Stories from 18th Ave South

One of my favorite places to go to understand the history of Minneapolis and how our city was shaped is Mapping Prejudice. The Mapping Prejudice Project identifies and maps racial covenants; clauses that were inserted into property deeds to keep people who were not white from buying or occupying homes. The maps they created demonstrate how structural racism created the housing landscape in Minneapolis, legally defining who could live where and thus who had access to owning a home and in what areas of the city. The racial covenants inserted into many deeds in Minneapolis were the basis for the federal government's redlining policies developed during the creation of the Federal Housing Authority in the 1930s.

Mapping Prejudice also presents individual stories of people of color who purchased non-covenanted homes in white neighborhoods, and the often violent backlash they faced from their white neighbors. Many of us are familiar with the story of the Lee family, who purchased a home on 4600 Columbus Ave in 1931. The violence and intimidation they faced from their white Minneapolis neighbors is one of the most chilling and infamous examples of racial violence in the city's history. There are many other well-known examples, from Prospect Park to Linden Hills to the case of Japanese-American WWII veteran Jon Matuso who was prevented from buying a home in NE Minneapolis in the late 1940s.

One lazy summer evening while watching the 1993 TPT documentary Minneapolis Past, I stumbled upon another flashpoint. During a segment about the African American community that grew along Snelling Avenue in south Minneapolis, there appeared a b-roll still of a newspaper article about two African American families who purchased homes on the 3100 block of 18th Ave S. They were being pressured by their white Powderhorn Park neighbors to sell their homes and leave the block. This five second still shot from a 1993 documentary started me on a journey to find out about this incident, and ended up telling a story of a very small pocket of African American families who owned houses on the 3100 block of 18th Ave from the early 1900's through the 1950s, providing housing for generations of other African American residents of Minneapolis. 

On December 14, 1912, the local African American newspaper Twin Cities Star ran an article, "Race Feud Makes Trouble for South Side Residents." The article reports that white residents on the 3100 block of 18th Avenue South were organizing to push the families of Lorel Keith and Hobart Starks off the block, attempting to force them to sell their homes. I later found an article from the Minneapolis Morning Tribune, dated December 8, 1912, that presented the "race feud" from the perspective of the white neighbors. The white neighbors presented their arguments as "health and safety concerns” and the newspaper article editorialized without irony about the "invasion of the black race" and steps needed to "prevent further colonization of the same nature." The Twin Cities Star article wryly noted that a recent meeting of the "agitators" had only managed to raise $112 to buy out the families, and that the families themselves expected no further troubles from their neighbors. The fact that most housing in Powderhorn predates the advent of racial housing covenants demonstrates what a powerful social and legal tool they became. 

Digging into the story, I found the newspaper listing of the deed transactions for the sale of the homes. In December 1912, Lorel Keith and Hobart Starks purchased lots 10 and 12 on the 3100 block of 18th Ave, the addresses being 3119 and 3121 18th Ave S, for $1,200 each. The homes were sold by Leslie Fawkes, who is a fascinating figure in Minneapolis history. Fawkes first owned the Northwestern Cycle Company manufacturing and selling bicycles in the late 1800's, before pivoting to selling cars in the 1910s. The Fawkes Building on Loring Park was the home of their automobile showroom. 

Charles Jensen, who ran a printing company and lived at 3131 18th Ave, led the white neighbors in their efforts to force the Keith and Stark families to move. However, by 1914 it was the Jensen family who had moved and Lorel and Eula Keith and Hobart and Lucy Starks who remained on the block. 

Both Lorel and Hobart worked for the railroads as Pullman Porters. By 1914, a third house at 3123 18th Ave was sold to another African American family, Howard and Daisy Gilbert. Howard Gilbert also worked as a Pullman Porter. In 1916, Hobart and Lucy Starks had sold their house to another African American Pullman Porter, James and Annabelle Horris. 

In addition to their own children and family members, all four families had an array of boarders over the years that point to the standing these families had in the community. Boarders in their homes included Rev. Carl Stewart, who was pastor of St James AME church in the 1920s, one of Minneapolis's oldest African American congregations. In the 1930's sisters Mildred and LeVerta Huff were roomers, and both were early African American graduate students at the University of Minnesota. Other tenants included prominent local African American civil rights attorney RA Skinner , as well as regular folks who were carpenters, barbers, dry cleaners, and maids. I studied census and city directory records, and these African American families continued to live in these houses, or sold the houses to other African American families, through the 1950s. By the 1970s all three houses owned by absentee landlords. Both 3119 and 3121 18th Ave were demolished in 1990, but 3123 18th Ave is still there. 

This small story of three houses on one block tells a much larger story of African American community and resistance. The stories of white violence/resistance to integrated housing are better (but still far too little) known, so it was interesting to research a different kind of story.

My sources for this story are newspaper articles found through the MN Historical Society's Digital Newspaper Hub, Hennepin County Library's online city directories, City of Minneapolis historic building permit records, and US Census records.