AKRON, Ohio — A team of archaeologists has been working on a project in Summit County that answers questions about Black homeownership in the mid-1900s.
More than 50 years ago, a Black family owned a home on Honeywell Drive when Black homeownership was limited. A team of archaeologists continues to uncover pieces of Akron’s Black history.
“It feels like I’m a part of something that is bigger than I even comprehend at this point,” said Brown.
Zoe Brown is the seasonal cultural resources field technician for Summit Metro Parks. She led the project that dug out the remains of a residential property built by Edward and Ruby Lee Atkinson. The home was in what used to be the Honeywell area and is currently the Wheelock Cuyahoga Acres.
“These undiscussed parts of our city’s history, but it’s also important for the Black community to see ourselves in history and see ourselves being talked about and how Black people from the south persevered and made these opportunities for themselves to be homeowners when the odds were stacked against them,” said Brown.
Digging out the homes on Honeywell Drive started in 2017. In the 1940s, 50s and 60s, that street had Black and white homeowners.
“We are taking a lot of interest and learning more about the family’s stories and the individuals that lived here,” said Charlotte Gintert, the Cultural Resources Specialist for Summit Metro Parks.
The research done by Brown, Gintert and their team showed Black people overcame several obstacles that slowed down home ownership but didn’t stop them.
“Due to segregation, redlining within the cities, that kind of put them in these neighborhoods that were so unkept by the city; but this was a chance to kind of build their own life and make it how they wanted,” said Brown.
Redlining is a practice in which financial services in specific areas are withheld based on race. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 made this practice illegal. University of Akron historian Gregory Wilson said discriminatory tactics used to be common practice. Meaning many African Americans had to look outside of Akron for opportunity.
“So, it was countryside, and there was a lot of appeal for Blacks to be out in that countryside area away from the city where they could own their home,” said Wilson.
As more is known about Akron’s Black history, Wilson said research and digs like this show a different side of what life was like for African Americans.
“It provides a bit of a different narrative than what the popular narrative might be of Black life in the 50s and 60s, to see Blacks as middle-class homeowners living, trying to live that American dream within the context of the racial system of that era,” Wilson said.
Brown said the dig revealed artifacts that helped tell the Atkinsons’ story. Now moving forward, Brown says doing digs like this will continue to find history and lead to uncovering more of Akron’s Black history.
“We have to understand what we came from, how we used to function, and if we don’t understand that, we just continue doing the same things, whether good or bad,” said Brown.
The artifacts found during this dig will be cleaned and used for further research by Summit Metro Parks.
