While Chinese people have been immigrating to the United States as far back as the 1848 California Gold Rush, they only moved to Cleveland in the late 1800s, numbering fewer than 100 until 1900. These settlements in Cleveland were spurred on by discrimination and acts of racial violence in the western United States. The most disturbing of these incidents was the 1871 Los Angeles Chinatown Massacre, which resulted in the lynching of 19 Chinese residents. Cleveland’s Chinatown became the theater for a wide array of historical events such as the 1911 visit by Dr. Sun Yat-sen and the Tong Wars. While the racial violence and discrimination did not cease upon entering Cleveland, the Chinese managed to build a strong community based on a love of Chinese culture, community aid, and a willingness to struggle for their democratic rights.

Chinese immigration to the United States sprang from a wide variety of factors that exposed the conditions of China itself. Corruption and opium consumption led to the disaster that was the First Opium War in 1840, which provided the foundation for the colonization of much of China. Additionally, a lack of economic opportunities in China led Chinese people to emigrate in search of gold, jobs, and education. Chinese immigrants worked in the gold mines of California and moved on to the Transcontinental Railroad. They moved east as racial discrimination grew, finding work as laundrymen and restaurant workers in cities across the United States. To protect their businesses, the Chinese formed merchant associations known as tongs, which functioned as both guilds and gangs. The feuds between tongs frequently got out of hand, leading to attacks from racist neighbors and police. Fearing the “Yellow Peril” associated with Chinese immigrants, the U.S. government passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, restricting immigration until World War II. Around the same time, a small population settled in Cleveland, creating what would become one of the nation's most notable Chinatowns.

Cleveland’s Chinese community started as a tiny enclave along Seneca Street (later West 3rd) but shifted two blocks east by the early 20th century to the block of Ontario Street immediately north of Public Square. Much like other Chinatowns across the United States, most Chinese businesses in Cleveland were restaurants or laundries. After moving to Cleveland from Chicago, Wong Kee opened the first Chinese restaurant in the city on Ontario Street and then opened a more prominent one called the Golden Dragon on the northwest side of Public Square. Businessmen formed tongs to protect their interests. Over the decades, the two main tongs that emerged were known as the Hip Sing Tong and the On Leong Tong.

While the Chinese faced a great deal of racism from surrounding communities, one notable exception was the congregation at Old Stone Church which was located on Public Square at the southern edge of the small Chinese settlement. Seeking to win converts and aid the local Chinese, the congregation sent missionaries, provided Chinese-language church services, and protected Chinese immigrants from racist policemen. Two notable members of the congregation, Mary and Marian Trapp, founded a Chinese Sunday School, and their efforts were rewarded with an embroidered depiction of Jesus Christ made by the students. With these successful efforts, the church would serve as both a school and community center. The founding of businesses and support from Old Stone Church established the Chinese as crucial contributors to the local economy and gave them local support.

With the establishment of a stable Chinese community came the concern for issues in China itself. Centuries of dissent against Manchu Qing authority in China crystalized into the Chinese Revolutionary Movement, which succeeded in 1911 after nearly two decades of trial and error. One leading figure of the movement was the exiled revolutionary and future president of the Republic of China Dr. Sun Yat-sen, who frequently visited communities in the Chinese Diaspora to raise funds for the revolution. Sun notably visited Cleveland in April 1911, raising money at Old Stone Church, and having his likeness depicted in the Cleveland Press. Months later, the Chinese Revolutionary Movement culminated in the Xinhai Revolution, ending Manchu rule and continuing the tradition of Cleveland’s Chinatown being involved in Chinese affairs.

The tongs of Cleveland had many feuds during their existence, but it was only in 1925 when what became known as the Tong Wars that they gained attention from the police. Wong Bao led the Hip Sing Tong while the brothers Wong Kee and Wong Xing swapped the responsibility of leading the On Leong Tong. The brothers’ leadership of the tong was also tied to the Golden Dragon restaurant, which they jointly managed for many years. This relationship to the tongs and the Golden Dragon restaurant also likely existed for Bennie Shea Lin, who was related to the Wong brothers and wrote a brief article on the Golden Dragon in 1964. Soon, the police arrested local Chinese residents in many raids, including many who were not in the tongs as well. Many Cleveland residents disputed these arrests, standing in solidarity with the Chinese community. One notable example was Reverend William Foulkes of Old Stone Church, who defended his Chinese neighbors over WHK radio. The raids and arrests ceased, but racial violence remained.

As the Tong Wars raged on, Chinatown moved to Rockwell Avenue. The On Leong tong had already purchased land along Rockwell Avenue and the purchase was apparently one of the causes of the Tong Wars. As the businesses on Ontario Street were torn down after the Tong Wars, many Chinese put their resources towards the new On Leong tong Headquarters on Rockwell. They donated ebony tables, chairs, drums, gongs, and other artifacts to the building. Various Chinese businesses soon moved to Rockwell and the area became the center for the Chinese community as the Great Depression began.

While the Chinese had found difficulty in settling in the United States, their love of Chinese culture and community aid gave them a sense of mission and made Cleveland’s Chinatown regionally and even nationally prominent. As in other cities, they created a strong business community that was organized via tongs. Their education at Old Stone Church attracted the attention of figures such as Sun Yat-sen. Their efforts to protect their democratic rights during the Tong Wars and support for the United States and China during World War II played a vital part in undoing the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943. Cleveland celebrated by naturalizing one Zhu Yun On under the name Bennie Shea Lin, the first Chinese American to be naturalized since 1882. The Chinese faced many difficulties during their early years such as tong feuds, racial violence, and the police, but they overcame such challenges through strong community aid and a willingness to fight for their rights.

For more (including 9 images) view the original article

John Quinn lived in Irishtown Bend, an Irish settlement on the west bank of the flats, from 1870 to 1912 and became one of the enclave’s best-known denizens. In the late 1980s, archaeologists from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History excavated his homesite, unearthing many artifacts that helped shed light on his life in Irishtown Bend. Quinn held several jobs before finally working as a police officer until he retired. As a police officer, he was well known both at Irishtown Bend, where he started out, and on Whiskey Island, where he worked the longest. Not only was he a hard worker but he also had a large family to take care of.

His story, like that of all immigrants, starts before he even set foot in the United States. John Arthur Quinn was born on June 4, 1846, in the village of Ardfinnan, Ireland, and in 1860 Quinn, his parents, and his younger siblings immigrated to the United States. Many people left Ireland during this time because of the Great Famine of 1845 to 1849. Once immigrants arrived in the United States, they had to find jobs, which became increasingly difficult due to discrimination against Irish immigrants. The Quinn family’s history resurfaces in 1860, around this time they immigrated to the United States. At this time, John started working as a mechanic for the Cuyahoga Steam Furnace Company.

In 1871, Quinn worked as a bricklayer and had a house in Irishtown Bend. This was an Irish community first established in the 1820s. One of the reasons why so many Irish immigrants settled in this area was because of the construction of the Ohio Canal, which opened in 1832. Many Irish immigrants had the opportunity to work as both as ditch diggers for the canal and on the ore docks. Between these jobs, there was a lot of draw for Irish immigrants to settle in Irishtown Bend.

Irishtown Bend was a place marred by several stigmas attached to it. One of these stigmas was due to the area’s poor and hazardous living conditions. Prior to the 1860s, Irishtown Bend was a shantytown filled with one-room shacks, most of which were poorly built. The whole family would oftentimes live in these one-room shacks. They were a huge fire hazard and in 1877 the Cleveland Plain Dealer had a story about a fire that started with a stove being knocked over, spread quickly, and burned down five shanties. The Bend was unsanitary because there were many factories located by the river. At this time, there were no regulations in place for proper waste management, making it all too easy for factories to dump waste and sewage into the river. These conditions caused the whole area to be known as the “open sewer of the city.”

Another stigma attached to Irishtown Bend was that it was notable for being very crude and unsavory. There were often fights and usually these fights ended up in the newspaper because of arrests or involvement with the police. For example, in 1889 a Plain Dealer article titled “The Irishtown Battlers” relayed how the two suspects were charged for resisting the constable and were arrested. The notoriety of Irishtown Bend did not help Irish immigrants in the area to get decent jobs because these incidences continually reinforced its reputation.

In 1870, John Quinn married a woman named Ellen, also an Irish immigrant, and in 1870 they had their first child, a boy named John. After a few years, the Quinn family moved to the north side of West River Road in Irishtown Bend. By that time, Irishtown Bend was no longer filled with one-room shacks. While there was still a stigma attached to the area as a “shantytown,” the buildings that occupied the area were of decent quality.

On May 16, 1871, John Quinn became a police officer and served for 32 years as a patrolman. Over the years many, newspaper articles featured him. His first couple of months as a police officer were spent in the Ninth Precinct. From early on it was clear that John Quinn had a “special talent for finding thieves and arresting them.” After his first year as a police officer, his record was so good when it came to dealing with difficult people that he was transferred to Whiskey Island, where he remained for the rest of his career.

Both Irishtown Bend and Whiskey Island were very difficult to patrol, but Quinn was up to the task. In dealing with difficult people the interviewer from the Plain Dealer asked him in 1903 how difficult his work was and if he had ever gotten hurt. He remarked that it was not too difficult after people realized that he meant business. As far as being hurt, he said that he had been bitten on his hands several times. He went on to say that he had no other marks and that in all the years that he had been patrolling he had never had to draw his weapon on a man. He became very well known in this area and in Irishtown Bend for being a fair but stern policeman.

On May 30, 1903, Quinn resigned from the police force. However, he remained active in the community, including serving on a committee that oversaw the creation of a park in Irishtown Bend in 1905. In 1912 the Quinn residence was demolished, and John Quinn and his family moved from Irishtown Bend. Some years after this, a May 20, 1918, obituary for Quinn revealed that he died after being ill. The obituary’s title, “Whiskey Island’s Iron ‘Mayor’ Dies,” suggests how well respected he was to be given the respectable nickname of ‘mayor’.

After John Quinn's death, Irishtown Bend continued to be demolished and all of the residents moved away. During CMNH’s 1980s archaeological dig in the area, The Quinn house at 435 West River Road was one of the properties that had been uncovered. While many artifacts were uncovered, some of the most interesting were high price ceramics and glass objects, all of which show that the Quinn residence became financially quite well off. As a policeman, Quinn most likely stayed in the area because of this connection to his community. Not only was he connected to the community, the discrimination that Irish immigrants faced meant that they often had to live in ethnic communities to avoid some of the harsher aspects of the biases that they faced. Among the other most interesting items found were ceramic insulators, demonstrating that Quinn at some point had electricity, which was very rare. This suggests that he was a diligent worker and that he most likely saved whatever money he could so that when he was older, he had a fair amount of wealth established. It also shows that he rose above the discrimination against Irish immigrants by proving that most of the stigmas applied towards Irish people were not applicable to him. Quinn’s story, illuminated through archaeological work, adds dimension to the Irish-American experience in Cleveland’s Irishtown Bend.

For more (including 9 images) view the original article

On the morning of April 6, 1970, 350 to 400 whites, mostly students, gathered outside of Collinwood High School and began throwing rocks at the school, breaking 56 windows. Teachers told the 200 black students who attended school that day to go to the third-floor cafeteria for their protection. At 10:30 a.m., the white mob entered the school and went to the second floor. They damaged furniture, broke windows, and threw clubs at the school's music director. Afraid, the black students began breaking off the legs of chairs to arm themselves and blocking the stairs leading to the third floor with tables and chairs. Luckily, the white students left the school and the black students were escorted to buses to take them home. Teachers and policemen had to form a line in order to block the whites from attacking the students who were boarding. This was just one of many serious, racially motivated confrontations that took place in Collinwood over a fifteen-year period.

The first major incidents at Collinwood High School occurred in 1965, the same time the rest of the country was seeing racial clashes in schools. After the Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional in the 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, many schools in the South became places of protests and violence. Northern schools saw the same disturbances when they began to make efforts toward greater integration. In the case of Collinwood, industrialization not only increased its population, but also its diversity. According to a Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist, "with the passage of each year, the western fringes of the Collinwood area [were] being occupied by the Negro overflow from Glenville." This change in demographics, coupled with civil rights demonstrations, caused racial tensions to surface and intensify in Collinwood, particularly at the neighborhood's high school.

Finally, after fifteen years of violence in the country's schools, radical measures were being taken in some schools and by the federal government to stop the dangerous episodes once and for all. In a New York school, a committee was formed by the mayor to prevent future violence. Other schools suspended or expelled large groups of students for any racial confrontations and hired security force guards to keep the peace. In April 1969, Senator Robert C. Byrd asked Congress to pass a law that would make the disruption of any school that received federal aid a federal crime.

Cleveland's mayor Carl Stokes was prompted to follow these examples after the dangerous episode of April 1970. The mayor kept the school open but protected it with policemen backed by National Guard units in case a severe situation should arise. Nevertheless, Collinwood High School was still the scene of other racial clashes, the worst occurring in the fall of 1974. Three black students were stabbed in September of that year, and the next month another student was fatally shot by a sixteen-year-old white student. After these disturbing incidents, the racial violence at the Collinwood school began to dwindle.

For more (including 8 images & 4 audio files) view the original article