minnie Traficante, who owned the nightclub Bronzo’s in Shrewsbury and “rented to colored’: Ike Johnson, our Nevins cousins, Clarence Tolson and our cousin Roland Ringels occupied her property at 32 Carroll Street; Louis Reed, the Mitchells and Mrs. Hester Spring lived at 8 Clayton Street in one of her houses; and, Albert Toney along with Louise and Isadora Murphy rented her property at 54 Mason Street. I have a kid’s memory of her as a “colorful” lady. But what made my visits an adventure was the experience of community and a sense of belonging or having a place. Where we and the Cisco family were the only people of color in Grafton, where we lived at the time, the old East Side felt like home.
More often than not, my grandmother had errands for me. On any given Saturday, for example, I might be asked to take something to her good friend, Naomi Toney and on a sunny afternoon I could encounter what seemed a whole world of black folks in travelling the few blocks to Mrs. Toney’s on Prospect Street.
Other Arch Street residents included Edward English, Mrs. Lillian Hampton, Milton Price and Mrs. Ellen Holmes; and “Aunt” Bea Smith was directly across the street. As I’d walk, between Glen and Laurel Streets, I could connect with the following who lived on Carroll Street: John Bayard; Mrs. Malvina Garr; the Scotts; James Williams; James English; the Grays at the corner of Elliott Street; “Miss” Amanda Ross her daughter Fuddy and granddaughters Jacky and Judy Proctor; James Duffy; and, Harold Stanley.
At the corner of Laurel and Carroll Street, I could see the Munroes, the Geary family, James King, William McCorn, the Seals family, the Roundtree family as well as Joseph and Leroy Perkins.  Continuing along Carroll Street I would pass by the homes of Daniel Brann; Raymond Roberts; Ike Johnson; the Nevins family; Roland Ringels; Clarence Tolson; Sidney Johnston; Grace McCoy; the Wilsons (Alex, Joanne, Robert, Caroline, Dorothy, Clarence, Ruth and Elizabeth); my cousin Florence Dyer; the Robbins family (parents George and Louise with George Jr., Margaret and Ronald), my cousins Alice Ringels, Harry Hennessey and Harry Hazzard; Mrs. Eleanor Kelley; and, Mrs. Lillian Hathaway and family.
As I’d walk Carroll Street to Prospect Street, I might have seen Eugene Spring or George Stewart and Arthur Shepard who lived at the corner. But I’d turn right on Prospect Street until I arrived at Number 11 and Mt. Olive Pentecostal Church before heading upstairs to Mrs. Toney’s apartment.  In the same building lived: Mrs. Alma Anderson with Clayton and Roger Anderson; Mrs. Mary Harris with Harold, and Richard Harris; Mrs. Florida, Stanley, Spencer and Hollister Gutridge; Benjamin Bailey; Mrs. Martha Johnson and family; and Walter Prince.
In Grafton we and the Cisco family were the only people of color in town; I was the only “colored” student in school. It was as if I was in another world.  As I’d make my way to Mrs. Toney’s I could, at any time, meet many of these folks. “Tell your grandmother, I said hello,” or “Tell Ma Bates I’ll see her in church tomorrow,” or “How’s your mother, boy? I hear Sue’s been feeling poorly.” It was all so different from the stares of white people in Grafton or a first grade classmate who once asked me “All you black all over, I mean your whole body?”
But when I left the Toney apartment on Prospect Street headed back to Arch Street, I more often than not walked along Clayton Street. Again, I could run into people who knew me and my family. Between the corner of Prospect and Clayton Street and Laurel Streets lived the following: Mrs. Alice Brown and family; Louis Reed; George Burton; Mrs. Florence Mitchell and family; Mrs. Hester Spring and family; Harold Nott; Mrs. Lillian Walker; Mrs. Annette Benson and family; James Walker; Irving Washington; Webster Schuyler; William Jones; my cousin Harold Ringels; Mrs. Elsie Toney and family; Agnes, Marion and Marlon Scott; Mrs. Mabel Hamilton; Eugene Harris; Elliott Graham; and Miss Annie Barbour.
From Laurel and Clayton to the corner of Arch and Clayton Street, African Americans included: the Perrys; Henry Duffy; Mrs. Evelyn Farmer; James Hill; Henry Walley; Mrs. Martha Price and family; William Harris; Mrs. Evelyn Harris; Thomas Hopkins; Richard Harris; Paula Wilson; Mrs. Ada Stegal; George Dominis; Floyd Johnston; Leroy Logan; George Harrold; Elwood Price; Amorite Johnston; Mrs. Martina Joyner and family.
I’d turn right at Arch Street and return to my grandparents’ house. But if I’d gone two more blocks along Clayton Street I could have encountered Mrs.Harriet Clark, my cousin John Richardson, Howard Jefferson, Samuel Duffy, George Klash, William Bradshaw, Mrs. Ruth Price, Pauline Freedman, Charles Guy, Josephine Tolson or Lester Hazzard.
From a child’s perspective the East Side was black Worcester. And, with the demolition of the neighborhood to make way for Route 290, many remember the East Side as where black Worcester lived. But is this historically accurate? Not necessarily.
On the one hand, the whole neighborhood was mixed. Armenian-Americans, Finnish-Americans and Swedish-Americans shared residence in the area, so that each of these three groups also remembers the “East Side” as their neighborhood; for example, the first Armenian church in the US was on Laurel Street.
And, on the other hand, between 1920 and the destruction of the East Side in the 1950s, there were several areas where African Americans lived in perhaps smaller but still significant other neighborhoods or “enclaves.” They represent older and more original neighborhoods where African Americans resided. For example, in1888, a minority of black Worcesterites lived on the East Side: 9 families lived on upper Elliott Street; 3 families lived on Glen Street; 14 families lived on Liberty Street; and 7 families lived on Palmer Street. The majority of the hundreds of people of color in Worcester lived elsewhere.
This semester I and students at Holy Cross College will be completing a project documenting African American residential patterns in Worcester with two related objectives:
§  Documenting three other, older African American neighborhoods in Worcester, the first in the Exchange Street areas in the 1840s near the original A.M.E.Zion Church, the second at the end of Summer Street and Washington Square and adjoining East Worcester Street, the third in the North Ashland Street area, and a fourth “cluster” between Mason Street and Beaver Brook on the West Side of Worcester; and,
§  Documenting the development of an African American neighborhood in the Laurel/ Clayton area from the 1920’s to the 1950s, preparing a detailed street-by-street representation of the East Side at the time of the neighborhood’s destruction.
We will be working towards production of online resources including an interactive representation of East Side in 1952 to be completed for public presentation in April at Holy Cross.  This will take place as part of African American Worcester, a two-day event on local and regional black history.

Additionally, for completion at the same time will be an online Worcester Black History website.
I’d like to ask for your assistance with this project. Individuals are needed to serve as a community advisory group for this project to assist students in obtaining materials for an interactive website. 

 

We will be using Sanborn insurance maps for the old East Side neighborhood. You will be able to click any specific building where people of color lived and computer files will open showing photographs, documents, obituaries and other information on families. We’ve already assembled a wealth of documentation on black families including all of the unpublished birth, death & marriages record for the city’s ‘colored’ residents. We have gathered hundred of obituaries along with other materials including federal census records for black Worcesterites through 1940. We ask for your help in working with your families and other area African Americans in obtaining scanned copies of photographs and documents in the next few months. We would hope to put together shorter video or sound clips to use at the site. At the same time, we’d ask you share your memories of your families, friends, and the East Side community. To maybe jog your recollection, as example, I attach a compilation of individuals of color from the 1952 Worcester City Directory.
If you have questions, please contact me.
Thomas L. Doughton
Senior Lecturer, Center for Interdisciplinary & Special Studies
P.O. I, CISS
College of the Holy Cross
1 College Street
Worcester MA 01610