By Dave Allbaugh
Daily News Staff Writer
The first Negro came to Dayton in 1798. History gives him no name; the only trace is a list of taxpayers with the description “William Maxwell (including his Negro).”
Gradually a few Negro freedmen and fugitive slaves settled here. No major migration of Negroes into Dayton occurred until World War 1. With onset of World War II, Negroes joined the tide of southerners flowing north. The stream has not stopped since.
But it wasn’t until 1961 that the substantial Negro population here caught onto the civil rights revolution. The year was marked by Don L. Crawford’s election as the first Negro on the city commission.
» PART 1: Shooting sparked 1966 Dayton riots
MORE SIGNIFICANTLY, perhaps, Negroes began speaking out aggressively and posting picket lines around city hall.
One result: Appointed and elected leaders downtown have been prodded into keener awareness of the Negro community.
It isn’t likely that any top official today would repeat the mistake committed by ex-Mayor R. William Patterson during a city commission meeting in 1959.
Migration Enlarges Negro Population
VETERAN NEGRO demonstration leader W.S. McIntosh set the stage for the episode. He charged that Negro jobs in city hall didn’t adequately reflect the city’s Negro population, which he estimated at 60,000.
Patterson challenged the figure, saying he “understood” there were between 25,000 and 30,000 Negroes here. The U.S. census the next year listed more than 56,000 Negroes in Dayton (up from 34,000 in 1950). The Negro population now is estimated at close to 70,000 as migration continues.
Change in the sixties? Sure.
» PART 2: Fifty years later, Dayton remains segregated
DARK FACES BEHIND a few typewriters at city hall, for instance. As late as 1963, regular visitors to city hall didn’t notice any Negro stenographers, clerks or secretaries. City officials heatedly denied any bias in civil service recruitment.
However, City Manager Robert W. Starick’s office was among the first to display a Negro secretary after the storm broke.
Other visible changes include:
Negroes filling many positions in business and industry hitherto reserved for whites — largely the result of federal legislation and pressures on defense contractors.
A HUMAN RELATIONS commission. It was set up by the city government in 1963 to operate discreetly (some say too discreetly) behind the scenes.
Six more Negroes on Dayton’s 380-man police force. There are now 14 Negro policemen here.
These things figure as real progress to most white people.
But how do they add up to local Negroes, nearly all of whom are jammed into the West side ghetto?
» PART 3: Once 'vibrant,' west side in economic distress
ARE THESE NEGRO citizens satisfied? Looking eagerly to further change? Or seething inwardly and keyed for explosion?
To test the temperature, I conducted depth interviews with a cross-section of two dozen leading local Negroes. I also talked to numerous “little people” on the West side.
The answers were disturbing.
Fully half the leadership group said a massive Negro riot is a real and present danger here. A lesser number were uncertain but expressed deep anxiety. Only about one-fifth of the group saw no danger.
“JUST DON’T LET the temperature get above 95 degrees,” waned Lloyd Lewis Jr., Negro moderate and prominent civic leader.
The man-in-the-street often expressed similar thoughts. The main difference was the vernacular.
But a substantial middle-ground opinion was registered, too.
» PART 4: 'Good things on the horizon' for west Dayton
“These people aren’t going to riot,” said one woman, a Negro social worker. “They have their homes, their jobs and that’s all they care about.” The reporter caught a note of dejection in her voice.
THERE AND THERE, you heard similar comment from others. Dayton, some pointed out, tends to have less unemployment among Negroes as well as whites than do many cities.
But this was a minority opinion. The warning note was dominant.
» ARCHIVE: 'Riot or Peace: Matter of Minutes'
Tough talk, it must be noted, can be bravado. The doomsday warning can be moral bullying, a lever with which to jar white officialdom, or even self-fulfilling prophecy.
The only evidence of talking for effect turned up among the optimists, however.
ONE NEGRO PROFESSIONAL man who deplored demonstration marches in Dayton for publicity later told a friend, “Thank God for McIntosh.”
A veteran of the Negro establishment professed to see steady progress amid goodwill. But the reporter later heard he had chided a handful for Negro acquaintances, saying: “Don’t you know you can’t trust white people?”
Moreover, too much of the resentment expressed to this reporter carried the jarring ring of conviction to be easily discounted.
» ARCHIVE: 'Negro View of Dayton: Progress, But Problems'
There was, for instance, the moment of revelation furnished by Robert King, principal of Jackson school.
King, 44, is a Dayton native. He heads a school in what he calls a “typically deprived” area, has worked hard on urban renewal problems in his neighborhood.
FOR MORE THAN an hour he talked calmly on these matters. Then the conversation turned to police. Hitching forward abruptly in his chair, a waving forefinger emphasizing his sudden anger in his voice, King declared:
“The attitude of the police out here has been inexcusable. The average colored person in Dayton despises the sight of a policeman. It shouldn’t be that way.”
King made no broadside charge of “police brutality.” But like numerous other Negroes, he told of being called “boy” and “n——-” by police.
OR TAKE THE REV. J. Welby Broaddus, dean of Negro ministers. The pastor of Tabernacle Baptist church is 75 years old — an aged belied only by his tired eyes. He speaks in a strong, firm voice of faith that “the truth will eternally prevail” and belief in “sitting down and discussing our differences.”
There is something more, too.
He warns against being “too presumptuous … saying it can’t happen here …”
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Mr. Broaddus, a retired member of the Dayton board of education, son of a slave and life-long moderate, does not say a Watts is possible here.
BUT HE STRESSES, “I believe in preventative medicine … it is much better to prevent a fire than put one out.”
Mr. Broaddus notes that Dayton has made “some progress.” He recalls, for instance, when it took considerable insistence before he and his family were able to enter a downtown theater. That was during the days when downtown hotels, restaurants and theaters were segregated.
The city’s task now, Mr. Broaddus says, is to tap its capacity for improvement of the entire community, especially the West side.
THEN THERE WAS the meaningful drift in a conversation with Lloyd Lewis Sr. The older Lewis is a veteran community leader and business partner with his son, Lloyd Jr., in Lewis Sales and Service at 915 W. Fifth St.
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The reporter had dropped in to see Lloyd Jr., who was expected momentarily. “Maybe,” said the father casually, “My son will see things differently than I do … Things have changed so much maybe I look on the hopeful side more than he does.”
It soon became clear that the older Lewis was at least as worried as he was hopeful. One danger he said, lay with the “cute young ones” (hip Negro youths). Lewis was especially concerned at the high rate of joblessness among Negro youth and their volatile, defiant attitude.
“YOU KNOW, WE almost had a Watts here in 1955,” added Lewis. He was referring to the wild riot that erupted briefly in front of the Fifth St. YMCA one warm September night 11 years ago.
But why the climate of smoldering resentment now, after efforts have begun to improve conditions?
» GALLERY: Scenes from the 1966 riot
John Harewood, the quiet-mannered 56-year-old principal at Wogaman school, sums it up this way:
“People expected a lot more than has happened … the civil rights law and other measures said things would be different … These people have been denied all these years and they are impatient now.”
WHAT THINGS? What are the prime issues disturbing Negroes interviewed here?
The bill of complaints covers all the fundamentals. They include:
ONE - Education. Most Negroes deplore West side schools. The general belief is that these schools are more crowded, less well-equipped than the all-white schools. Also, the quality of education is lower on the West side.
TWO - Joblessness. Nobody has any reliable figures on Negro unemployment, but it is generally believed to be more than double that of whites. The lament is heard that today's economy and training opportunities fit only the "qualified" Negro, not the mass of youngsters spewed out of the schools with little special training and no prospect of going to college.
THREE – Housing. Most persons questioned agreed with City Commissioner Crawford that housing segregation is "the big symbolic thing." None expressed any eagerness to pioneer in an all-white neighborhood, though.
FOUR – City services. Agreement on this one cut across all class and economic lines. The complaint was frequently made that "the West side comes last." A substantial number saw some connection between services and the lack of solid neighborhood civic organization.
Negroes by and large, share common gripes.
But there are new divisions within the West side over how Negroes shall press their cases and who will speak for them.
TOMORROW: Frustration – Moderate and Radical
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