In the years leading up to and during the Civil Rights Movement, African-American students faced multiple forms of discrimination on Ohio University’s campus.
For black students at Ohio University, the decade preceding — and fourteen years during — the Civil Rights Movement was marked by housing discrimination, fraternity exclusion and service refusal in many local restaurants.
Previous Post reports and letters to the editor from 1944 through 1968 detail specific examples of inequality on campus and the community’s response to these instances.
“An instance of race discrimination such as occurred at a local restaurant over the weekend cannot pass without comment,” one Post editorial from April 28, 1944, states. “A Negro student of OU was refused to be served simply because of his color, and when white companions objected, calling attention to a state statute, the proprietor called the police and closed shop for the night.”
Days later, a sit-down strike was planned. The demonstration was called off due to fear that violence might erupt, according to the editorial.
“Inasmuch as it is understandable how, from an owner’s point of view, it is no place for setting up a standard of ethics concerning social reforms, especially when he may lose customers by his practice,” the editorial states.
One week after the editorial was published, The Post ran a story revealing Athens’ restaurant owners’ opinions on serving black patrons. The story was based on a survey by the Commission for the Study of Interracial Relations, a part of the Campus Religious Council.
“One businessman said that the white man made the laws, and if he didn’t like them he should change them,” according to the Post report. “Another maintained that he wouldn’t sell a Negro student a meal ticket, but he would serve Negro tourists, and servants accompanied by white persons.”
Additionally, the article notes that one restaurant manager was raised to believe that “Negroes didn’t eat with white people” but said that she would associate with them. Another businesswoman said that serving Negroes in her place of business might result in a riot.
Four years later, another survey was conducted by a group of students on the subject of integrated restaurants in Athens. The survey sought to determine how many students, faculty and community members would eat at restaurants that served people regardless of race.
Students hoped that if enough names were secured, restaurant owners would be assured that serving black patrons wouldn’t hurt business.
“One restaurant owner stated that he would be willing to allow Negroes in his establishment if the others would do likewise,” according to the Post report.
A letter to the editor from the next year, 1949, asked where The Post stood in regard to racial and religious prejudice, and stated “a good many of our fraternities will admit only protestant members of the Caucasian race.”
Instances of discrimination continued into the 1960s, prompting OU to develop a “policy on acceptance of all students into private housing without regard to race, color and creed,” which was released to The Post in January of 1962.
The policy was included in a letter sent to landlords on OU’s approved private housing list.
“It is my hope that the community of Athens will continue to meet the challenges of our times and cooperate with university policies on housing,” former OU President John Baker said in the letter. “I am convinced that your experience with students will lead you to believe, as I believe, that the important issues in judging students are those of character, conduct and manners, not of race, color or creed.”
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In November of 1963, The Post published a special civil rights issue analyzing the impact of the Civil Rights Movement on campus. The issue included two separate stories about integrated dorm rooms with headlines declaring there was “little tension” and that roommates “experience few snags.”
Still, in 1967 and ’68, Post reports detail housing discrimination faced by black students.
In a survey of local landlords in 1967, The Post found that several landlords who listed available rooms refused to rent them to black students despite the university housing policy.
“Anyone who would say that there is no housing discrimination in Athens is deluding himself,” Jim Steele, a former OU student, said in a previous Post report.
The articles referenced and other full Post articles are available in Ohio University’s Center for Archives and Special Collections.
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