[gentle guitar] - At the turn of the century, Beloit's growing economy was fueled by European immigrants looking for work, but their arrival slowed with the start of World War I.
This created an opportunity for Beloit's Black community to grow as Black families moved north.
From 1910 into the 1970s, roughly six million Black people left the South to escape oppression and look for better employment.
This movement would later be called the "Great Migration."
– Cheryl Caldwell: The North, I believe, appealed to Black people because it gave them more opportunities to kind of escape the Jim Crow laws that were still being enforced in the South.
They knew better jobs up North, and better education, just a better living.
[plucky folk guitar] In wanting to know more about my family's migration to Beloit, I started to research when a lot of Blacks came to Beloit.
Very little was mentioned about the African American history.
I came across the name of Tom Polaski.
He is one walking encyclopedia on the Great Migration and Fairbanks.
– Tom Polaski: The Great Migration actually involved almost every southern state.
Anywhere where there's a strong industrial base that offered decent and consistent pay, you begin to get migration of Black people coming in from the South.
- With a shortage of European immigrant labor, Beloit industries needed new workers.
Fairbanks Morse found a solution to their employee shortage through a Black janitor named John McCord.
– Cheryl Caldwell: John McCord was from Pontotoc, Mississippi.
Migrated north as a young man.
He came in contact with personnel manager, Eugene Burlingame.
John McCord was going to go home to Pontotoc, Mississippi, for the summer to visit his parents, and he was asked by Burlingame, "Hey, do you know any other good workers?
If so, bring them back."
In September of 1916, John brought 18 men from Pontotoc, Mississippi, back with him.
And that was really the beginning of the migration of Black men and families from Pontotoc.
And so, within a matter of years, a lot of the residents in Beloit were from Pontotoc.
There were other areas that they recruited, but most of them came from Pontotoc, Mississippi.
And so, they did call it the "Pontotoc Up North."
– Tom Polaski: Most of the Black migrants that were recruited by Fairbanks were placed either in the foundry or in the powerhouse.
In fact, John McCord never made mention of the foundry.
He did not want anybody to have second thoughts about coming north.
What he did emphasize, though, was the 22 and 1/2 cents per hour.
What they didn't realize is that Fairbanks could save five to six cents per man-hour.
Fairbanks would not have to pay as much to its Black labor as its white labor.
But even though the wage is lower, it's a better wage than what they were earning in the South.
- When Black workers saved up enough money, they paid for their families to move to Beloit, causing a large jump in the Black population.
From 1910 to 1920, Beloit's Black population grew from just 60 to 834 residents.
The influx of new families coming to town created a housing crisis.
– Wanda Sloan: The Black workers that migrated here were promised housing and employment.
The housing part didn't work out as well.
The Eclipse area homes were housing for Fairbanks workers.
The neighborhood was built up adjacent to Fairbanks for people that were working there.
There were about maybe 140 single family homes built for those employees.
Eventually, they could purchase those homes.
However, it was only for the white employees.
So, when Fairbanks Morse had to find housing for Black workers, the debate over integrated housing arose.
There was a lot of objection.
So, the Fairbanks Flats were constructed in about 1917.
The Fairbanks Flats were comprised of about four blocks of separate units.
Each unit had two bedrooms and one bath.
- Originally called the "Edgewater Flats," the buildings were soon nicknamed the "Fairbanks Flats" and, later, simply "the Flats."
Modest in design and construction, the Flats are the only example of housing built specifically for Black workers in the state of Wisconsin.
The Black families who had moved North to escape racial oppression still fought to overcome discrimination in their new home.
– Cheryl Caldwell: A lot of the white organizations did not let Blacks join.
So, they created their own organizations.
There, within steps of the Edgewater Flats, was the Black YMCA that Fairbanks built.
That was a vital place for the Black community.
The Black churches in Beloit were important because it was important in their upbringing down South.
And when they came North, they weren't going to be without a church.
It was their support system, their refuge.
It was a place for them to gather, worship.
In 1919, Beloit formed the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
That was the first chapter in the state of Wisconsin.
So, they began to tackle some discrimination issues that were going on in the city.
- The Flats themselves provided a place for people to build community.
– Wanda Sloan: I describe it as a village because everyone knew everyone.
Even when new tenants came in, we were able to meet each other right away, greet each other.
If they had children, that was just a bonus for the rest of us kids.
We were kind of self-contained.
And we had to create activities, games, and any socialization that we wanted to do; it was contained pretty much within the Flats.
So, we had a lot of fun in the village.
- The Flats housed generations of Beloit residents, and the community grew to encompass the surrounding neighborhood.
The Flats fell into disrepair, and in order to protect the buildings, they were put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
Despite their historical value, the Flats were in danger of being torn down.
– Wanda Sloan: I grew up in the Fairbanks Flats.
Did I want to see the wrecking ball?
No way.
No way!
The city got the land and those apartments by eminent domain.
They purchased them for demolition.
And we were fortunate enough to have a group of people very small indeed, to want to get into this fight.
It was the Fairbanks Flats Revitalization Committee.
That's who we were.
But our mission was to save the Flats.
There were a few of us that were intent on those houses, those units being salvaged, reconstructed, remodeled so that people could live in them again.
We wanted housing for people.
It was just amazing.
The small band of people that got together to salvage the Flats.
And so, more and more interest began to kind of level up.
- The Fairbanks Flats Revitalization Committee's community outreach and hard work with city council members paid off.
In June 2009, the committee members took part in the ribbon cutting of the restored Flats.
– Wanda Sloan: It's important that Fairbanks Flats were saved.
Regardless of how some people wanted to erase this from history, it's here.
It's still standing.
I don't ever want the Black history of Beloit to be diminished, erased, or forgotten.
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