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- [Photographs of Integrated High School Athletics in pre-Brown East Cleveland]
[Photographs of Integrated High School Athletics in pre-Brown East Cleveland]
[Photographs of Integrated High School Athletics in pre-Brown East Cleveland]
A small archive of materials, seemingly the partial contents of a disassembled scrapbook, documenting uncommon integrated public school athletics in 1940's Cleveland: 20 photographs and miscellany from a Black student athlete at Thomas Edison School in Cleveland's east side Hough neighborhood from about 1944-1946. We believe the group was compiled by a James R. "Pete" Owens, Jr. (1927-2007) and it chiefly documents the school's football team (with one photo identified as a "Boxing Team"). Owens appears to have been a running back and wore number 40. Most of the photos are dated 1944 and 1945 and an included program is from a game played in Elyria against the Amherst Comets in October 1946.
Edison appears to have been a vocational school for boys opened in 1927 in the building which formerly housed the city's University School. Information on its football team during these years is not easily located as it seems to have been excluded from the area's dominant athletic leagues. The school appears to have followed the trend of de facto segregation in 1940's Cleveland, which hit its east side extremely hard amid intense white flight to the eastern suburbs and escalating racial tensions. An article appearing in the November 3, 1945 issue of The Plain Dealer titled "600 in Near Riot at Edison; Detective Cut, Youth Beaten" provides a dark bit of context:
"With drawn revolvers, 35 policemen late yesterday afternoon quelled a near riot between more than 600 youthful whites and Negroes outside Thomas A. Edison School, E. 71st Street and Hough Avenue N.E. During the wild melee a detective received a two-inch gash over one eye and a 15-year old schoolboy was beaten as Police Capt. Stanley Cerny called out all available East Side police to disburse the participants."
An evocative primary source group documenting an uncommon scene of integrated education and high school athletics in tumultuous pre-Brown east Cleveland.
[African-Americana] : [Football] : [Ohioana]. [Photographs of Integrated High School Athletics in pre-Brown East Cleveland]. [Cleveland, Ohio]: (ca. 1944-1946). Small archive of materials including 20 black and white photographs, one printed program, three small ribbons, and a large (10”) felt jacket letter. Photographs range in size from 8" x 10" to 3 1/2" x 2 1/2" (10 - 8" x 10" ; 1 - 5" x 7" ; 8 - 5" x 3 1/2" ; 1 - 3 1/2" x 2 1/2"). Some contents with adhesive album holders attached at corners, some photos with paper adhered to versos. Most photographs with ink notations over image areas. About good overall.
A small archive of materials, seemingly the partial contents of a disassembled scrapbook, documenting uncommon integrated public school athletics in 1940's Cleveland: 20 photographs and miscellany from a Black student athlete at Thomas Edison School in Cleveland's east side Hough neighborhood from about 1944-1946. We believe the group was compiled by a James R. "Pete" Owens, Jr. (1927-2007) and it chiefly documents the school's football team (with one photo identified as a "Boxing Team"). Owens appears to have been a running back and wore number 40. Most of the photos are dated 1944 and 1945 and an included program is from a game played in Elyria against the Amherst Comets in October 1946.
Edison appears to have been a vocational school for boys opened in 1927 in the building which formerly housed the city's University School. Information on its football team during these years is not easily located as it seems to have been excluded from the area's dominant athletic leagues. The school appears to have followed the trend of de facto segregation in 1940's Cleveland, which hit its east side extremely hard amid intense white flight to the eastern suburbs and escalating racial tensions. An article appearing in the November 3, 1945 issue of The Plain Dealer titled "600 in Near Riot at Edison; Detective Cut, Youth Beaten" provides a dark bit of context:
"With drawn revolvers, 35 policemen late yesterday afternoon quelled a near riot between more than 600 youthful whites and Negroes outside Thomas A. Edison School, E. 71st Street and Hough Avenue N.E. During the wild melee a detective received a two-inch gash over one eye and a 15-year old schoolboy was beaten as Police Capt. Stanley Cerny called out all available East Side police to disburse the participants."
An evocative primary source group documenting an uncommon scene of integrated education and high school athletics in tumultuous pre-Brown east Cleveland.
[African-Americana] : [Football] : [Ohioana]. [Photographs of Integrated High School Athletics in pre-Brown East Cleveland]. [Cleveland, Ohio]: (ca. 1944-1946). Small archive of materials including 20 black and white photographs, one printed program, three small ribbons, and a large (10”) felt jacket letter. Photographs range in size from 8" x 10" to 3 1/2" x 2 1/2" (10 - 8" x 10" ; 1 - 5" x 7" ; 8 - 5" x 3 1/2" ; 1 - 3 1/2" x 2 1/2"). Some contents with adhesive album holders attached at corners, some photos with paper adhered to versos. Most photographs with ink notations over image areas. About good overall.