The river to freedom, the city's oldest Black church, King Records and Theodore Berry.
Across The Ohio
For people escaping slavery, the Ohio River was the line, and thousands crossed it to freedom at Cincinnati. It was while living in Cincinnati that Harriet Beecher Stowe traveled to Maysville, Kentucky, in 1833 and watched a slave auction, one of the experiences that later inspired Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Since August 2004 the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center downtown has told that story. At its heart is a two-story log slave pen from 1830, the only known surviving rural slave jail, moved from a farm in Mason County, Kentucky and rebuilt inside the museum.
On July 14, 1831, Cincinnati's oldest Black church, Union Baptist, was founded. One of its pastors, William P. Newman, fled to Canada after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed.
Theodore Berry
Theodore Berry was born into poverty in Maysville, Kentucky, in 1905 and became the first African American valedictorian in Cincinnati at Woodward High School. He worked in the steel mills across the river in Newport to pay for the University of Cincinnati, led the city's NAACP branch from 1932 to 1946 and later worked on equal employment and fair housing for the state NAACP. In 1972 he became Cincinnati's first African American mayor.
King Records
In 1943 Syd Nathan founded King Records in Cincinnati, at 1540 Brewster Avenue in Evanston, and the building still stands. King mixed R&B and country, and its Federal label began the career of James Brown and had a crossover hit with Billy Ward and His Dominoes' Sixty Minute Man.
Black Cincinnati Today
In 1961 Fred Shuttlesworth, the Birmingham civil rights leader, moved to Cincinnati to pastor Revelation Baptist Church, and in 1998 the city renamed South Crescent Avenue in his honor. From the Freedom Center to Evanston, Black-owned restaurants, salons, shops and brands are part of everyday Cincinnati.
Shop Black-owned businesses in Cincinnati on CashBlack.
Photo Credits
The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. Photo: Keith Lanser - User: (WT-shared) Lanskeith17 at wts wikivoyage, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons The King Records building in Evanston. Photo: w_lemay, CC0, Wikimedia Commons