Cincinnati connections

Published June 13, 2010 at 10:22 a.m.
Several artifacts on display at the Cincinnati Museum Center as part of America I AM: The African American Imprint have local connections.They include: Flag belonging to the Black Brigade of Cincinnati, the first group of African-Americans to be organized for American military purposes. In the fall of 1862, when Confederate forces threatened Cincinnati, the city called on local black men to dig trenches and erect barricades in Northern Kentucky. This flag flew over their work area. Gold medal won by Cincinnati native William DeHart Hubbard for the long jump at the 1924 Olympics in Paris. Hubbard was the first African-American to win an Olympic gold medal in an individual event. The torch that University of Cincinnati Bearcat and NBA great Oscar Robertson carried during the 1996 summer Olympics torch relay...Pullman porter jacket from the 1940s, when Cincinnati's Union Terminal was one of the busiest train stations in the nation. Pullman porters who worked in luxury Pullman sleeping cars were mostly black men, who worked long hours for little pay. In 1937, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters became the first black union to bargain successfully with a major corporation...Negro League pennant from the Cincinnati Clowns, a professional baseball team that began in Cincinnati in 1943 before moving to Indianapolis in 1946. Ministerial robe belonging to civil rights leader Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, who led the Greater New Light Baptist Church in North Avondale from 1966-2006, and the Presidential Citizens Medal that President Bill Clinton presented to him in 2001


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