Director

Upstairs from the pool hall the Sanhedrin Club met. The Sanhedrin
Club brought Black political leaders of both parties together to organize voters
and push for jobs for African Americans.&nbsp;The second floor also housed the law
office of Zilford Carter, a leading attorney in the fight to integrate public
spaces like the Natatorium. A barbershop, food pantry and church occupied the building's rear.

This multi-use building truly was a hub of community and
leadership.&nbsp;

More Info

More than just a place to socialize and play a game of billiards, Hank Hill’s Pool Hall was the center of local Black political power from the 1930s through the 1960s. 

Hank's Pool Hall

The sites included in the Indiana University South Bend Civil Rights Heritage Center African American Landmarks Tour are crucial to obtaining a better understanding of the growth and development of the county's black community from the 1830s through the middle of the 20th Century. 

The tour includes homes of prominent black leaders, black-owned businesses and institutions such as churches that played a significant role in the history of the area's black residents.

The tour was organized by the Indiana University South Bend Civil Rights Heritage Center in partnership with the Northern Regional Office of Indiana Landmarks.

The tour is underwritten in part by grants from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Indiana Humanities.

Built in 1922, the Engman Public Natatorium was the City of South Bend’s first city-owned swimming pool. Despite the word “public” carved in its facade, the Natatorium denied entry to African Americans for fourteen years, then segregated people for fourteen more. As a taxpayer funded institution, the Natatorium became a focus of early 20th century civil rights action from a coalition of Black and white lawyers, politicians, and other professionals. The pool closed in 1978 and sat abandoned for almost thirty years before Indiana University South Bend students and faculty led neighbors, city leaders, and local non-profits to transform it into a place of learning, healing, and action against injustice for the 21st century. As early as 1881, public calls came to reduce drowning deaths in South Bend’s St. Joseph River. The South Bend Tribune called a city natatorium to teach swimming “a necessity, not a luxury.”[1] Twelve years later, with no action and continued deaths, the Tribune wrote: “A crying need of South Bend is a natatorium. It has been talked of and written of and schemes have been proposed, but as yet nothing of the kind has developed.”[2] In January 1919, at an address to the South Bend Chamber of Commerce, A.R. Erskine, President of the Studebaker Corporation, clearly stated his belief that a natatorium is one mark of a city’s progress: “[W]e need more schools, churches and hospital facilities; also a natatorium or city bathing beach, and every other improvement we can possibly get to make South Bend an attractive, beautiful city.”[3]Finally, in June 1919, the South Bend Common Council voted to build a natatorium. Two weeks after their vote, the South Bend Parks Board of Commissioners formally announced it would be built near the corner of West Washington and Chapel Streets, on land donated by Harry and Maude Engman.[4]On the evening of June 29, 1922, several hundred people attended a two-hour long public opening event of the new Engman Public Natatorium. It officially opened for regular swimming on July 2, 1922. In a booklet entitled South Bend World Famed listing all of the wonderful reasons why people should move here, the Natatorium is called, “a great asset.”[5] By September 1922, the Parks Board estimated almost 10,000 people took advantage of the brand-new facility.[6]Not everyone had the opportunity to use this supposedly “public” asset, however. The people who ran the Engman Natatorium chose to institute a full ban on African American people. The full ban lasted fourteen years, when another fight over additional funding to fix the faltering new building provided leverage for local activists. In 1931, the South Bend Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) challenged the natatorium’s racist exclusion with a petition delivered to the Parks Board. Itforeshadowed arguments that would be repeated for years—that, as taxpayers, people of color deserved equal and unrestricted access to the places their dollars were supporting. It invoked the arguments made for constructing the natatorium in the first place, stating: By reason of such exclusion of colored men, women, and children from the enjoyment and [comfort] of said Public Natatorium the colored populace has no safe place to which they may resort for the purpose of swimming… [People] are compelled to seek such dangerous opportunities for swimming as the nearby rivers, gravel pits, and so-called swimming holes… [A] youth of the colored group of this city did lose his life by drowning last summer while swimming in one of the abandoned gravel pits of this city.[7]The same Parks Board that invoked drowning deaths of young swimmers as inspiration to build the Natatorium, resisted ten years later when facing a similar call to protect Black lives against drowning. In October 1936, a new petition was signed by thirteen African American taxpayers (including reporter and politician Jesse Dickinson), “on the ground that colored citizens are excluded from using the natatorium.”[8] After five years of delaying much needed fixes to the building, the Natatorium was declared unsafe and the Parks Board had closed it to make repairs.[9] Since the repairs required significant additional taxpayer money, J. Chester Allen—one of the lawyers with the NAACP who signed the petition against exclusion—leveraged a state law requiring that city appropriations must be passed through the State Tax Board and that protests against any appropriation would be heard by the Tax Board as well.[10]This brought in John Rothrock, representative of the Indiana Board of Tax Commissioners, to hear the case and arbitrate. He first stated: I have never seen a city the size of South Bend that did not own and operate sufficient bathing facilities and that did not provide facilities for colored people. You have about 5,000 colored citizens here and they must be given a chance to swim, otherwise they will swim some place without protection.[11]However, he then ruled: “I do not approve a plan to permit colored persons to use the natatorium at the same time as white persons, but I do think that a schedule should be arranged whereby the colored persons can use the pool.”[12]The schedule allowed for segregated use only once per week, on Mondays. This was hardly full and equitable access, and it continued to reinforce racist ideas about Black and white human beings inhabiting the same spaces together. Finally, in a February 1950 challenge at the meeting of the Parks Board, Attorney J. Chester Allen joined with other NAACP organizers including attorneys Zilford Carter, Charles Wills, and a white ally from the Jewish community, Maurice Tulchinsky, to threaten further legal actions if the Natatorium did not end their racist policy. The Parks Board aquiesced, voting that, “there is to be no race, creed or color discrimination at the Public Natatorium and henceforth attendance and classes, private classes excepted, will be open to all alike…”[13]Though officially not allowed, some segregation did continue. Willie Mae Butts remembers it being around 1957 or 1958 that she tried to enroll her young son in one of the aforementioned “private classes” so he might be able to save her if she were drowning (she did not know how to swim herself). An employee first told her the class was full. She called back six weeks later at the start of registration for another class. The employee told her, “they haven’t given me the okay to enroll any colored kids.”[14]By the 1970s, the Natatorium had operated for over fifty years. It was no longer “a great asset” like it was in 1922. It was smaller, significantly older, and less modern than the many other swimming facilities in South Bend. Paul McMinn, last director of the Engman Natatorium, remembered its final months:We had repairmen coming all the time... It basically was on its last legs, and...the cost of just trying to keep it up, at some point...the ceilings and everything started to fall in.[15]At a Parks Board meeting on July 10, 1978, members weighed the Natatorium’s anticipated $190,000 building repair costs plus $37,050 annual operating costs against the roughly $2,000 in annual ticket sales and came to a unanimous decision to close it.[16]The Natatorium sat vacant and continued to crumble for decades. The Natatorium’s neighbors found their partner and savior from a coalition of students, faculty, and staff at Indiana University South Bend. The Civil Rights Heritage Center formed on campus in 2000 to “use the American Civil Rights Movement as living history to promote a better understanding of individual responsibility, race relations, social change and minority achievement.”[xxxii] In 2005, Civil Rights Heritage Center historian David Healey submitted a three-page treatise titled, “The Natatorium Project,” proposing IU South Bend use the Natatorium as a historical, cultural, and outreach center.[17]On May 23, 2010, almost 88 years after thousands of white people gathered to get their first tour of the brand-new swimming pool, a diverse crowd gathered to see it transformed. Hundreds marched along West Washington Street to see the Natatorium’s new purpose as a home to the Indiana University South Bend Civil Rights Heritage Center.Then-Mayor Steve Luecke welcomed Barbara Brandy as the first invited guest. Ms. Brandy had told a story from when she was nine years old, wearing a red bathing suit her grandmother had made for her. She recalled arriving at the Natatorium and people staring at her as she tried to enter. She was turned away for coming on the wrong day.[18] Ms. Brandy became the first guest invited to enter so Mayor Luecke could offer her a formal apology on behalf of the City for the discrimination faced by her and thousands of others.Ever since, people continue to gather there. Instead of the sounds of swimmers and splashes echoing around the brick walls, what echoes today are the sounds of people talking with each other, confronting difficult histories, and building coalitions to directly challenge the systems that continue to oppress people. A place that exemplified the fight for early twentieth-century injustice is now a hub for action against early twenty-first-century injustice. In August 2018, the City of South Bend’s Historic Preservation Commission—with a unanimous vote of the Common Council—designated the Natatorium a locally protected historic landmark, providing a strong legal framework against any major alteration or destruction of the building.

The people who ran South Bend’s first indoor, city-owned swimming pool denied entry to African Americans for thirty years. Its transformation into the Indiana University South Bend Civil Rights Heritage Center is a powerful symbol of how the past must be bravely recognized and rectified.

Civil Rights Heritage  Center

Dr. Bernard
Streets earned his degree from the Indiana University School of Dentistry in
1929. He moved to South Bend shortly after, where he&nbsp;met and married Odie Mae Johnson.
Together, the two lived long lives in service to South Bend. 

Dr. Streets
became one of the first African American dentists in the city. His time was
interrupted when he was drafted to serve in World War II. He served as he knew
best—as a dentist, caring for the health of hundreds of soldiers. A few years
after he returned, he moved his office to West Washington Street. Since many of his west
side clients were born in Poland, Dr. Streets taught himself Polish to be able
to serve them. 

&nbsp;The couple helped revive the NAACP in 1930 and pushed for integration of the Natatorium. Dr. Streets also was part of an NAACP lawsuit to integrate downtown movie theaters. As a member of the Sanhedrin Club (a local African American civic club), he pushed to open better employment opportunities for African Americans and worked to help elect them and their allies to political office.Ms. Streets
was raised in South Bend, graduating from Central High in 1931. She too served
in World War II at a rubber factory in Mishawaka. After raising four children,
she earned a degree in Spanish from Indiana University. She used that degree to
serve on the Board of El Centro Migrant Center, worked with children enrolled
in Head Start, and with the YWCA to help women who were the victims of abuse.

Together, they
were active in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) that worked to integrate a segregated South Bend. 

The Bahá’í
religion informed their activism. Bahá’í shares a belief that all humans are
created by one God, and by prayer and service to all humans you can learn to
know and love that God.&nbsp;

One of South Bend's first Black dentists, Dr. Streets served African American and Polish patients from his west side office. In addition to serving the community as a dentist, Dr. Streets and his wife Odie Mae (Johnson) Streets worked to secure the civil rights of the city's Black resident through their membership in the NAACP. 

Dental Office of Dr. Bernard Streets

Founded in 1832, barely a year after South Bend itself, the South Bend City Cemetery originally was laid out on the city’s outskirts, surrounded by forest. Unlike many other institutions, the City Cemetery was never segregated. Members of South Bend’s prominent African American families, such as the Powells and Bryants, are buried throughout its 21 acres. Schuyler Colfax Jr., who is buried here, served as U.S. Vice President under Ulysses S. Grant and was Speaker of the House of Representatives&nbsp;during the fight to pass&nbsp;the 13th Amendment to&nbsp;the Constitution&nbsp;that&nbsp;abolished slavery in 1865. Thus, Blacks who lived under the&nbsp;shadow of slavery&nbsp;are buried in the same cemetery as Colfax, city founders, prominent industrialists, and Revolutionary War veterans.&nbsp;

The City Cemetery opened in 1832, or 33 years before the city of South Bend was incorporated. At that time, the cemetery's location was near the city's outskirts. However,  as South Bend grew it became part of the city center and the final resting place for the town's prominent members. It is also an integrated cemetery that holds the remains of Black residents such as members of the Powell family and white industrialists such as the Studebakers.

City Cemetery

&nbsp;In 1916, several African American Catholic families moved to South Bend from Pascagoula, Mississippi. Seeking a place to worship, they found segregation or exclusion at one of the area's Catholic churches which tended to serve a particular immigrant group (examples: Irish, Polish, Hungarian, German, and so forth). In the 1930 Census, South Bend had 3,431 Black residents, which included a small Black Catholic population.They looked for a church to
worship, but were not allowed at one of them.

Father George O'Connor, a Holy Cross priest who had been raised
by a Black family, established a Black parish in 1928 so these families would
have a place to worship. By the 1930s, the number of parishioners jumped to
sixty. It was time to find a permanent home. Since most of their members were on
the west side, they chose this site on West Washington Street. On June 15, 1941,
Archbishop John Noll dedicated the church, stressing in his sermon that the
103-member parish had no color limitations. 

For about seventy years, St. Augustine’s has welcomed a diverse
congregation and led actions for civil rights.&nbsp;

When a Catholic Church in the city proved unwelcoming to the city's African-American Catholics, St. Augustine was formed to serve them. 

St. Augustine Catholic Church

This site once housed Mount Zion Baptist Church, founded in 1890
as the first African American Baptist church in South Bend. Years later, in
1919, the South Bend branch of the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP) was founded here. 

The church grew out of Olivet African Methodist
Episcopal Church and was organized under the leadership of the Reverend W.M.
Ridley. The Studebaker brothers donated the small wooden frame building to the
congregation. The church facility was first located at the intersection of Main
and Jefferson streets. In 1891, the church building moved to 116 North Birdsell
Street. &nbsp;In 1921, the foundation for the present sanctuary and basement was
started. Shortly after the completion of the building in 1926, the church
experienced a financial crisis caused by the Depression, reorganized and in
1935, and officially changed its name to Pilgrim Baptist Church

Pilgrim Baptist Church (116 North Birdsell Street)
Site of the city's first African American Baptist church, as well as the founding of the South Bend branch of the NAACP.  


Pilgrim Baptist Church

By the 1930s, the Birdsell and Liston streets area emerged as the commercial and cultural center of the growing African-American community. The business district&nbsp;included three hotels, three groceries, two funeral homes, three pool halls and other businesses. Private homes - both single family and apartments - as well as Linden School, a number of churches and civic institutions such as the&nbsp;Prince Hall Masons lodge called the neighborhood home. Enlarged and energized by&nbsp;the Second Great Migration of the 1940s, the business district offered many services within walking distance of African Americans’ homes in this tight-knit area. Some of the businesses located here were: • The Liston Hotel • Pigues Hotel • Wilders Hotel • Comers Grocery/Mr. Plump's Grocery • Haynes Funeral Home • Higgins Funeral Home • Wiley's Pool Hall/Hank’s pool hall/Blanton’s pool hall • Uncle Bills (Big house) Restaurant • Saunders Ice Cream and Ice • Adolf Howard's Dry Cleaning • Willis Grocery • A gas station • A haberdashery

When downtown places refused to serve people of color, local people built their own thriving shops. 

African American Business District (Birdsell and Liston Streets)

Linden School began in 1890 as two-story building with four classrooms and 186 students. By 1913-14, more classrooms were added and enrollment increased to 335. Through the Second Great Migration from the South in the 1940s, the school became almost 100 percent African American by the late 1960s. Beginning in 1950, Linden School hired the first African American teachers Peggy Flowers Eskridge, Herbert Lewis, Edward Myers and Joseph Luten. In 1959, Myers became the first Black principal in South Bend at Linden. A number of successful African Americans attended Linden, including Elijah Anderson, a sociologist and one of the nation’s leading urban ethnographers. In the 1966, the building began deteriorating (a classroom ceiling collapsed), and the NAACP brought a lawsuit to integrate Linden’s African American students into other school sites with better facilities and books, rather than rebuilding Linden. In 1972, former Linden students were integrated with Kaley School students and housed in what was then the newly constructed Kennedy School building.&nbsp; To honor the civil rights movement and the legacy of Linden School in educating African Americans, the Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center was built next to the site of the former school in 1973.

At first, though most of its students were African American, all Linden School teachers were white. This stayed true until the first teachers of color were hired in 1950.

Linden School

"The Lake” is remembered warmly by hundreds of African Americans
who grew up here. For a time, it was the only area where people of color could
buy land. It soon became the heart of African American life in South Bend
during the city’s booming industrial period. 

Despite the many people who lived nearby, the Bendix company (and
others) used it as a dump for toxic chemicals. For years, residents fought to stop the practice. Though
changes have been made, the Environmental Protection Agency says the site is
still in need of cleanup.

Of the hundreds of people who called “The Lake”
home, many of them went on to local and even national leadership—including one
who ran for the U.S. Congress in 2016.

Once the only place African Americans could buy land, a local company used it as a dump for toxic waste. 

"The Lake"-LaSalle Park Neighborhood

Frank Hering was one of the first football coaches for the
University of Notre Dame. The building had been the place of worship for the Church of Christ, Scientist, but the congregation soon outgrew the facility. Hering and his&nbsp;wife, Claribel Hering, eventually donated the facility and paid to have it moved&nbsp;started the&nbsp;&nbsp;bought an old church building and
paid to have it moved to&nbsp;what was then South Bend’s Division Street (Western Avenue).&nbsp;

They called it “Hering House,” and considered it to be their gift
to the African American community. The center was part&nbsp;of the&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/settlement.html">Settlement House Movement</a>&nbsp;in which college graduates brought visual arts, music and social services to urban and immigrant neighborhoods.&nbsp;Yet, their gift came with strings. They
required the Board of Directors to be majority white—nine out of twelve members.
This barrier to leadership remained until 1951.

In spite of this, Hering House became a popular center. The H.T.
Burleigh Music Association, founded by Josephine Curtis, presented annual
spring operas and fall concerts. Teachers ran early childhood programs,
after-school athletic clubs, mother-daughter and father-son bonding activities,
and more. 

As segregation in South Bend ended in many areas, former whites-only
places like the YMCA made a separate facility like Hering House unnecessary. Hering
House struggled to keep their members, and by 1963, they closed.&nbsp;

For nearly 40 years - from 1925 until its closure in 1963, the Hering House provided recreation, arts, leadership training and a sense of belonging to generations of Black youth. The building housed a church.  Frank Hering, who coached Notre Dame football prior to the hiring of Knute Rockne and his wife Claribel Hering acquired the structure, moved it and then donated it to the city's Black community where it served as a center of cultural activity. 

Hering House

Many of South Bend’s African American leaders graduated from this
school. In addition to being one of the best academically, it was also known for
its basketball team led by John Wooden. After guiding Central from 1934 to 1943,
he became famous as a coach for UCLA. 

Central is also famous for being in the movie “Hoosiers.” If you
have watched the movie, you know that they play a game against a team that—spoiler
alert—ends up winning. 

In the evenings, Central welcomed students as the first home for
Indiana University South Bend.

Central High School served as a high school until 1970 and a junior high school until 1976. It was an athletic powerhouse and the city's most racially integrated high school. 

Central High School 

<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/hollywoodplace/sets/72157630847144498/">Robertson’s</a>&nbsp;was considered the best location for African Americans to shop downtown because they were treated fairly and with respect by the proprietors. The Robertson Brothers opened their first store in 1904, but the&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://departmentstoremuseum.blogspot.com/2011/11/robertsons-south-bend-indiana.html">Robertson’s Department Store</a>&nbsp;flagship location was opened at this site in 1925. It was the premier department store in the greater South Bend area and the cornerstone of downtown South Bend’s once vibrant downtown shopping and business district. Unlike most of the downtown shopping district,&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://historymuseumsb.org/robertsons-department-store/">Robertson’s</a>&nbsp;allowed African Americans to try on clothing.&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.loc.gov/folklife/civilrights/survey/view_collection.php?coll_id=1892">Barbara Brandy</a>&nbsp;was one of the one of the first African American secretaries hired downtown at Robertson’s. As shopping malls became popular, and South Bend failed to invest in its downtown, buildings were razed and parking lots dotted the once vibrant city center. Robertson’s began having severe financial trouble and faced decline in a city that was experiencing&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_decay" title="Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_decay">urban decay</a>, population loss, and&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deindustrialization">deindustrialization</a>&nbsp;following the&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/21/automobiles/south-bend-ind-to-recall-studebakers-1963-departure.html?_r=0">collapse of Studebaker</a>&nbsp;and the onset of the&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust_Belt">Rust Belt</a>&nbsp;in the 1970s and 80s. Robertson’s closed in 1986 and remained unused&nbsp;until the&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.sbheritage.org/">South Bend Heritage Foundation</a>&nbsp;redeveloped the building to house affordable apartments downtown for seniors 55 and older. The decline of Robertson’s marked the&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://articles.southbendtribune.com/2012-06-17/news/32286133_1_empty-homes-studebaker-portage-avenue" title="Link: http://articles.southbendtribune.com/2012-06-17/news/32286133_1_empty-homes-studebaker-portage-avenue">decline of South Bend’s downtown</a>,&nbsp;as stores closed and relocated to the University Park Mall in Mishawaka, as well as to Scottsdale Mall, located on Ireland Road on South Bend's southeast side. Robertson’s was the heart of the once dynamic downtown of South Bend. New groups are attempting to bring this sort of vibrancy to&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://downtownsouthbend.com/">Downtown South Bend</a>&nbsp;yet again.

Many older South Bend shoppers recall this locally owned department store. It was more open to African Americans than any other. 

Robertson's Department Store

There has been a county courthouse located in downtown South Bend, near the intersection of Washington and Main streets since 1831. The first courthouse, which was constructed that year, became the focal point of trials involving people who worked to assist escaped slaves during the 1840s and 1850s. Two of the court cases argued in the 1831 Courthouse – Norris v. Newton and Norris v. Crocker, ultimately reached the United States Supreme Court.&nbsp;The 1831 courthouse was replaced in 1855 by the building that currently houses the St. Joseph County Small Claims Court. That Greek revival structure was designed by architect John M. Van Osdel and is the oldest building in downtown South Bend. The 1855 Courthouse served as the St. Joseph County Courthouse for more than 40 years and was moved to its current location near the intersection South Lafayette Boulevard and Washington Street to make room for a larger courthouse that opened in 1896.&nbsp;That courthouse is where civil and criminal trials are held. The 1896 Courthouse has also been the site of many public demonstrations, and it was the ending point of a silent protest march held in South Bend days after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968. A historical marker commemorating the key role that the courthouses played in civil and human rights history was erected on South Lafayette Boulevard in front of the 1855 Courthouse.

Two courthouses constructed in the mid and late 19th Century. The 1896 Courthouse was the ending point of the march that took place days after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King in 1968. A marker located in front of the 1855 Courthouse honors the historic role that the courthouses played in local civil rights history. 

St. Joseph County Courthouses and Historic Marker

<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://southbendalumni.com/community-hall-of-fame/hof-members-a-l/j-chester-allen-sr/">J. Chester</a>&nbsp;and Elizabeth Fletcher Allen were instrumental in the campaign to open the Engman&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_accommodations">Public</a>&nbsp;Natatorium to African Americans. The Allen’s lived in this house their entire lives. Although a family residence, the home also served as a meeting place for civic engagement, politics, and neighborhood gatherings. Their son, Dr. Irving Allen, said his grandmother would give music lessons at the home, where people would practice formal music for events in the African American community. The Allen’s maintained a law practice with their office located in the Lafayette Building (115 S. Lafayette St.) for 40 years.<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.southbendtribune.com/news/local/keynews/community/j-chester-allen-sr/article_4855292c-9240-11e3-b4e5-001a4bcf6878.html">J Chester Allen Sr.</a>&nbsp;was a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and served as a member of the South Bend City Council, and the South Bend School Board. He was the first African American president of the St. Joseph County Bar Association, and was elected to the Indiana State Legislature. As an NAACP lawyer he participated in&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.naacp.org/pages/naacp-legal-history">national efforts to desegregate</a>&nbsp;public accommodations and other civil rights issues as a member of the local chapter.

J. Chester and Elizabeth Fletcher Allen were both lawyers and were instrumental in causes involving the fight for justice for African-American residents, including ending discrimination at the Engman Public Natatorium. 

Home of J. Chester and Elizabeth Fletcher Allen

In 1870, Olivet&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.ame-church.com/our-church/our-history/">African Methodist Episcopal Church</a>&nbsp;(AME) became the first African American church founded in South Bend. Olivet was formally organized by the Rev. J. Bundy, the first pastor, and nine charter members: Mr. and Mrs. Farrow Powell, Mr. and Mrs. James Jackson, Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Bridgeman, James Hurst, J. B. Lott and John Powell. Meetings were held in various homes and then in the old Lafayette School. The church was originally located on the west side at 310 W. Monroe St.&nbsp;That church building is located directly to the north of Four Winds Field.&nbsp; The second site was erected in 1916-17 during the administration of the Rev. C. Emery Allen. Joseph Haithcox (“a Negro”) was the contractor. It was also a center for social, political, religious and civic life. It was known as the “Colored Church” until other denominations organized churches. The present site, on&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://www.facebook.com/OlivetAMEChurch?rf=159574474073091">Notre Dame Avenue</a>, was acquired in 1969.&nbsp;

Olivet African Methodist Episcopal Church is the city's first and oldest church founded by South Bend's Black residents. The church was founded by members of the Powell family, the city's first African-American permanent residents. 

Olivet African Methodist Episcopal Church

Founded in 1907, First&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.ame-church.com/our-church/our-history/" title="Link: http://www.ame-church.com/our-church/our-history/">African Methodist Episcopal Church</a>&nbsp;was the first African American church on the predominantly white, east side. It grew out of Olivet A.M.E. Church when several families decided to start another church. In the late 18th and 19th century, Olivet A.M.E. was the only church for African Americans, who traveled a great distance to attend. At an Annual Conference, the Rev. A.M. Taylor was appointed to serve as Olivet’s pastor. At a later conference, Taylor was assigned to another church. But liking South Bend and its people, he refused the appointment. In 1907, dissension arose between Taylor and several of his members. After much discussion Taylor, his wife and five children, and a few faithful members (including W.C. Franklin and family, Mrs. Nanie Crittendon and daughters, the Cooksey family, Charles and Eva Calloway, Eva Higgens, and Mr. Hoad) decided to band together and start another church on the east side of South Bend. They purchased an existing house structure on the corner of Eddy and Campeau streets and named it Taylor’s Chapel. In 1922, Rev. Buford Gordon was appointed to serve as pastor of Taylor’s Chapel. A campaign to raise money for a new building was started in 1923. Construction began in August 1924, and was completed in 1925, for a cost of $40,000. The church was officially dedicated on Feb. 25, 1925. The congregation was composed of 130 members. The speech at the dedication service was titled “The Christian Approach in Race Relations.” Because the church was being built in a predominately white area, some whites enlisted the assistance of the Ku Klux Klan in devising devious ways to stop the construction. Because of the ensuing damage to the building and actually knocking down a wall, Gordon and members kept all-night vigils to protect the church. After their defeat at the church, the Klan tried to organize a march in downtown South Bend. Students from the&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://archives.nd.edu/hope/hope26.htm">University of Notre Dame</a>&nbsp;had warned the Klansmen not to parade. The parade was started, but&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://irishecho.com/2011/02/78-years-ago-notre-dame-battles-the-kkk-3/">broken up by the students</a>&nbsp;who assaulted the Klansmen by throwing them out of buildings where they ran to hide. Some were even thrown into the St. Joseph River.

First African Methodist Episcopal Church is the first historically Black church to be located on the city's east side. It is located on what is now the corner of Eddy and Campeau streets. The neighborhood was predominantly white  when the church was founded in 1907.

First African Methodist Episcopal Church

Before the passing of the&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_housing_(United_States)">open housing</a>&nbsp;legislation as part of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1968, it was legal in South Bend, and in&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/931.html">much of the United States</a>, to openly discriminate against African Americans and refuse to sell them houses. Many places in South Bend explicitly banned the selling of homes to non-whites, though they could be brought in as domestic servants. According to a 1959 US Civil Rights Commission&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://books.google.com/books?id=q1q23K5hyZUC&amp;pg=PA182&amp;lpg=PA182&amp;dq=1959+US+Civil+Rights+Commission+study+of+conditions+in+South+Bend&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=35srbpxf_C&amp;sig=Wd58z4QtHL12Qx_2MPRSCOCQdKo&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=trlFU9uOHerWyQGP-4GYBw&amp;ved=0CDIQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&amp;q=1959%20US%20Civil%20Rights%20Commission%20study%20of%20conditions%20in%20South%20Bend&amp;f=false">study</a>&nbsp;of conditions in South Bend, Fort Wayne and Indianapolis, “The area of discrimination in housing in Indiana is probably the greatest blight we are facing in the problems of discrimination affecting the Civil Rights Commission.” In the mid-1940s, Chalfant Heights was developed by William Morris, an African American Realtor, as a place of quality housing for African Americans. The neighborhood consists of 11 homes, which are still present. Fair housing is now the law of the land and of&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.in.gov/icrc/2330.htm">Indiana</a>.

A neighborhood on the city's east side developed by Black realtor William Morris

African American Landmarks of South Bend Indiana Tour

Hank's Pool Hall

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources

Additional Information