If you’re familiar with Downtown Akron, you may know about the story of the innerbelt highway and its troubled history of bisecting a largely African American neighborhood.
But another nearby neighborhood was also affected by the same forces — South Howard Street, which was Akron’s LGBTQ+ enclave prior to urban renewal.
“Howard Street cut through basically the middle of this building," said Tony Pankuch, of the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology at the University of Akron. Pankuch teaches an LGBTQ+ history class there, called Out of the Archives.
The building in question is the current FirstEnergy building just off Main Street in Downtown Akron, but 50 years ago, it was an entirely different place.
“So this used to be a bustling street," said Pankuch. "It had restaurants, cafes, stores, bars, and South Howard Street was a hub of LGBTQ+ culture in the 1940s, 50s and 60s.”
The [un]class uncovers history
Pankuch co-teaches the LGBTQ+ archives class with Professor Hillary Nunn, an English professor at the University of Akron. She previously taught a community-focused course called an [un]class, which focused on bringing archival materials into prisons.
An [un]class is a community-engaged course at the University of Akron where students deal with real-world issues and have a say in the course design, topics of study and projects.
“This history came out in the Howard Street [un]class that I did last term," Nunn said. "One of the groups adopted LGBTQ Howard Street as their main focus, and then we continued that this term with this [un]class.”
According to the pair, there were four major bars on this street for the LGBTQ+ community at a time when being gay was still a crime and far removed from the Stonewall Uprising that would spark the gay rights movement in 1969.
"It was really the biggest hub of gay culture in Akron at that time," said Pankuch. "In 1956, the Cadillac Bar opened a bit further south. That was more of a bar focused on the lesbian community.”
Where cultures converge
The community of South Howard Street was on the edge of African American neighborhoods to the north and west, with jazz culture being predominant. Howard Street was a neighborhood some touted as Little Harlem for the headlining jazz acts seen playing here. It was a place where cultures could converge.
“It really is sort of a shared history of marginalization within the city of Akron," said Pankuch. "A lot of folks are being driven to this area because there's not a lot of other options for them in the city.”
Many white leaders in city government had a negative view on the area, Nunn said.
“It was important to the lifeblood of the community," Nunn explained. "But at the same time, it was labeled blighted when the urban renewal plan started to come out in the early 60s.”
By 1967, most of the main establishments on the strip were closed, turned into parking lots and later paved to make way for office buildings. Some of the scene moved up to the Highland Square neighborhood, while some disappeared.
Queer history comes alive
The [un]class at the Cummings Center focuses on the queer history of Akron, including that of South Howard Street.
Chloe Dimario is a grad student in the class. She started researching the street in a previous University of Akron class called Jazz of Howard Street, where she learned about the queer spaces there.
![Chloe DiMario (right) helps another student in the Out of the Archives [un]class at the University of Akron. She said it's amazing that many don't realize how much culture Akron had on Howard Street.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/d37dd9d/2147483647/strip/true/crop/6240x4160+0+0/resize/840x560!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F62%2Fb1%2Fc345f89b4fb194a1e44fed4bd532%2Fuse-class.JPG)
As her research continued, she was floored by what ultimately became of the street.
“Wait, this all gets destroyed!" DiMario said. "It's very much a shock to be like, there was so much here and now it's entirely gone.”
Austen Masters, another grad student in the class, said the fact that the street existed at all can be seen as uplifting.
"It helps highlight and solidify that there's always LGBTQ history being made — wherever you are, wherever you live, wherever you can find or make community," Masters said.
Remembering for future generations
Outside where South Howard Street used to run, Pankuch looked across a landscape where they hope to make the invisible past visible again.
“I'm currently working with the Ohio History Connection to get a historic marker placed on South Howard Street, recognizing LGBTQ history in that space," Pankuch said. "Hopefully something that will be coming soon to Downtown Akron.”
That marker may be placed mere feet from where Akron Pride kicks off every year, a symbol of the past meeting the present for Akron’s LGBTQ+ community.
The students of the [un]class will be presenting their LGBTQ+ Akron research findings at Cocktails Akron (33 W. Mapledale Ave.) on Friday, Dec. 13 from 5-8 p.m.
