Our History: Book a Trove of City’s African-American History
Jeff Suess, Cincinnati Enquirer
Published 1:03 p.m. ET Feb. 6, 2019
Wendell P. Dabney, a prominent figure in the city, published "Cincinnati's Colored Citizens" in 1926.
The 1920s were a time of cultural awakening for African-Americans.
Negro History Week, the precursor to Black History Month, was established by Carter G. Woodson of Chicago in 1926. The Harlem Renaissance and the Jazz Age were opening up people’s eyes, ears and minds.
While in Cincinnati, Wendell P. Dabney felt it was time to “set forth the history and achievements” of the city’s African-Americans. The editor and publisher of the weekly newspaper, the Union, compiled and published the book, “Cincinnati’s Colored Citizens,” in 1926.
The book chronicles the city’s history from the African-American perspective and profiles prominent black citizens of the day. For nearly a century, the book was the only history exclusively about Cincinnati’s black community.
“Such information, I felt, would go far to eradicate much of the prejudice against us, that owes its origin to the ignorance or superficial knowledge of our white citizens,” Dabney wrote in the book’s preface.
Dabney was a journalist rather than a historian, so it is not a scholarly work with exhaustive sources and footnotes. Rather, Dabney sought “to show the soul as well as the body of a people, who are so little known, so little understood and, for so many years, so much oppressed because of such misunderstanding.”
While Dabney included himself quite a bit in the book, he was active in many different aspects of the community, so he could not be omitted.
Dabney was born in 1865 in Richmond, Virginia, the son of former slaves. His father worked as a caterer, which helped elevate their standard of living. Dabney briefly attended Oberlin College, one of 15 African-American students, and was a talented guitar player.
In Cincinnati, he ran a music studio, dabbled in politics and was the first president of the local chapter of the NAACP. He was the first African-American to serve as the city’s paymaster, and published the Union from 1907 until his death in 1952.
Dabney’s connections to the black community made him the ideal person to record their history that otherwise would have been lost.
In the preface, he mentioned how little of black history had been recorded, just traditions and recollections of the people, a few church files and “scattered remnants of records” left by white men who fought against slavery, including abolitionist Levi Coffin.
“Cincinnati’s Colored Citizens” includes passages from Woodson’s “The Journal of Negro History,” Coffin’s memoirs and Lafcadio Hearn’s descriptions of Bucktown, the poverty-stricken neighborhood near Broadway and Sixth streets.
As an example of how Dabney preserved black history, he gave the old Dumas House more attention than is found in other Cincinnati history books.
The Dumas House was a rarity, a public hotel for African-Americans owned by African-Americans, going back to the 1850s. It was located on McAllister Street, a block-long road east of Broadway between Fourth and Fifth streets, now an alleyway next to Western & Southern Financial Group.
By Dabney’s account, in the decades before and after the Civil War, McAllister Street was the heart of the black community and the Dumas House was the epicenter. White slave owners visiting the city housed their slaves at the hotel, which secretly served as a station on the Underground Railroad.
The Dumas remained part of the black community as a gymnasium, saloon, flats, church, laundry and, finally, the offices of the Union after Dabney’s mother inherited the building. The Dumas was sold to Western & Southern and demolished a few years after the book was published.
Sources: “19th Century Black History: A Bibliographic Essay” by David L. Calkins, Cincinnati Museum Center’s Guide to African-America Resources
Published 1:03 p.m. ET Feb. 6, 2019
Wendell P. Dabney, a prominent figure in the city, published "Cincinnati's Colored Citizens" in 1926.
The 1920s were a time of cultural awakening for African-Americans.
Negro History Week, the precursor to Black History Month, was established by Carter G. Woodson of Chicago in 1926. The Harlem Renaissance and the Jazz Age were opening up people’s eyes, ears and minds.
While in Cincinnati, Wendell P. Dabney felt it was time to “set forth the history and achievements” of the city’s African-Americans. The editor and publisher of the weekly newspaper, the Union, compiled and published the book, “Cincinnati’s Colored Citizens,” in 1926.
The book chronicles the city’s history from the African-American perspective and profiles prominent black citizens of the day. For nearly a century, the book was the only history exclusively about Cincinnati’s black community.
“Such information, I felt, would go far to eradicate much of the prejudice against us, that owes its origin to the ignorance or superficial knowledge of our white citizens,” Dabney wrote in the book’s preface.
Dabney was a journalist rather than a historian, so it is not a scholarly work with exhaustive sources and footnotes. Rather, Dabney sought “to show the soul as well as the body of a people, who are so little known, so little understood and, for so many years, so much oppressed because of such misunderstanding.”
While Dabney included himself quite a bit in the book, he was active in many different aspects of the community, so he could not be omitted.
Dabney was born in 1865 in Richmond, Virginia, the son of former slaves. His father worked as a caterer, which helped elevate their standard of living. Dabney briefly attended Oberlin College, one of 15 African-American students, and was a talented guitar player.
In Cincinnati, he ran a music studio, dabbled in politics and was the first president of the local chapter of the NAACP. He was the first African-American to serve as the city’s paymaster, and published the Union from 1907 until his death in 1952.
Dabney’s connections to the black community made him the ideal person to record their history that otherwise would have been lost.
In the preface, he mentioned how little of black history had been recorded, just traditions and recollections of the people, a few church files and “scattered remnants of records” left by white men who fought against slavery, including abolitionist Levi Coffin.
“Cincinnati’s Colored Citizens” includes passages from Woodson’s “The Journal of Negro History,” Coffin’s memoirs and Lafcadio Hearn’s descriptions of Bucktown, the poverty-stricken neighborhood near Broadway and Sixth streets.
As an example of how Dabney preserved black history, he gave the old Dumas House more attention than is found in other Cincinnati history books.
The Dumas House was a rarity, a public hotel for African-Americans owned by African-Americans, going back to the 1850s. It was located on McAllister Street, a block-long road east of Broadway between Fourth and Fifth streets, now an alleyway next to Western & Southern Financial Group.
By Dabney’s account, in the decades before and after the Civil War, McAllister Street was the heart of the black community and the Dumas House was the epicenter. White slave owners visiting the city housed their slaves at the hotel, which secretly served as a station on the Underground Railroad.
The Dumas remained part of the black community as a gymnasium, saloon, flats, church, laundry and, finally, the offices of the Union after Dabney’s mother inherited the building. The Dumas was sold to Western & Southern and demolished a few years after the book was published.
Sources: “19th Century Black History: A Bibliographic Essay” by David L. Calkins, Cincinnati Museum Center’s Guide to African-America Resources
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