Young Black sees some adults as race’s big problem
“I am a citizen of Marion, a citizen that lives in Gent’s. I don’t consider myself a black man, just a man. Just Donald Allen, not black Donald Allen.”
But the community of Marion, Allen feels, has not let him or other young blacks drop the added labels of definition. Not that he is ashamed of his race, simply prouder of being a man. Continue reading
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. Continue reading
Marion Pastor Maintains
The Rev. Robert Buchanan, pastor of the Bethel AME Church, Marion, doesn’t like the psychological walls around his home.
He lives on Monroe Street in the heart of Gent’s addition, but the barriers to which he refers don’t surround a circumscribed area. They surround a people. His people.
“Gent’s Addition is a ghetto. It didn’t have to be at first, but restrictions both inside and out have sustained the old ghetto way of life.
By a ghetto, the Rev. Buchanan means “a place where low-income people live in sub-standard housing without the aid other parts of the city receive.” Continue reading
Is it a ghetto surrounded by psychological barriers?
This is the first in a series of six articles by Sandy Blumenfeld about Marion’s “community within a community,” Gent’s addition, the heart of Marion’s black community.
A community within a community, a fixed area within an expanding city. Continue reading
Danny Cox, jet fighter pilot and motivational speaker, was born in 1934 to Virgil Cox and Zella (Smothers) Cox on S. Madison Street. Danny’s father, Virgil, at one time owned Madison Street Market at 601 S. Madison, which is now long gone and also worked in the coal mines. His mother, Zella, was the sister of Ralph “Speed” Smothers, owner of Speed’s Confectionary on the square in Marion for years and J. Paul Smothers, postmaster at Marion for years. The father of all three was John H. Smothers who served on the Marion Police force in the 1920’s and the mother was Edna (Tippy) Smothers. Continue reading
