COMMUNITY

Before embarking on the journey from Oxford, Ohio, to Mississippi, Freedom Summer volunteers sing "We Shall Overcome." Photo courtesy of Miami University.

REVIVING BLACK HISTORY

The small town of Oxford, Ohio, is rich with the history of Freedom Summer and the Black families that once held the town together.

BY MAYA MEADE

Oxford, Ohio, home to Miami University, Tour, a year-long project that was completed and has a history older than some of its distributed in July of 2020. buildings, one that continues to be “I thought, ‘Who better than me?’ because I knew unknown to outsiders, and even some residents. that I would handle it sensitively and do a good job,” The town’s Black history, in particular, has rich and Meredith says. powerful roots that developed decades ago, and grew Meredith didn’t grow up in Oxford and did not into the 1960s, when Freedom Summer took place know much about Oxford’s Black history until she on the university’s campus. started researching for the tour. She found a lot of

Freedom Summer, formally known as the initial information for the project from the Smith Mississippi Summer Project, started as a way to Library, a local history research library housed register Black voters in Mississippi. Jim Crow laws within the Oxford Lane Public Library. segregated Black and white voters in the South “This history isn’t super readily available, like and allowed for discrimination and suppression where you could just Google it,” she says. “As a at the polls and in daily activities. Both the Black Black person, I see how the accomplishments of and white volunteers received violent harassment Black people are constantly erased, and when you from members of the Klu Klux Klan. In 1964, the erase the accomplishments of an entire community, Freedom Summer movement found a place to train it’s so easy to further dehumanize them.” its 800 volunteers: Miami University. Lanny Hargraves, a long-term Oxford resident and

Over 50 years since the Freedom Summer events, an involved community member, was part of the Oxford has made efforts to inform its citizens of its Freedom Summer Project Oxford put together in Black history. While working at Enjoy Oxford, the 2014. The purpose of the Freedom Summer Project Oxford visitor’s bureau, Taylor Meredith recognized was to explain what it was like to grow up as an African a demand for a Black history tour as visitors and American in Oxford. Hargraves says the Smith Library locals grew curious about the town’s history. In served as a link between the Oxford Community and response, she created the Oxford Black History the University to provide accurate information about

the history of African Americans in the town.

“For example, my uncle, Bill Hargraves, was the first African American to receive a four-year degree in the arts from Miami University in 1925,” he says. “I have 12 relatives with 14 degrees from Miami from 1914 to 1967.”

The history of his family’s legacy is not readily available for many Oxford citizens. One of the only ways to access it is through the Miami University archives. An old copy of the Miami Student that is housed at the Smith Library profiles the Hargraves family, but there are few resources to learn what it was like growing up as a Black member of the community.

Hargraves and his friend, Dave Churchman, both shared stories of their experiences growing up as a young Black boy in Oxford.

“It was pretty much the original mile square,” Churchman says. “It was Locust Street to Sycamore, over to Patterson Avenue, where Miami [University] is, and then down to Chestnut. Pretty much everyone lived in that mile square. All of the houses that are now student rentals were private residences back then.”

The idea of a small, one mile square filled with Black homes and businesses is foreign to the current residents of the Oxford community. Especially a square filled with Black people. The majority of property and businesses in Oxford and Miami University are whiteowned and white-run. According to the United States Census Bureau, 83.1% of the Oxford population is white, while 4.8% of the population is African American.

“There were so many Black families,” Churchman says. “It [was] amazing. And they’re all gone now. The slum lords bought all the houses and turned them into student rentals.”

Churchman and Hargraves witnessed this community transformation. They witnessed the good and the bad of Oxford; The Talawanda School District segregated the baseball team, so the Black community members made their own.

Churchman’s older sister wasn’t allowed to swim at the local public pool because she was Black, but by the time Churchman and Hargraves were both 12 years old, they could enjoy the pool together. Churchman believes that the community has not done enough to make this history accessible. Hargraves has a more centered outlook. He says he is aware of the areas of education that can be improved, but also knows that some Oxford citizens have made an effort to educate others and educate themselves. Citizens like Meredith, however, have recognized this need and desire in the community and have responded with action. “Demographically, Oxford has a largely white population,” Meredith said, “So as a person of color, it is nice to know that there were these thriving Black businesses on Sycamore Street, and [the] beautiful cobblestone bridges on Miami’s campus were made by a Black stoneman.” The Oxford Black History Tour is a self-guided tour, allowing visitors to take their time understanding that Black history happened around the same buildings and architecture that continue to stand in Oxford.

“Educating people is important,” Meredith says, “but it’s also a sense of pride just to know that even though I wasn’t here at the time, I am part of a community that has always been so resilient.” b

Freedom Summer Volunteers, as part of the their training, practice how best to non-violently resist. Photo courtesy of Miami University.