About this story
Free Press Indiana, the sponsoring organization for Mirror Indy, is partnering this summer with Whitewater Publications to tell stories in Rush County, Indiana, that otherwise would not be told.
Free Press Indiana intern Jessica Velez can be reached at Jessica.velez@freepressindiana.org.
Wedged between East Seventh Street and North Fort Wayne Road lives a community pivotal to the development and history of Rushville.
The 1.5%.
That’s the small percentage of Black people who live in Rushville, a city of about 6,000 an hour southeast of Indianapolis. It would seem easy with a demographic of 91% white, 5.6% white (Hispanic), 3.15% biracial to forget the previous and existing impact of the Black community in Rushville.
However, despite making up a small percentage of people in the city, many Black residents recall growing up in Rushville as an experience they wouldn’t trade for anything.
The bad, the good and the resilient
Beatrice Davis, 84, who moved to Rushville from Franklin County in southeast Indiana in 1965 after marrying her husband, James Davis, will never forget the first time she heard the Black side of town referred to as the prejudiced term “Bucktown.”
Her son James “Jay” Davis would often get pizza on Main Street with his friends who were white and Black alike. One day, he invited his friends over to play in the big yard in front of their house and found out one of his white friends wasn’t allowed to go to his house.
In fact, he wasn’t allowed to visit any of the houses on the other side of the abandoned train tracks that existed as a physical and metaphorical indication of where the Black side of town was.
He explained: “I can’t cross the tracks. Bucktown is up there.”
To this day, that word has stuck with Beatrice as a presence of prejudice in Rushville. However, she never allowed that label to diminish her family’s experience in the city. Beatrice knew she had found her forever home because of the way the community treated her and her children despite what others thought of Black people.
For a brief period of time before she lived in Rushville, Beatrice visited North Carolina and encountered racism like she never had before. Walking up to the local movie theater with her two daughters in hand, she was baffled to learn that she couldn’t use the front door of the theater, and neither could the rest of the Black community that lived there.
Instead, they were forced to use the back door.
The mutual respect that Beatrice found in Rushville was a surprise that showed her the town was a special place where she could plant her roots.
“This is where I live, and this is where I’ll probably die because it’s a beautiful town,” Beatrice said.
Black people began moving to Rushville in the 1820s
Black settlement in Rush County dates back to the 1820s, but the surrounding area wasn’t always the safest place to be Black in.
Every county surrounding Rush County has a town historically regarded or classified as a sundown town. A sundown town refers to an entire community, town, city or county that for decades was kept all white on purpose. Oftentimes these towns prevented Black families from moving in, working and staying overnight.
Rush County avoided that same pattern, in part, because of free Black settlers that moved to Rushville as early as the 1820s and ’30s. Euncie Trotter, director of the Black Heritage Preservation Program for Indiana Landmarks, said her research shows that Black settlements existed all over Indiana prior to the Civil War, and more specifically, a rural Black community named the Beech Settlement existed in Rush County.
Black migrants often stayed in the settlement communities because there was strength in numbers, Trotter said. The Beech Settlement had 400 Black residents by 1835, according to the Indiana Historical Society. Black families escaped Southern slave states including North Carolina and Virginia and migrated north for a better future. Many landed in Ohio until they were given the opportunity to buy cheap government land and plant their roots in Rush County. These roots grew into job opportunities, a historical school and a community bonded together through hardships.
Still, from the 1920s to ’40s, the KKK made various appearances in Rushville for meetings, lunches and parades — the local newspaper announced a gathering in 1923 that was expected to draw 100,000 Klansmen to the fairgrounds — until local residents had enough.
When Beatrice moved to Rushville, she heard stories of the last time the KKK tried to show its presence in the city and tried to “get things turned around their way.” She was told that Black and white neighbors alike rallied together to show that Rushville’s values were different.
“I remember when they were telling me about it. The way our people gathered together up here,” Beatrice said. “The men ran them out of town, and they never came back again.”
The decisions older generations made to show that Rushville was an accepting community greatly contributed to the following generation’s success.
The generation of adventurers
Brown, bricked-up windows and knee-high weeds stirred most people away from the old brick Booker T. Washington School. Cars whipped past and generations grew older without batting an eye at the crumbling building. Multiple holes in the roof showed the years it had weathered, but the Washington school remained on the corner of East Seventh Street silently pleading for revival.
The broken-down building wasn’t always in such poor shape. When it was built in 1905, it served for 27 years as the local elementary school for Black children. It provided jobs for Black teachers and an opportunity for Black children to learn in a safe and accepting environment. Events connected to the Black community were often held on the second floor of the building, as well.
Couples were married there, the Rushville Chapter of the NAACP met there and politicians often used the upper room to create trust with the community.
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However, after dwindling enrollment, the Rushville School Board unanimously agreed to close the school in 1932 for financial reasons. The building was still used to host events until the lack of upkeep on it made it unrecognizable.
What was once a haven for the Black community in Rushville was deserted.
Until curious kids like Jay Davis, now 53, saw its potential. Not as a community center or safe haven but rather as a front yard that would serve as the best “football field” in town for neighborhood kids to play at. The inside of the building may not have been used, but the outside would soon stand as a symbol for a blooming young generation in Rushville.
Jay saw Rushville as a “place for adventure.” He spent most of his childhood playing baseball, basketball, football and riding bikes around his neighborhood with his friends.
Jay’s fun childhood games evolved into him becoming a star football player at Rushville Consolidated High School and later playing at the Division I level at Indiana University.
While everyone in the city loved watching him on the field, Jay knew football had always been much more than a game to the community. It was a chance to support those they cared about.
That kind of kindness and empathy was on bold display when Jay’s family found themselves dealing with a tragedy that flipped their lives upside down. A tragedy that was foreign to Rushville until it happened to one of their own.
In 1968, Rushville-native Carol Jenkins-Davis, Jay’s cousin, was murdered by two white men while selling encyclopedias in Martinsville. Jenkins-Davis’ death was one that shocked the entire community of Rushville, especially her brother, Larry Davis, and cousin, Lawrence Davis, who had to play a football game in Martinsville a few short weeks after they buried Carol.
Jay may not have been alive to witness it, but he was often told about how the community made a decision to support Jenkins’ family and ensured that her brothers felt safe during that game. It didn’t take very long for Jay to realize that the same loyalty was passed along to him when he encountered racism while living in Rushville.
If something happened, “My friends would be the first ones to be like, ‘What do you want us to do, Jay?’” Jay said.
What allowed Jay to brush hurtful experiences off his shoulders was not only the support he had from his community but also that he recognized the racist comments he heard often came from people who lacked relationships with anyone in the Black community.
This wasn’t a common occurrence for Jay. His family name had paved a way of respect for him since the time his great aunt moved to Rushville in the early 1900s. Jay felt that Rushville had always supported their own no matter the color of their skin.
“This community rallied around our family when our cousin (Carol Jenkins-Davis) was murdered. This community rallied around our family when the Klan was trying to come in,” Jay said. “Rushville said, ‘No that’s not who we are. We’re something different.’”
‘Am I safe?’
For some Black children who grew up in Rushville, it was their safe haven.
Lana Hayes, 49, lived in Rushville for 20 years and said it had its advantages and disadvantages. She often struggled with bullying and finding acceptance in her community, but was constantly surrounded by the love and support of her family.
It wasn’t perfect, but to Hayes, nothing really is perfect.
It was hurtful when someone Hayes thought was her friend calling her the N-word. However, the true friends she made never tolerated anyone using the derogatory term.
“If someone did say the N-word, everyone went against that person,” said Hayes. “They were like ‘You don’t say that. You’re wrong.’”
The struggles she experienced in her childhood inspired her to write and self-publish the children’s book “Lola and the Magic Dress.” The book touches on topics of diversity, love, serving and bullying. Hayes wrote the book in hopes of inspiring the next generation of children to not fit in but rather to understand that it’s “OK to stand alone and be individual.”
Despite the hardships, Hayes enjoyed her childhood. She would spend time at the old Rushville Roller Rink and at the Princess Theater watching whatever movies were playing.
Hayes moved out of Rushville in 1996 but took a rural twang and her grandmother’s recipes with her to Indianapolis. While she said being Black in Rushville wasn’t perfect, she recognizes that nothing is perfect. Rushville showed her that no matter your color, love should be the center of all.
“At the end of the day, our blood is the same color,” Hayes said. “We’re one human race. We just happen to be different colors.”
Repaired and revived
As the years have passed, the Black population in Rushville has grown smaller. Newer generations have left Rushville to grow their families and build a life for themselves elsewhere, but the impact of their families’ names will exist in Rushville history as long as the town stands.
As Rushville’s second-annual Juneteenth event commenced, the now-restored, statuesque Washington Building peered over the crowd. Children buzzed around with ice cream-stickied fingers and smiles on their faces. Families and friends melted into “welcome home” embraces and shared stories of the past and present.
People gathered at the event to celebrate Black independence and liberation. They saw no better place to do it than at the Washington Building.
Dark green paneled windows have replaced the bricked-up windows of the building, and a sturdy harrow gray roof has patched up the holes that clearly displayed the building’s old age. The vibrant green lawn of the building may no longer lend itself to childhood football games, but the original purpose of the Washington Building has been restored. Nurtured by the dreams and perseverance of Black residents who saw its potential when others didn’t.
The 1.5% may dwindle, but their impact is written in Rushville history.
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