80 Year Resident says he’s proud of Marion
But complains about jobs
Eighty years in one place tends to mellow problems.
Perhaps it’s an understanding that comes from not only hearing about changes but living through them.
Or perhaps the years simply blur the contradictions into accepted reality.
Powell Barnett is 80 years old, black and has lived in Marion all his life.
He takes pride in Marion’s racial situation, but complains about black employment. He can trace the history of racial separation, but attributes the division to both blacks and whites.
Barnett was reared in Gent’s addition, but has resided at his home at 1005 S. Madison St. for the past 50 years. In 1972, he was named “Citizen of the Year.”
Barnett is a retired post office employee. He moved away from Gent’s when he was financially able.
“If you want to live in a nice home and keep your property up, you’ll live in a place where others do the same.” He said, “The very name Gent’s addition is a black mark against its residents, but said that it is not a ghetto.”
“The people live there according to financial status. Because a lot of blacks bunch together in one area, some call it a ghetto. But everyone who is able to buy a better house with better surroundings will buy it.”
Barnett views Gent’s addition as a dwelling place, a sub-division with low-income housing that consists entirely of blacks, and where an over-whelming majority of Marion’s black population lives.
He doesn’t feel blacks were forced to live there out of racial pressure, but out of financial need.
“Race relations are good in Marion, in fact extraordinary. We would never even have had a black school if blacks hadn’t wanted it.”
“Segregate Themselves”
“Our people segregate themselves a lot of times without realizing they’re doing that. There used to be a theater and blacks would sit in one place because they wanted to. There wasn’t enforced segregation until they saw that blacks wanted it that way.”
Barnett says the racial situation in Marion has changed two times during his lifetime. Repercussions of the first change still survive as the major problem for Marion blacks today.
“When I was a boy, you couldn’t tell the difference in races. We played together, went to school together. You lived anywhere you wanted to. Everyone was the same. All that changed around 1914 or 1915, when they brought in the tie and the ice plants. They imported corrupt black people for labor. A lot liked Marion and stayed. These people gave the colored a bad name and created tension between the races. That’s when the races began separating.”
That was also when Douglass School became a segregated black institution and Gent’s addition became a black community. It was also the beginning for the present, employment problems.
The whites wanted to run the blacks out of town. They brought a Ku Klux Klansman in and he said you didn’t have to run them out of town. He told them not to give blacks any jobs and they’d leave themselves.
An incident that may have helped to create the tension during that period occurred towards the end of the 19th century. In March 1898, the United Mine Workers Association went on strike at the St. Louis and Big Muddy Coal Co., a Carterville mine organized by Samuel T. Brush in 1890.
Miners Imported
Locals continued striking through May, 1899. In search for labor, Brush imported a trainload of black miners from the South.
In June, a contingent of black miners and their families, unaware they were strikebreakers, were attacked at Lauder (now Cambria). One woman was killed and 20 wounded. Order was restored by two companies of militia.
Another racial riot took place in September, and five of Brush’s black miners were killed. Those prosecuted for the killings were found innocent in both cases.
The second change took place during the 1960’s when movements for equality swept the nation.
“Leaders like Martin Luther King changed people’s disposition. At one time, people united all blacks as inferior. Now they realize there are good and bad in both races.
“The racial situation has improved, but it won’t be okay until the job situation improves.”
Barnett sees relief programs as one of the main obstacles of motivation, though he claims “it’s been proven that any time doors open, they’ll take it.”
“I blame the government for handing out checks. That has a tendency to make people lazy. If there’s a man who is well and hearty and there’s a job he could get, but he would just as soon take relief, then he shouldn’t be eligible.”
“I just don’t see how giving people something is going to help them.”
Barnett says as education continues to increase among blacks a sense of pride will develop within his race.
“The more you qualify yourself; the more you stand equal with any race; but when you feel inferior it shows in your disposition. Two things build pride, education and jobs, and its jobs where we’re lacking. It doesn’t do much good to have and education without a job.”
But increasing education also has had a detrimental impact on blacks. According to Barnett, the trend among blacks has been to disassociate with their race when they reach a certain financial level.
“They get more money, move to the suburbs and disassociate with blacks.”
“My People”
“I moved out of Gent’s addition, but I haven’t forgotten the people there. I love them. They are my people.”
Other blacks will move out of Gent’s as he did, but Barnett says Gent’s addition always will remain.
“There are always enough people coming in. Corrupt people come and go, but permanent people stay. A lot of people stay down there because they know there are a lot of things the law won’t do to them. They even have a bar there without a $25 tavern license, because they want to keep blacks in the area. Every other tavern pays about $1,200 a year for a license.”
Recent movements of black militancy in other parts of the country are seen by Barnett as having a negative effect of racial separation.
“Martin Luther King didn’t intend it to be that way. He wanted to use a psychological approach and shame whites into seeing what they had done. He didn’t intend to separate races. When (Stokely) Carmichael and (H. Rap) Brown came along, we lost a lot of ground King had laid.”
As “extraordinary” as Barnett claims the racial situation to be in Marion, the contradiction of poor employment tends to shadow the praise.
“Unless job openings come along, there won’t be too much change in Marion. If the Chamber of Commerce and different planning committees work in as many plants as they’d like, Marion would be a much better place for blacks and whites.”
See Also:
1973, Gent’s Addition, Part 1 of 6
1973, Gent’s Addition, Part 2 of 6
1973, Gent’s Addition, Part 4 of 6
1973, Gent’s Addition, Part 5 of 6
1973, Gent’s Addition, Part 6 of 6
(Southern Illinoisan article by Sandy Blumenfeld, published August 14, 1973)