A 1947 Urban League/Community League study of African Americans in Warren documented the pervasiveness of de facto segregation in the community. The study revealed that blacks lived in the worst sections of the community (the largest was an area called the “flats” near the dump), few owned their homes, and eight of ten of the housing units were deemed substandard. Their children attended neighborhood schools and scored well below the norm in reading and arithmetic. There were few playgrounds and there was a disproportionate arrest percentage both for adult and juvenile crime. Contrary to widely held beliefs, there were few black-owned businesses and few non-entertainment-based businesses in the neighborhood. The black community – much of which was forced to live in areas where authorities allowed brothels to flourish – also suffered from higher rates of infant mortality and unemployment. Those that could find work faced union discrimination and disproportionate representation in the domestic trades in a city with few black city employees, no black firemen, and no black teachers (or even teacher's aides). The report painted a portrait of a small northeast Ohio city mired in de facto segregation and a black population made invisible and marginal by the dominant white system. Even the local public swimming pool in Warren tried to prevent black entrance by leasing it to a community group called the Veterans Swim Club, a membership-only organization that blacks were not allowed to join. Protests by locals ensued, and the NAACP brought suit against the city for this practice, eventually winning and opening the pool to all in 1948.5
Looking through The Warren Tribune Chronicle underscores the depth of the invisibility of African Americans in the area during the period. While Warren's population continued to grow from 42,837 in 1940 to 63,494 in 1970, and the percentage of African Americans in the city increased from 8.8% of the population in 1950 to about 11% by 1970, the paper contained few stories concerning the issues of this growing minority. There were many other articles covering myriad local issues like roads, zoning, politics, law, business and union activities. Articles featuring local African Americans focused on athletics, churches, criminal activity, or were lumped under a section titled “For Colored Subscribers” during the early part of the 1950s. While the paper usually ran AP reports when looking for stories focusing on national situations like the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Freedom Rides, the March on Washington, or the passage of the Civil Rights Act, it rarely attempted to discuss these national occurrences against the backdrop of the local racial situation. The editorial page regularly weighed in on other national issues like the Cold War, unions, politics and business, but the only mention of race and its local ramifications came in light of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling. In one of the only editorials that tackled the sensitive issue of race, the editors identified the Supreme Court ruling as “historic” and “not surprising,” yet ignored Warren's own de facto segregation by suggesting that “segregation in the schools of the south will of course be a major change for that section of the country, where it has been the custom for so long.” The paper echoed the attitudes of its white majority, as local resident Wesley Shaffer recalled when asked about his reaction to these events, “I guess they weren't for us . . . you know because around here everything was smooth.” In the final analysis, the Warren newspaper, which balanced its pro-business editorial policy against its overwhelming Democratic base readership, neither explored nor ignored the local African American population. Rather, it rarely bothered to delve into the many problems that plagued this community because it did not see the situation as being as problematic as it was in the South. During the early 1960s, the paper ran more stories about the black population, yet continued the earlier trend by ignoring issue related stories and focused instead on human interest or community relations stories.6
The oral history interviews reveal the decidedly different ways in which the two racial groups saw their collective past. Most of the white respondents agreed that there were few racial problems in the Warren area and that segregation and racism were southern phenomena. White residents like Alice Surrena remembered that while some people in Warren did not want to drink out of the same water fountain as black residents, it was far different from the south where blacks would have to “step off the sidewalk to let a white person pass.” Paul Starnes told his interviewer that down south “they wouldn't [allow blacks to] eat in the same restaurants,” and then said without recognizing the contradiction, that he could not “recall ever seeing a black person” in the diners downtown. Betty Sloan did not “remember ever seeing any black men down in Warren.”7
