Race Relations & The Color Line in the Bottoms

 

In the mid-20th century, race relations Battle Creek and the Bottoms itself were complex. In contrast to the strict legal segregation of the South, Battle Creekers of different races could and did mix together.

The residents interviewed for “Memories From Hamblin” do not describe an atmosphere of racial tension within the Bottoms itself. Many recall playing with their white neighbors; some white children frequented the Hamblin Community Center. As a child growing up in the Bottoms, Jackie Latham recalls [] little racial tension in the community. “Well see, I never, I never experienced, you know, racism. I mean, when I was growing up, we went to school and, I didn’t have any problems with white kids I went to school with. Wasn’t called out a name. Even when we were going to Jefferson School and to Southwestern…I didn’t know anything about, you know, racism. And I never heard ma and daddy talk about, you know, overt racism that they went through, so. I really wasn’t exposed to a lot of that.”

Reichert Steel Boys Basketball Team at HCC
  
Boxing at Hamblin Community Center, January 1965

The Bottoms had long been a residential center for Battle Creek’s working people, both black and white, who made a living in the nearby mills and factories. As Ernest Townsend remembers [], there was a strong sense of community in the Bottoms that transcended skin color. Neighbors shared the common concerns of their social class, even as they may have been divided by race.

Velma Adams offers an explanation [] of solidarity between black and white residents of the Bottoms. “Their folks had to [work] for a living. Their folks were working at Michigan Carton, I mean these were none of the elite…These were just plain old common everyday folks.” Where many communities in this era were notable for the racial tensions that often ignited into conflagrations when people crossed cultural or geographical boundaries between black and white, the Bottoms was defined as much by residents’ common needs of finding meaningful and remunerative work, raising a family, and developing a meaningful community life. The social and economic reality of life in the neighborhood defied simply mapping black vs. white.
White workers at Michigan Carton

Yet there were social rules, subtle but ever-present, that enforced the color line and limited the lives of African Americans. Black and white children may have played together in the neighborhood, but interracial friendships tended to fall away as they grew older. High schoolers may have played on the same sports teams, but African American athletes, as Bob Bradley recalls [], were often kept out of the limelight and out of some sports entirely. White consumers could go to the Bottoms to patronize black-owned businesses, but African Americans were often unwelcome in white businesses in other parts of the city.

Throughout the 1940s, the neighborhood was less than half African-American, even as it served as the heart of black community life. By 1952, however, the Bottoms was 70% African American. The change had several causes. The devastating flood of 1947 led many white families to leave the Bottoms. As in most postwar American cities, they joined other upwardly-mobile whites in new suburban districts around Battle Creek. At the same time, African-American migrants from the South, drawn by the city’s economic growth and war-related employment in the Second World and Korean Wars, settled the neighborhood. By the early 1950s, the Bottoms had become predominantly African American.

 

White children receive a swimming lesson at the YMCA pool.

The neighborhood's changing demographics helped foster a strong sense of African American identity. Yet it also served to isolate the community, to draw the color line more sharply. Many Battle Creekers recall discovering the reality of segregation as they gre up during the 1940s and '50s. “[B]ecause I was young,” Melvin Evans recalls [], “I didn’t realize the segregation that was going on, until I got up into Junior High School. That’s when I really knew that Battle Creek was racially divided, you might say.” The skating rinks, popular with teenagers of both races, were only open to African Americans only on certain days of the week. The YMCA was for whites only; black children used the Hamblin Community Center, which, despite its many amenities, lacked facilities such as a swimming pool. Opportunities for employment and upward mobility were aloso divided by race. Two of the largest employers in Battle Creek, Kellogg's and Post, only hired African Americans in janitorial or service positions. Residents recall being able to work as pin-setters in the local bowling alleys, while being unable to bowl there themselves.

Today African American Battle Creekers recall this complex reality with both pride in their community as well as an awareness of the larger costs of segregation and inequality. Relations between the races may have been friendly within the Bottoms, but that friendliness did not necessarily extend past the boundaries of the neighborhood. As one resident put it, “we couldn’t take the white neighbor and say, ‘Hey, let’s go downtown and have dinner together.’ Blacks couldn’t go in the restaurant at that stage.”

“We couldn’t take the white neighbor and say, ‘Hey, let’s go downtown and have dinner together.’ Blacks couldn’t go in the restaurant at that stage.”

Despite the 1947 flood, limited economic opportunities, and racial discrimination, the residents of the Bottoms created a vibrant community with black-owned businesses, community leaders, cultural institutions, and strong social bonds that enriched the lives of those who lived there.