February is Black Historical past Month, often known as African American Historical past Month, an annual time to rejoice the achievements, and a time for recognizing the central function, of African People in U.S. historical past.
In the course of the month of February, What’s Up Newp is utilizing our platform to spotlight and acknowledge the achievements by native African People.
Keith Stokes, Vice President of the 1696 Heritage Group, brings us a take a look at the companies that have been owned and operated by Newport women and men of coloration.
This story initially appeared on What’sUpNewp on February 12, 2020.
Newport’s African heritage historical past dates again to the 17th century. In the course of the nineteenth century there are 4 vibrant African heritage church buildings inside the Bellevue Avenue, Historic Hill and West Broadway neighborhoods. These neighborhoods additionally hosted quite a few companies owned and operated by Newport women and men of coloration. This can be a pattern of images of companies and the individuals who operated them.
Photographs courtesy of the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society and Stokes Household Assortment.
1. George T. Downing
Arriving in Newport by the mid 1840’s, George Downing would develop into considered one of nineteenth century Newport’s most profitable hospitality entrepreneurs.
Downing lobbied tirelessly to formally desegregate Rhode Island public colleges, starting in 1857, by which era he was well-established in Newport because the proprietor of the Sea Girt Home luxurious resort together with a confectionary and catering enterprise alongside Bellevue Avenue on the Downing Block.
He would later lead for the repeal of the state’s ban on interracial marriage, and racial discrimination within the reorganization of the Rhode Island militia. Downing helped bought Touro Park and based the American Coloured Union Labor League.
2. Mary H. Dickerson
Mary Dickerson and her husband Silas arrived in Newport from New Haven, Connecticut round 1865. By 1872 she established a “Trendy Dressmaking Institution” at 5 Travers Block servicing the wants of Newport’s summer season residents.
In 1895 she was a founding father of the Girls’s League Newport. In 1896 she was a founding member of the Nationwide Affiliation of Coloured Girls’s Golf equipment and in 1903 she established the primary federation of African American Girls’s Membership in Rhode Island.
3. Armstead Hurley
Armstead Hurley arrived in Newport from Culpepper County, Virginia round 1886. He would quickly set up a profitable portray enterprise together with being a founding accomplice within the Rhode Island Mortgage & Funding Firm, the primary black-owned financial institution in Rhode Island.
He owned many rental properties on Cross, Thames, Mary and Division Streets. He was additionally Treasurer of the Shiloh Baptist Church.
4. Dr. Mahlon Van Horne
Dr. Van Horne was born at 47 John Avenue in Newport in 1871 and graduated from Rogers Excessive College and Bryant Enterprise School in 1889. He would graduate from Howard College Dental School in 1896, and develop into the primary African heritage dentist in Rhode Island with workplaces at 22 and 166 Broadway. In 1920 Van Horne is part of the organizers of the Newport Department NAACP.
5. J. T. & D. B. Allen
J. T. Allen and his brother D. B. Allen got here to Newport in 1893 and established a number of restaurant and catering companies. J. T. was the managing proprietor of the “HYGEIA SPA,” at Easton’s Seashore.
Quickly after the brothers would open a restaurant at 29 TOURO STREET, within the historic Perry Mansion, below the Lawrence Membership, one of the crucial aristocratic golf equipment of the town.
6. Pattern of 19th Century Black Owned Enterprise Playing cards
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