Migration and the Formation of the Bottoms

Residents of the Bottoms literally came from all over the country to live in Battle Creek. The first half of the twentieth century was a period of great population movement throughout the United States. The Great Migration was perhaps the best known of these movements. The Great Migration was a movement of southern rural African Americans to northern urban localities from the mid-1910s to the early-1920s. A major cause of this migration was the attraction of factory jobs created by the increased industrial production in response to World War I and the growing demand for industrially produced goods. This South-to-North, rural-to-urban trend continued through the 1960s, as nearly six million African Americans moved north in search of a better life. Battle Creek’s nearness to Chicago and Detroit, as well as its growing industrial base, made it an attractive destination for workers coming from the South.

The twentieth century was a tumultuous era for international immigrants as well. In 1921, Congress passed the Emergency Immigration Act (also known as the Emergency Quota Act), which limited the number of immigrants allowed into the United States to 3% of the number of the immigrant population as of the 1910 census. Three years later, made nervous by the large numbers of Southern and Eastern European immigrants entering the US, Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1924. This law was even more restrictive: it limited immigration to 2%, and based it on the 1890 census, a time when the United States had fewer immigrants and when those who were in the country were primarily from Northern and Western Europe. As European immigration slowed, African American migration to Northern cities accelerated, with important results for Battle Creek and the Bottoms.

Near the confluence of the Kalamazoo and Battle Creek Rivers lived the former residents of states such as Kentucky, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Louisiana who had come to the city for jobs, to be nearer to family members, and for greater social mobility in the North. In addition, a great deal of in-state migration brought families to Battle Creek. Ann Arbor, Benton Harbor, and Newton Township all sent sons and daughters to Battle Creek, and families there helped retain social networks for adults and children in the Bottoms. Madeline Franklin remembers summer days spent with relatives in other cities: “And our recreation really was, Helen and I went to, when we was kids, every Sunday we went to Charlotte, and stayed all summer with my grandparents. And then when they died, we went, with Aunt Cecil and Aunt Anna. Cause Aunt Anna would come down from uh, Ypsilanti, she lived in, she was a nurse.”

One of the most important influences on migration to Battle Creek was WorldWar II. Fort Custer was an important military installation during the war and the Army moved many military men to Battle Creek. Beatrice Brooks came to Battle Creek as a child at the beginning of the war when her mother moved as secretary to an Army Colonel. “I came from Fort Gibson, Oklahoma to Battle Creek, Michigan,” Brooks recalls. “My mother brought me here. How she got to Battle Creek, Michigan was that she was working for a Colonel at Fort Sill, Oklahoma and he asked her if she would like to go with them so when he transferred, she transferred too.” Percy Jones Hospital treated wounded war veterans and provided employment for many residents of the Bottoms, as did Kellogg’s and Eaton – all three a part of the growing city economy attracting migrants from around the country.

Percy Jones Hospital (formerly the Battle Creek Sanitarium)

Jesse Blackful, a member of the local music scene.

Music was the reason Bill Dowdy and Bobby Parker came to Battle Creek. Dowdy was born in Arkansas, but his family moved to Benton Harbor when he was a baby. In his teen years he would play drums at the El Grotto and at Bellman and Waiter's with a band of his friends. After a successful career as a touring musician Dowdy permanently settled in Battle Creek. As he tells it, “if there was anything involving music, that’s where I would be. Playing drums and I would play any time somebody said play… [S]o we came up here from Benton Harbor and everybody wanted to play with us, you know (laughs). Me and Gene Harris.” Parker, too, was a teen when he started playing Battle Creek clubs. Born and raised in Albion, the precocious youth started playing jazz music in clubs during the war years. Battle Creek became his home away from home, and he eventually settled in the city to open his own club.

These diverse geographical origins were mitigated by common priorities – raising a family, getting a good job, and building a community. Battle Creek, and the Bottoms in particular, was therefore a microcosm of the larger American story of migration, immigration, and community formation.