Contributed
Members of the Dunbar community west of Madisonville in Cincinnati celebrated the installation of an Ohio History Connection marker Saturday, May 3. The community was one of the first all-Black neighborhoods in the region, settled by the families of former slaves in the mid-19th century.
According to the inscription on the marker, Dunbar, or Corsica Hollow, was an African American neighborhood on the western side of Madisonville. Its streets and lots were laid out in 1886 after Mahlon and Anna Leonard subdivided their 10-acre tract near Duck Creek and sold lots to African Americans.
Many early Dunbar residents were from the South, with some born there prior to emancipation.
Prominent early citizens included Harriet Deatherage, Eliha Parkas, Gandison Embry, Thomas Duett and James Murphy.
Dunbar was home to the New Mission Missionary Baptist Church, founded in 1907. Originally meeting in a one-room building, the extant congregation relocated to Ravenna Street in 1963.
By the late 1920s, Dunbar had about forty houses, a grocery run by Henry Lowman, and a hair salon run by Flora Hector.
Throughout its existence, institutional and environmental racism impacted the Dunbar Community. Cordelia Rollins waged a thirty-year campaign to have a city water main installed in Corsica Place, finally winning in 1940. Residents protested soot and ash from the Dunbar garbage incinerator, demanding the same pollution controls given to White neighborhoods. During the early 1970s, construction of the Red Bank Expressway isolated the community and resulted in the demolition of about ten Dunbar homes.
In 1992, the City of Cincinnati used eminent domain to acquire and demolish the remaining houses, relocate the residents, and re-zone the area.
While many original Dunbar families remain in Madisonville, the last remnant of the once-thriving community disappeared when the New Mission Church was demolished in 1995.
According to a statement released by the Cincinnati Preservation, “While the destruction of the homes and physical neighborhood was tragic and unjust, the sense of family, unity perseverance and community of those that lived or had family live in the Dunbar neighborhood is still strong and inspiring today.’’
The historical marker was sponsored by the William G. Pomeroy Foundation, New Mission Baptist Church, City of Cincinnati, Madisonville Community Council and the Ohio History Connection.