Over 20 buses lined up along Indiana Avenue in front of the Indianapolis Recorder office on a Monday morning. It was late August in the early 1960s, and over 3,000 Black children were waiting for a free day at Camp Belzer, a chance to get away from their parents and city lives.

“They looked like giant elephants or space crafts,” said Gerald Trotter, 72, describing the buses.

It was uncommon for Trotter to ride a bus anywhere. He and his siblings only ever walked to School #26 and around their Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood.

Securing your spot to the annual affair felt like getting a golden ticket to the Wonka Chocolate Factory.

Trotter, remembered attending the Recorder Picnic, for the first time when he was about 7 years old, with his older siblings.

Riding the bus was his older sister, Janice Glenn’s, favorite part of the day. The buses were usually escorted by police, making for a grand entrance into the camp site.

“Nobody rode buses to school. The only bus I’d ever been on was a regular street car bus,” Glenn told Mirror Indy.

Trotter and Glenn said the picnic was an opportunity to get away from their regular haunts — Douglass Park, JTV Hill Center and Eastside Christian Center (now Edna Martin Christian Center.)

At the time, the Indianapolis Recorder, founded in 1895, loomed large for the city’s Black community, especially after other earlier Black-owned publications established in the mid 1800s — Indianapolis Colored World, Indianapolis Leader and The Freeman — ceased publication.

“It was a chronicle of Black life and history in the city for over 100 years. The Recorder staff and readers lived through the First World War, the Great Depression, the impact of the Ku Klux Klan, school segregation and the start of World War II during the early 20th century,” Kisha Tandy, curator of social history at the Indiana State Museum, wrote in a statement.

The ‘Newsies Picnic’ is born

Seedlings for the picnic are thought to have been planted in 1926 when Recorder leaders tried to acquire a permit to hold a “small, private” picnic at Brookside Park but were denied and told to host the gathering at the newly-erected Douglass Park, which was created for Black residents.

Historians are unsure when the first Recorder Picnic was held. But, the first record of the picnic at Douglass Park appeared in newspapers in July and August 1930. Over 2,500 people attended.

“The huge picnic crowds were made up of carriers and readers of The Indianapolis Recorder from every nook and corner of the city,” the Recorder staff wrote about the event.

If you go

A Family Affair

🗓️ 3-7 p.m. Saturday, June 28
📍 Belmont Beach, at the intersection of Belmont Ave. and White River Parkway N Drive
🎟️ Free

At this picnic, people also enjoyed music from the Orphans Band, potato sack races, basketball, boxing, skating and swimming. Some activities were still a part of the picnic when Trotter attended.

“I didn’t know that these things existed because our world was so small, [The Recorder] took us out of our community,” he told Mirror Indy.

The event was also referred to as the annual “Newsies Picnic” and “Good Day,” and sponsored by the Indianapolis Milk Foundation, Coca Cola, Kroger and as well as small, locally-owned grocery stores.

According to Tandy, the circulation department wanted to reward the paper carriers and get more youth interested in the job, so they created the picnic.

Trotter, who’s the brother-in-law of former editor-in-chief and publisher Eunice Trotter, became a carrier as a teenager.

Each “picnicker” received a hot dog or sandwich, bag of chips, a side of pork and beans, popcorn, a dessert and a drink — usually a cup of Kool-Aid or a cold pop.

Trotter’s favorite was the hot dogs and chips. You would not see a plate that wasn’t “cleaned,” he said.

The kids had watermelon and pie-eating contests, walked trails and played typical field day games including softball, running races and most importantly kickball.

“You couldn’t beat little Black kids in them days. Kickball was from sun up to sun down,” Glenn said.

The picnic was held at many places including farms that no longer exist. Advertisement for the 1939 Recorder Picnic showed more than 1,000 kids were expected to attend the annual event at the former Hollywood Farm at 62nd and Ruckers streets.

When the Trotter siblings attended, the picnic was spread out across Camp Belzer’s more than 200 acres.

“The Indianapolis Recorder Picnic was never just a casual outing. It was a statement. It was a tradition born out of necessity, created when Black families were excluded from parks, pools and places of public joy,” Robert Shegog said, president and CEO of the Indianapolis Recorder.

A sunset on the picnic

Glenn said she and other kids were sweaty and tired after a long day in the sun. The bus ride back to the Recorder office on Indiana Avenue was bittersweet.

She was excited to hop back on the bus to sit beside her new friends and sing songs but sad the day ended.

Trotter, Glenn and their two older brothers would go two more times.

“The Recorder [picnic] introduced us to a whole different world, at least in our eyes as children,” Glenn, who is now 73, told Mirror Indy.

It’s unclear when the picnic officially ended. Some sources said it stopped abruptly in the early 1970s.

However in 1988, Eunice Trotter brought the picnic back for two years. This time, the picnic returned with a back-to-school theme which included a parade and was held at the American Legion Mall.

“It was our opportunity to generate excitement about the start of the school year and to provide resources students needed,” Eunice Trotter wrote in a statement.

During her time as editor of the Recorder, Ebony Chappel said people often asked for the return of the Recorder Picnic — a request she hears in her own family. This wish from the community led Chappel, now market director for Free Press Indiana — the support organization for Mirror Indy — to partner with the Recorder to bring the picnic back. Adding to the historical significance, Belmont Beach, the city’s segregated swimming beach was chosen for “A Family Affair,” the modern-day take on the picnic.

“We’re reviving this historic event to honor our past and invest in our future,” Shegog wrote in a statement. “This isn’t just a look back — it’s a forward march. A continuation of the Recorder’s 130-year legacy of standing with our community through every season, and a celebration of what we can still build together.”

Chappel said one of Mirror Indy’s goals is to reflect the community not just in news coverage but in community events as well such as the Recorder Picnic.

“This event creates an opportunity to not only fellowship but for the community to be further exposed to the work of Mirror Indy and the Indianapolis Recorder,” Chappel said. “We want them to see us as trusted pillars in the community that educate and amplify the stories that matter most.”

Mirror Indy reporter Mesgana Waiss covers arts and culture. Contact her at 317-667-2643 or mesgana.waiss@mirrorindy.org.

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