The view from the Idea Center
By the 1920s, the city of Cleveland was some 796,000 people strong, the fifth largest city in the United States.
But just 10 miles southeast of the crowds, street cars and high-rise buildings of Public Square, there were cows, chickens and horses. The little suburb briefly known as the Village of Miles Heights was one of the few in Cleveland where African Americans lived and owned property.
“ You could buy a lot and build a house,” said Jerome Williams, who remembers tales of Miles Heights Village. “Most of the inner city, everybody was renting. And you had a chance to own a house.”
It had a dry-cleaning store, a grocery, a cobbler and a pharmacy. And it had Ohio’s first black mayor, Arthur Johnston.
That’s right. Johnston was Ohio’s first black mayor, not former Cleveland Mayor Carl Stokes, who, about forty years later, in 1967, became the first black elected mayor of a major U.S. city.
There was nothing major about Miles Heights. Its population in 1929, when Johnston was elected, was about 1,500; 500 of those residents were black.
“That was a bit of a surprise that he did win because there wasn’t an African American majority in that neighborhood at that time,” said Michael Fleenor, who contributed to a new book about the history of Miles Heights Village which was located in what’s now Cleveland’s Lee-Seville and Lee-Harvard neighborhoods.
“He was of Jamaican background and known to be a good orator,” said Kathleen H. Crowther, executive director of the Cleveland Restoration Society.
Don’t pass up the opportunity to step back in time and visit Miles Heights Village. ideastream’s Dennis Knowles and Dan Polletta have some really terrific vintage photos and videos.
See you bright and early tomorrow morning on the radio,
Amy Eddings
Need to KnOH
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Your ideas
It's that time of year in Northeast Ohio: sniffle and sneeze (and soup!) season. Some pediatricians are pointing out what a lot of moms already knew: honey is a better cough suppressant than kids' over-the-counter cough syrup. What home remedy gets you and your family through the common cold? Call us at (216) 916-6476, comment on our Facebook page or join the conversation in Public Square. We'll feature some of your thoughts and comments here in Noon(ish) and on Morning Edition.
