An Ohio town where races have mixed freely for more than 200 years [View all]

[brer cat]

It has only been in fairly recent years that I have augmented my piss-poor education by finding articles, books, and museums that tell wonderful stories of communities and rich cultural experiences that exist{ed} beyond the white history/sociology taught in schools. Even learning along with my granddaughters during Black History Month leaves much to be desired: the endless repetition of the biographies of the "big" names in AfAm history, and more in-depth study of slavery, Jim Crow, etc., while essential knowledge, fails to address much in the way of social processes. The town in this article is news to me and probably to many of the other white members of this group.

Amid the corn and soybean fields of western Ohio lies a progressive crossroads where black and white isn’t black and white, where the concept of race has been turned upside down, where interracial marriages have been the norm for nearly two centuries. The heavy boots of Jim Crow have never walked here.

Founded by James Clemens, a freed slave from Virginia who became a prosperous farmer, Longtown was a community far ahead of its time, a bold experiment in integration.

snip

“I don’t think the public was aware this was here,” Keiser said. “Black history is not talked about a lot in general, and I think {the fact} that we have that kind of history means something to a lot of people.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/an-ohio-town-where-the-races-have-mixed-freely-for-more-than-200-years/2015/09/26/7ab3b250-4cfa-11e5-bfb9-9736d04fc8e4_story.html