This is the start point for the Landscape of Segregation driving tour of south central Pennsylvania. This tour was compiled by graduate students in Shippensburg University's Master's Degree in Applied History program. The tour visits sites of relevance to the African American community in the early to mid 20th century. It focuses on everyday places in the lives of African Americans to provide insight into the latent and patent segregation and racial discrimination they may have encountered as they went about their daily business in Pennsylvania society. These sites are intended to spark conversation on potentially difficult topics as viewed from today's perspective. This study into the past is intended to cultivate thoughtful reflection on how society can improve as it moves forward.
St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church was founded in 1811 when a group of African Americans in Chambersburg formed a congregation and were formally recognized as the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1812, the congregation bought a log church on North Main Street that had been vacated by the local Catholic congregation and had it moved to the current location on South Main Street.
Gettysburg’s St. Paul’s AME Zion Church’s congregation dates to 1838. For a period of time, they met in the home of famed abolitionist, Thaddeus Stevens. During this period, members of the congregation established the Slave Refugee Society in 1840. The congregation later built a log cabin church and moved to this structure when it was completed in 1917.
The cemetery was established in 1867 by the Sons of Good Will and was designated as a burial site for African American residents. Lincoln cemetery holds about thirty members of the United States Colored Troops.
This tour stop details one primary means through which segregation throughout south central Pennsylvania was systemized and legitimized, that is, the public school system. Many communities, like York, had segregated grammar schools that consolidated both African American students and teachers. As discovered in York, crowded conditions prevailed in these schools. Finances often forced communities such as York to integrate their high schools; they couldn't afford to finance separate buildings for smaller numbers of African American high school students.
A necessary service in the life of most male members of society, regardless of race, was a haircut, and sometimes a shave. This stop on the tour recognizes that there were some equalizing factors that helped integrate African Americans into the fabric of society as a whole. Thaddeus Henry's Barbershop was one such business that capitalized on the need for this basic service.
This tour stop highlights the important contributions of African Americans to the economy of a community. As an established businessman with a reputation for hard work, William Payne contributed to the quality of life across the spectrum of society in Lancaster. William Payne's and Thaddeus Henry's successes were important indicators of the economic advances being made by African Americans in the region.
Established in 1929 and named after Crispus Attucks, a man of African descent who was killed in the Boston Massacre in 1770. The Crispus Attucks Community Center was the first recreation center to integrate African Americans in Lancaster County. It opened in 1929 to provide social services and programs to the African American community.
In many ways, life as an African American person mirrored society in general. This tour stop acknowledges a basic human desire for a place of fellowship with people who share common values. This site, in its function as both an AME church and an African American Masonic Lodge, fulfilled multiple roles. As an AME church, it met the needs of the community similar to the other churches on the tour. As a masonic lodge, it provided a place to foment friendship, cooperation, and camaraderie for African American men at a time when other social networks in society were closed to them.
This is the last stop on the Landscape of Segregation Tour. The linkage of AME churches with African American cemeteries is not coincidental; it highlights the "cradle to grave" discrimination that pervaded society during the time period researched. Locust Grove Cemetery adds important relevancy to our project, as it has been forever linked with Shippensburg University's Applied History graduate program. Its proximity to our campus keeps the principles for which we are studying at the forefront: we must continue to illuminate the difficulties of the past to make the future brighter.
This Tour is a Digital Story Map.
Get a QR Code for this tour
This story map was created by faculty and students at Shippensburg University and includes sites that were central to Black Communities in Central PA.
