James Poindexter, the Lincoln Theatre, Poindexter Village and the art of Aminah Robinson.
James Preston Poindexter
James Preston Poindexter was an abolitionist, civil rights activist, politician and Baptist minister in Columbus, and part of the city's abolitionist and Underground Railroad societies. In 1862 he became pastor of Second Baptist Church. In 1873 he was the first Black man in Ohio nominated to run for the state House of Representatives, and he went on to serve two terms on the Columbus city council and to sit on the Board of Education from 1884 to 1893.
The Near East Side
The Near East Side lies just east of downtown. In the 1920s Hamilton Park and Long Street were full of clubs and lounges playing jazz, and the Macon Hotel was a landmark of the 1930s jazz scene. On November 26, 1928, the Ogden Theatre, later the Lincoln Theatre, opened on the Near East Side to meet a pressing need of the city's African American community, showing films alongside vaudeville and live music, with Count Basie, Cab Calloway and the local star Nancy Wilson on its stage. It closed in the early 1970s, and after a long campaign it reopened on May 25, 2009.
The building of Interstate 71 cut the area off from downtown and drove its decline.
Poindexter Village
On October 12, 1940, Poindexter Village opened, named for James Poindexter. It was the first public housing in Columbus and one of the first in the United States, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt came to take part in the opening ceremony. Its last two buildings are being turned into the Poindexter Village Museum and Cultural Center.
Aminah Robinson
The artist Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson was born in Columbus in 1940 and grew up in Poindexter Village, a place full of storytelling, respect for elders and creativity. Her RagGonNons, long pieces of fabric filled with found materials, recorded Black life in the city, and one, the Water Street RagGonNon, took her 25 years. In 2004 she won a MacArthur Fellowship, and after her death in 2015 the Columbus Museum of Art turned her house into a residency for Black artists.
Black Columbus Today
Today the King-Lincoln Bronzeville district on the Near East Side is the focus of the city's revitalization, and Black-owned restaurants, salons, shops and brands are part of everyday Columbus.
Shop Black-owned businesses in Columbus on CashBlack.
Photo Credits
The Lincoln Theatre on East Long Street. Photo: Nyttend, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons Poindexter Village. Photo: Ɱ, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons King-Lincoln Bronzeville. Photo: Ɱ, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons