Black history within Pittsburgh is incredibly prevalent: The National Opera House was a hub for jazz artists and musicians like George Benson, the city was part of the Underground Railroad and it has an international Black newspaper.
But that legacy needs people to make sure the culture is protected and preserved.
Meet three locals who are doing just that.
Today’s news is tomorrow’s history
The New Pittsburgh Courier has been an integral part of the Black community, documenting and creating Black history daily. Rod Doss, now the paper’s editor, started in advertising and sales in 1967, which allowed him to see the differences between the white press versus the Black press in terms of securing advertising.
“That is when I began to recognize there were differences, discrimination practices. It became a challenge for me to overcome that,” he said.
At what was then called The Pittsburgh Courier, they strategized ways to directly confront discrimination patterns and practices throughout businesses and corporations in Pittsburgh.
“It was the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. that made the city aware of the issues relevant to the African American community,” Doss said. “Some of the policies were tempered and tried to accommodate more successfully their ability to communicate with the Black community.”
Doss is an architect of preserving that history. A column runs each week called “This Week in Black History, A Courier Staple.” The section documents what has occurred historically in Black history, including Black History Month facts, — such as on Feb. 12, 1909, the NAACP was founded, or Feb. 18, 1688, was the first formal protest against slavery occurred by the Quakers.
Doss writes of Byrd Brown, who helped fight for change, and Harvey Adams Jr., president of the Guardians of Pittsburgh, a Black police affiliation.
“There were any number of people who were dedicated, forthright, principled and God-fearing in their ability to challenge the system — that for so long had been working against them — in pursuit of progress for and on behalf of the African American community,” Doss said. “The stories we told were from people who experienced and understood the discrimination and segregation practices of the city of Pittsburgh.”
The Courier was established in 1907, Those stories were disseminated to Black communities across the country, even places that faced segregation with the dedication of Pullman porters, laborers who worked on trains for The Pullman company. They distributed Black newspapers to the places they traveled.
The stories weren’t being represented elsewhere. The white press ignored a lot of what was happening within the Black community, according to Doss.
“We had our own culture. There were a number of private clubs and businesses that happened exclusively within the African American community that many were not aware of. It was segregation that existed. The Hill District was a cultural mecca for what was going on in the African American community. Homestead had its own culture. There were different communities that thrived on the culture that existed — pageants, church, jazz, food … everything,” Doss said.
The Courier would record the number of firsts that occurred within the community, and there was a need for that because it allowed people to see that there were some who would give African Americans an opportunity.
“The first appointments, positions and career changes by African Americans we highlighted, and they became standard-bearers for the African American community,” Doss said. “They recognized the significance of their role as a first in the industry they had chosen. Others would follow, so they were the door openers.”
Representation matters
McKeesport native Justice Cynthia Baldwin was the first African-American woman elected to the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas in 1980 and the second African-American woman to serve on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2006.
She worked as a college English professor and as director of student affairs at Penn State’s Greater Allegheny Campus while she was in law school.
“We have heard this over and over again — if you can’t see it, you can’t be it. We had never had an African American woman on the bench until I was elected. It is very important that our young people know the world is open to them. All the world owes them is an opportunity. We need to fight and make sure that they have the opportunities and are prepared for the opportunities.
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“That is all part of our history, that we were actually part of it and did those things. We need to preserve that,” Baldwin said. “And now you’ve had other Black women who have served on the judiciary in Allegheny County.”
Baldwin the public is owed a fair and impartial judiciary.
“People won’t believe the judiciary is fair and impartial unless it reflects all segments of society,” Baldwin said. “We have to, as Black people, make sure we are preserving our history … the documents of our fraternities and sororities and social groups.”
Baldwin said that each one of us has a responsibility to act and engage in ensuring that history is accurate.
“We need to bring pressure on school boards to make sure the books they are using reflect our history accurately, on our institutions, government and education,” she said.
Baldwin said we are seeing an erosion of Black history and there is a need to protect it.
Baldwin was recently named a History Maker at the Heinz History Center and joined others in creating a time capsule that will consist of her papers. The time capsules are secured inside a uniquely designed wall in the History Center’s Smithsonian Wing on the first floor, according to The Heinz History Center. “So that people can come and see long after I am gone what was going on,” Baldwin said.
“We also need to think our papers are important enough to preserve,” she said. “Most Black people who have contributed to the growth of this region don’t get the recognition they need to get.
“We need to preserve history, or we won’t know what it was,” Baldwin said.
Arts & cultural history
Samuel Black, who was raised with a deep knowledge and respect for Black history, is passionate about Pittsburgh’s jazz legacy.
“I knew that there were certain jazz musicians in Pittsburgh, but I didn’t know that it ran so deep. I even argued with my colleagues in Kansas City, New Orleans and Chicago that Pittsburgh’s jazz legacy, with Earl ‘Father’ Hines and Mary Lou Williams, impacted jazz more so than other places,” Black said.
“Pittsburgh, being an industrial city, a lot of people focus on steel, Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick and forget about everyone else. Historians have framed history around the experiences of the wealthy class.”
Black was raised in Cincinnati and went to Frederick Douglass Elementary School in the 1960s.
“We learned about Frederick Douglass and others from his time. Our teachers always reflected Black history in what they were teaching. At my church, the pastor was the president of the NAACP,” said Black, director of the African American Programs at the Senator John Heinz History Center.
His study of art and architecture in college led back to Black culture from his interests in African architecture. “Everything I created as an artist was a reflection of myself as a Black man.”
When he went to graduate school, he focused on African Studies and then started teaching before shifting his career to museums. After 10 years of museum experience, Black came to Pittsburgh in 2002 and started as a curator of Black history at the Heinz History Center.
Black’s first exhibit in 2003 was a traveling quilt exhibit from Kansas City, and Black found quilters from Pittsburgh to be part of the exhibit. “That opened the door for other relationships,” Black said.
In 2016, Black partnered with the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy and the Frick Environmental Center to develop a project connected to an art exhibit called “From Slavery to Freedom.”
“We identified ways that freedom seekers were able to survive the journey. The research included different plants used for medicine and sustenance when you were on the run,” Black said. “I always argue that people of African descent have always been environmental.”
“When you think of American slavery, a lot of times you don’t think about the humanity and the quest for freedom — that human beings have a natural affinity for freedom. That was not lost on enslaved people. That is why you always have this desire for liberation,” Black said.