Learn More This Ohio Town's Rich Black History

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

by Maya Meade

Oxford, Ohio, home to Miami University, has a history older than some of its buildings, one that continues to be unknown to outsiders, and even some residents. The town’s Black history, in particular, has rich and powerful roots that developed decades ago, and grew into the 1960s, when Freedom Summer took place on the university’s campus.

Freedom Summer, formally known as the Mississippi Summer Project, started as a way to register Black voters in Mississippi. Jim Crow laws segregated Black and white voters in the South and allowed for discrimination and suppression at the polls and in daily activities. Both the Black and white volunteers received violent harassment from members of the Klu Klux Klan. In 1964, the Freedom Summer movement found a place to train its 800 volunteers: Miami University.

Over 50 years since the Freedom Summer events, Oxford has made efforts to inform its citizens of its Black history. While working at Enjoy Oxford, the Oxford visitor’s bureau, Taylor Meredith recognized a demand for a Black history tour as visitors and locals grew curious about the town’s history. In response, she created the Oxford Black History Tour, a year-long project that was completed and distributed in July of 2020.

“I thought, ‘Who better than me?’ because I knew that I would handle it sensitively and do a good job,” Meredith says.

Meredith didn’t grow up in Oxford and did not know much about Oxford’s Black history until she started researching for the tour. She found a lot of initial information for the project from the Smith Library, a local history research library housed within the Oxford Lane Public Library.

“This history isn’t super readily available, like where you could just Google it,” she says. “As a Black person, I see how the accomplishments of Black people are constantly erased, and when you erase the accomplishments of an entire community, it’s so easy to further dehumanize them.”

Lanny Hargraves, a long-term Oxford resident and an involved community member, was part of the Freedom Summer Project Oxford put together in 2014. The purpose of the Freedom Summer Project was to explain what it was like to grow up as an African American in Oxford. Hargraves says the Smith Library served as a link between the Oxford Community and 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 white- owned 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.

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

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.”