04 - April 1968

April 1968 wasn't so much a time in Cincinnati's past as it was a microcosm of a long history lesson on race relations in Cincinnati. In fact, all of 1968 was whitewashed with violence, unrest, assassinations, and, of course, riots.

Located on the banks of the Ohio River, Cincinnati began as a port city, trading goods up and down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. It was also the gateway between pro-slavery Kentucky and abolitionist Ohio.

Blacks escaped north on the Underground Railroad, a string of safe houses and hideouts for slaves as they journeyed north, trying to not be caught by their owners or pro-slave southerners.

Even after they arrived in Cincinnati, blacks were far from safe. Firstly, blacks would often be kidnapped in the still of the night and literally sold down the river to wealthy tobacco plantation owners needing farmhands. Those Negroes who had escaped often had bounties on their head. Slave-tracking mercenaries scoured the northern states, looking to return the slaves to their "rightful owners".

In 1836, those Ohioans who wanted to own slaves met Cincinnati’s abolitionists with equal and opposite force. A famous former slave owner, James Birney, wrote "The Cincinnati Weekly and Abolitionist", a pro-abolitionist paper. He went to great lengths to push his anti-slavery agenda, distributing his paper among pro-slavery Kentuckians. Cincinnati business owners who did business with the Kentuckians were up in arms with Birney. A mob marched on his lot of buildings in Cincy’s warehouse district. The mob burnt most of Birney’s property to the ground.

In 1841, white Cincinnatians, upset over Negroes taking their jobs, marched on ‘Little Africa’, a black section of Cincinnati, only blocks from where Riverfront Stadium would eventually stand. Little Africa was also home to the lowest part of the city. Located in the river basin, it often flooded. To match that unpleasantness, factories made their homes there, belching out filthy black smoke that blanketed the street and homes.

At that time, Cincinnati was the second most densely populated city in America, behind New York. As white Cincinnatians fled the basin, blacks continued to populate it, mostly due to the lower land values and the lower wages put upon black families.

Tensions between whites and blacks waxed and waned throughout the next century. Since Cincinnati was located directly on the river, it made all forms of trade possible. Along with St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Pittsburgh, Cincinnati was home to major German beer distributors, like Budweiser, Schlitz, Iron City, and Hudepohl.

When World War I broke out, anti-German sentiment grew in these cities. Mobs attacked the breweries and the German immigrants who lived and worked there, too. It was the rise of another form of abolition – the production of alcohol in America.

Still, the white Americans forgave the Germans. After all, they’d set the cornerstone of beer brewing in America – and they were a necessary component.

The blacks, however, what did they have to give?

The next major riots did not break out until the late 60s. At that time, whites and blacks were distributed evenly across Hamilton County. Then, the government stepped in, creating demographic boundaries and erecting practical fences between whites and blacks.

In boroughs, like Bond Hill and Avondale, the Federal Housing Administration, the Cincinnati Government, and local banks began redlining. They drew social districts on city planning maps. Negroes living in certain areas (usually the more affluent German areas) were denied access to mortgages, bank loans, and even property rights, regardless of income, credit rating, or other social status.

Because they were black, they were forced to move to Bond Hill, Avondale, West End, and Over-the-Rhine. Although most were located in Cincinnati’s warehouse districts on the south and southwest sides, Bond Hill was located in north central Cincinnati. Bond Hill became a railroad hub for Cincinnati.

Dozens of rail companies came and went. Baltimore & Ohio (B&O), Chesapeake & Ohio (Chessie Systems), Norfolk-Southern, The New York Central, Great Northern, Lake Line, and CSX were the most widely known. These lines connected Cincinnati to overland routes all across the eastern seaboard.

Back in 1968, when Byron was seven, he lived with his mom, dad, and sister in a small 2-bedroom bungalow alongside the Bond Hill tracks. All of the bungalows along the tracks were built shotgun-style: a small living room across the front with a middle hall leading straight to the back porch. Rooms sat at each side of the hall, leading to a small backyard facing the tracks. Families living along the tracks kept the back door shot and hardly ever used the backyard. Engine soot settled on everything along the old Norfolk-Southern line, coloring it dingy gray.

Back in those days, Mr. Johnson worked at the law firm. It was the only reason he was able to own a house;. The people of Bond Hill mostly came from other parts of Cincinnati and were blue collar workers. Urban developers struggled with neighborhoods as they constructed a super highway called Interstate 75 in the baby booming post-war era. The highway would eventually connect Cincinnati’s riverside factories to those same railroad cities, like Indianapolis to the northwest and Lexington to the south.

As the highway progressed, it displaced families to boroughs like Bond Hill. Further planning caused the redlining epidemic. City planners, bankers, and insurance companies drew distinct boundaries based on skin color.

Those within the ‘red zones’ were denied services, regardless of qualifications. Mortgage applications from black families were flat-out rejected. House values in the red zones plummeted and Bond Hill eroded into a slum.

By the time March 1968 came around, the rift between the Negroes and the whites was definite. There were white parts of town and black parts of town. Even my parents, who I considered very open-minded and liberal, would utter the phrase “lock your doors” as we ventured through the rougher (black) parts of town.

When Martin Luther King, Jr. came to the Midwest to lecture for the “Poor People’s Campaign” and the injustices put upon the mostly-black poor, the poor of Cincinnati stood up, took notice, and went to watch him speak. Mr. Johnson was one of those men.

Mr. Johnson rode the train to Grosse Pointe, Michigan on March 13th 1968 to support Dr. King on his planned “Poor People’s March” on Washington later that year. The railway connected Cincinnati to Detroit on the same right-of-way that later became the I-75 conduit with the very same path. Mr. Johnson stayed at a Negroes Only Motel on Detroit’s near northeast side. He rode with other motel guests to the high school gymnasium at Grosse Pointe High School. There was an overriding sentiment of unity among the mass as the good reverend spoke.

“Millions of people grow in the sunlight of opportunity, but there is another America, and this other America has a daily ugliness that transforms a buoyancy of hope into the fatigue of despair. Thousands and thousands of people, men in particular, walk the streets in search for jobs that do not exist. In this other America, millions of people are forced to live in vermin-filled, distressed housing conditions where they do not have the privilege of having wall-to-wall carpeting.”

It gave pause to Mr. Johnson’s rare and serendipitous treat to have wall-to-wall carpeting and to have a house for  his family. He knew, all too well, the Federal Housing Administration’s shady negotiations in the last twenty years. He, however, had always thought, “I’m only one man. What could I possibly do?”

He rolled that question through his head as he rode the train back to Cincinnati. He sat in his study and in his empty office thinking and thinking. One day, he stood on the sidewalk across from his son, playing a game of pitch-and-catch with the baseball.

“Eureka! I’ve got it!” exclaimed Mr. Johnson.
He ran inside, leaving Byron out front. When Byron came into the house, he noticed his father scribbling feverishly on a legal pad. He plopped his catcher’s mitt on the kitchen table as he sat beside his father.

“What do you have?”

“Bond Hill doesn’t have a place for kids to play baseball.”

Mr. Johnson quickly outlined plans for a youth baseball league in Bond Hill. After that, he immediately called the Mayor’s office.

“Yes, Mr. Johnson, I understand the need for after school activities in Bond Hill, but I don’t think the city of Cincinnati can make funds available for such a big undertaking.”

“A big undertaking? I’m just talking about some equipment and uniforms.”

“I understand that, Mr. Johnson, but we just don’t have that kind of money. Isn’t there a local community council you could turn to?”

The Bond Hill Roselawn Community Council was formed in 1965, when the city had developed plans to erect a new baseball stadium for the Cincinnati Reds in the Bond Hill area. This never came to pass since the city decided to develop the riverfront instead of the hill top. The Reds organization broke ground for Riverfront Stadium in February 1968.

Instead of turning to the local community council, Mr. Johnson talked with other attorneys at his law firm. With the anticipation of the new stadium and the excitement of Reds baseball in general, Mr. Johnson quickly formed the Bond Hill Youth Baseball Association.

They met on April 1st to pick coaches and set forth a game plan for the new league. Mr. Johnson presented his outline to the other partners. In the beginning, the group would purchase new bases and handle the line painting duties. Each coach would help pay for gloves and bats and balls for each individual team. Starting later that week, they’d canvas the community for players.

Then, on Thursday, before they could get a head of steam, Martin Luther King stood outside his room in Memphis. Just a few days earlier, someone had called in a bomb threat on his plane flight. His flight was delayed, but his spirit was not. When he arrived, he responded to those death threats with his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech.

“I don't know what will happen now. We've got difficult days ahead. It doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop and I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place, but I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. He's allowed me to go up to the mountain and I've looked over and I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.”

On the night of April 4th, a bullet smashed through Reverend King’s right cheek and lodged in his spinal cord. He was rushed to the hospital, but was proclaimed dead just over an hour later. Later that night, Mr. Johnson received a phone call at his home.

“Hello?”

“Robert?”

“Yes?”

“This is Guy, from the office. I don’t want you coming in tomorrow.”

“What’s wrong?” asked Mr. Johnson.

“There are rioters in the streets. We can’t risk anyone getting hurt.”

“Did something happen in Vietnam?”

“Oh,” said Guy, “You don’t know…”

The next morning, a smoke cloud rose through the air. Looters had broken store windows and set fire to anything and everything they could. The high wail of sirens filled the streets of Cincinnati, just like they did in every major metropolitan area in America.

The Johnsons watched the MLK funeral together, huddled in the safety of their home. Riots lasted through the weekend. Only after a chaos-filled Saturday night had come and gone were the streets relatively quiet again.

“Dad, can I go outside?”

“Not tonight, Byron.”

“I haven’t been outside in nearly a week.”

“Alright, let’s go play pitch-and-catch.”

People milled about lifelessly. Their messiah had come and gone. It was bleak, even in the white neighborhood of Norwood where I lived.

By the time Monday rolled around, normal day-to-day activities had, for the most part, resumed. Kids went to school, parents went to work, and everyone seemed a little less enthusiastic than the week before.

Everyone but Robert Johnson, that is.

“Guy, I’ve been thinking about Bond Hill Baseball.”

Guy heaved a sigh. “I don’t know if now’s a good time.”

“It’s probably more important now than ever.”

“Let me think about it.”

“Okay, but don’t take too long.”

Mr. Johnson pressed the issue every single day that week with the same half-hearted response from Guy. Finally, Mr. Johnson decided if the project would get done, he’d have to be the one to start it. He came home early on Friday and got Byron involved.

“I’ve made 500 paper fliers. If you help me pass them out, I’ll get you a brand new baseball bat.”

“Sure thing,” replied Bryon.

He carried the fliers under an arm like a football as he raced house-to-house. He carefully delivered them, tucking them between the screen doors and doorframes. He also enlisted help from other kids in the neighborhood until he passed out everything his father gave him. When he returned to the car, his father gave him another armful.

“We’re one-fifth complete.”

“That’s all?”

Mr. Johnson showed the remaining fliers to Byron. They’d hardly made a dent. Still, Byron went out again, delivering them as fast as he could, although his second trip was quite a bit slower than his first.

“I’ll tell you what,” offered his father, “You hand some of these out at school and I’ll get the rest.”

Mr. Johnson took the remaining fliers to work and divided them among the attorneys. Within a week, Mr. Johnson had gotten over one hundred phone calls from parents wanting a Youth Baseball League in Bond Hill. Mr. Johnson obliged, collecting a moderate sum from each coach to help offset the money he’d fronted for equipment. Now the league was underway.

The attorneys also found colleagues to sponsor uniforms for the boys. Open registration began on the 18th, exactly two weeks after Dr. King’s death.

Guy St. Pierre, the lead partner at St. Pierre and Maddux, stood next to Robert as they supervised the first day of registration. Before registration began, though, Mr. Johnson led the crowd in an open benediction and prayer.

"Our children are our personal blessing from God. So much so that the Lord’s first commandment was to go forth and multiply and subdue the Earth. On this and every day, I would like us to remember that commandment. I also want us to live as Dr. King would want us to live - happily, joyfully, and peacefully. Amen."

"Amen," echoed the crowd.

The line was literally out the door of the elementary school gymnasium. Everyone in the neighborhood came out, whether it was to sign their kids up for baseball or just to visit with neighbors and friends.

"Mr. Johnson, are you meaning to tell me you aren't charging a registration fee to run this league?"

Mr. Johnson shook his head.

"Then how will you pay for umpires?"

"The coaches will take turns."

"And where will this be played?"

"We were going to play right here at the elementary school's two existing fields."

"Do the council members know about this league?"

"I've already gotten permissions from the school principal and the Cincinnati Board of Education."

"I still think the council will want to know about this."

Mr. Johnson heaved a sigh. Before he could go another step forward, he knew he still had to run the idea past the Bond Hill-Roselawn Council. They weren't as much a Community Council as they were a group with a list of personal agendas, most of them running opposite to inner city youth baseball.

"When is the next board meeting?"

"The first Monday in May."

"That's too far off," said Mr. Johnson.

"You can't start without their approval," said the man.

Guy leaned over and whispered in Robert's ear.

"This league won't go anywhere without some support from the council. You know they'll want some part in this."

"Don't worry, I'll make sure to be at next meeting."

Now, Mr. Johnson had a baseball league without a place to play. Now, he had more questions without answers. Now, there was plenty more planning to do.

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