The King-Lincoln Culture Walk

     The Columbus Landmarks Foundation, an organization of historians and local residents that promotes the preservation of historic Columbus neighborhoods and structures, is sponsoring a series of free walking tours called Culture Walks through old historic city neighborhoods for the purpose of encouraging the re-discovery and revitalization of these once-vibrant areas which have undergone the changes and sometimes ravages of  time.
         This past Saturday Tom and I did the first of these walks, the King-Lincoln Culture Walk.
      King-Lincoln, also known as (though I didn't know this before the walk) Bronzeville, is a historically African-American neighborhood just east of downtown that was once the heart of black culture and community in Columbus. 
         The walk began on Long Street at the Lincoln Theater, once the only theater in Columbus that allowed blacks entrance, today a cultural arts and performance space.

     Before the walk began we were given lectures on the area's history by several local historic preservationists,

​...who shared with us, among other things, that  "Bronzeville" was originally an economic concept of  bringing together  African Americans  of all shades to build a strong residential and commercial community.  He also shared that there are Bronzeville neighborhoods in Chicago (which I knew about) and Milwaukee (which I didn't know about), among other cities.

    After their lectures the preservationists led us on the Culture Walk, starting on Long Street,

​...where we passed the first of several woodcut art pieces that we would see along the way by the late Columbus artist Aminah Robinson.

     We then turned right onto Hamilton Avenue,

...along which we passed some beautiful old restored homes,

...past Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard,

...to our first stop, the Shiloh Baptist Church at the corner of Hamilton and Mt Vernon Avenue,

...where a long-time member of the church told us about its history,

...dating back to its ancestor congregations before the Civil War, among which there was a split when it was decided that this church would be a slave-free church, meaning that as a condition for joining the church,  any black former slave-owners who moved up to Columbus from the South would be required to buy back the slaves they'd sold and give them their freedom.
​           He also told us of the community's successful fight to save the church and its surrounding neighborhood when the freeway was built and cut off the Mt. Vernon neighborhood from downtown Columbus, which led to the neighborhood's decline.

     From Shiloh Baptist Church we then walked along Mt. Vernon Avenue,

...to St. Clair Avenue,

...where we came to our second stop on the walk, the Hotel St. Clair Apartments.

     This building, we learned, started out as a hospital, then became the Hotel St. Clair, which in the days of segregation was the premier Columbus hotel for people of color and housed celebrities, entertainers, and musicians, as well as people who wanted to spend an evening in a fine hotel.  An elderly  woman in the group told us that she spent her honeymoon in the Hotel St. Clair. The price was $5 a night.
    This landmark building was purchased last year by a local entrepreneur  who has renovated it into  apartments.
      We then walked back to Mt. Vernon Avenue and continued our walk,

...past some restored buildings,

​...and some not-so-restored.

     Mt. Vernon Avenue.

     Along the way we passed The soon-to-open Container Project, which is to be an outdoor theater and concessions stand made of shipping containers.

     Our next stop was the A Cut Above The Rest barbershop, a neighborhood icon,

​...owned by barber and community activist Al Edmondson,

...who talked to us about his work and the history of the beautiful  murals that adorn the walls of his shop.

     Then we stopped at the historic Mt. Vernon AME Church,

​...where we met another of Aminah Robinson's wood carving folks.

     We continued  up Mt. Vernon Avenue past 22nd Street and Ohio Avenue then made a right onto  Champion Avenue and walked to our next stop,  Poindexter Village.
     Built in 1940, Poindexter Village was the nation's first public housing complex and was for decades a thriving African-American community nicknamed "The Blackberry Patch."

     Aminah Robinson grew up in Poindexter Village,

​...and often depicted her childhood home in her work.

     A few years ago most of the original Poindexter Village buildings were torn down and are being replaced buy new.

​ However two of the old buildings have been left standing and will be transformed into a museum.

     From Champion Avenue we turned the corner that brought us back to Long Street,

...which brought us to our last stop, the Theresa Building,

...a recently renovated and still thriving commercial building built in the 1920's by two black entrepreneurs.
     Our tour was then over so we continued down Long Street until we arrived at the Lincoln Theater, from where we began.

     (This wasn't part of the Culture Walk, just a nice shot I snagged of downtown Columbus).

References:
http://columbuslandmarks.org/columbus-culture-walks/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King-Lincoln_Bronzeville

    Come feed your body and mind!