LASTING SCARS

A man was killed. It lit the match.

Lester Mitchell was sweeping the sidewalk in front of his apartment at 1020 West Fifth Street after 3 a.m. on Sept. 1, 1966, when the shotgun blast tore through his face.

“All I saw was the red (of the car), and the barrel of the gun,” neighbor Tommy Campbell told the Dayton Daily News later that day. “All I could tell was they were white men. Somebody said Les had been shot.”

» READ MORE: Lasting Scars, Part 1: Shooting sparked 1966 Dayton riots

» READ MORE: Who killed Lester Mitchell?

The west side had been boiling

Just four months before the shooting, Dayton Daily News reporter Dave Allbaugh spoke to two dozen people identified as black leaders and found west Dayton seething under the surface.

"Just don’t let the temperature get above 95 degrees," civic leader Lloyd Lewis Jr. was quoted as saying in a May 1966 story.

» From May 1966: 'Negro View of Dayton: Progress, But Problems'

'Redlining' fanned flames

In 1937, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation rated a Dayton neighborhood just northwest of the confluence of Wolf Creek and the Great Miami River as extremely risky for loans. Agency officials wrote that it had good transportation and schools, but listed “detrimental influences.”

A map of Dayton was created to help banks figure out what areas were more or less desirable for lending, taking into account factors including “infiltration” of blacks and foreign-born immigrants. The lowest-rated areas were outlined in red. The same was done in 239 cities across the U.S., and the term “redlining” was born.

» READ MORE: The legacy of race-based redlining

Dayton rioted

Dayton Mayor Dave Hall read the riot act on West Third Street — looting and wailing sirens surrounding him — at around 10:30 a.m. and was immediately confronted in the street by W. Sumpter McIntosh, whose shirt sleeves were rolled up, shirt open at the neck.

“This is the city’s fault,” McIntosh said within earshot of reporters. “You can blame the mayor and the chief of police.”

Hall snapped back: “We did what you asked. We did all we could.”

» FROM THE ARCHIVES: ‘Riot or Peace: Matter of Minutes’

The descriptions and images remain disturbing

A Journal Herald reporter wrote that rioters moved in clusters, attacking stores and passing vehicles. “As white motorists drove past, the shout was, ‘Kill! Kill! Kill!’ ” the reporter wrote.

Guardsmen in Jeeps mounted with .50-caliber machine guns patrolled the area. But by then, calm was beginning to take root. Gen. Hostetler toured the city in an unmarked police car without incident, noting only shattered and looted storefronts.

There were numerous injuries and more than 500 arrests. City services were briefly suspended. Trains were re-routed. One estimate put the cost of public safety alone at $20,000 a day, or nearly $150,000 in today’s dollars. Police estimated property damage at about $250,000, or nearly $1.9 million today.

» PHOTOS: Scenes from the 1966 riot

Eventually, order was restored

Renowned Dayton artist Bing Davis — then an art teacher at Colonel White High School — was one of many young black professionals and athletes crowded into the hot office of C.J. McLin Jr., a funeral director and Democratic organizer who that year would be elected to his first term in the Ohio House of Representatives.

“(He) swore us in under the title of ‘White Hats,’ and gave us a card with our name on it and this white hat and encouraged us to go into the community to help to quell the disturbances to keep the calm,” said Davis in an interview in his studio.

Davis’ studio is roughly two blocks from where Mitchell was killed 50 years ago, sparking the riots.

» READ MORE: Lasting Scars, Part 1: Shooting sparked 1966 Dayton riots

50 years later, Dayton remains a segregated city

West-side leaders and prominent blacks identify many of the same issues, the specifics slightly altered:

Education: West Dayton schools are still overwhelmingly black, have some of the worst educational outcomes in the state and have a hard time luring substitutes and experienced teachers.

Joblessness: General Motors and other manufacturing jobs have left west Dayton. The black unemployment rate remains twice that of whites.

Housing: West-side housing stock has some of the lowest value in the region. Residents complain that rented and unoccupied homes are falling into disrepair, and west Dayton residents still have a harder time getting loans than people in other parts of the city.

City services: While city leaders have launched programs focused on west side revitalization, private-sector dollars haven’t followed as in other regions.

» READ MORE: Lasting Scars, Part 2: Fifty years later, Dayton remains segregated

West Dayton still has its issues

The biggest blow to west Dayton, however, came with the closure of GM plants and affiliated manufacturing. The Inland Plant and Delphi plants employed scores of west side residents with well-paying jobs.

“Many of our customers around here worked for General Motors, or some subsidiary of General Motors, or NCR, Standard,” said Chris Shaw, Dayton city commissioner, standing in his family’s 106-year-old dry cleaning store on Germantown Street.

Housing values plummeted. Homes behind the boarded-up storefronts across the street from Shaw’s business are appraised for tax purposes in the $30,000 range. Several hold less value than they did in 2000.

» READ MORE: Lasting Scars, Part 3: Once ‘vibrant,’ west side in economic distress

Many see good things coming for west Dayton

The old Delphi plant abuts the Westwood neighborhood, which is among the region’s poorest and was targeted by Dayton police, county juvenile courts and Wright State University for a program to address rampant juvenile crime.

The first step in that project involved painting a mural on the side of the Wesley Center, which was built 50 years ago in the wake of the 1966 riots. The new mural, designed by Dayton artist James Pate and painted by members of the community, depicts a community rebuilding itself.

» READ MORE: Lasting Scars, Part 4: ‘Good things on the horizon’ for west Dayton