en en en en en en en en en de en en en en en en en en en en en en en el en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en pl en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en de en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en
In 1903, the year John O. Holly was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, we were a nation of 80.6 million people; a first class postage stamp cost two cents; Henry Ford organized the Ford Motor Company; the Wright Brothers made their historic first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina; and Teddy Roosevelt was president.
In 1935, at age 32, Holly would become the driving force in establishing the Future Outlook League, which grew to become one of the most powerful organizations in Cleveland demanding — and achieving — better economic treatment for blacks. It was a long and rocky road he had to travel to win victories in the end, but the hallmark of his journey was his tenacious perseverance and determination. When something got in his way he found a way around, over, or though it. He had a tremendous sense of vision, and better yet, the ability to transmit what he could envision to others. If there is such a thing as a natural born leader, John O. Holly fit that description to a “T.”
But nothing came easy for Holly, especially early in his life. When his family moved to Rhoda, Virginia, at age 15 he quit school to work in the coal mines doing hard, dangerous and dirty work. It’s doubtful that the memory of those dark and dank coalmines ever left him, and perhaps inspired him in later years.
World War I was just concluding in Europe and black soldiers, as they had in all of our nation’s previous armed conflicts going back to the Revolutionary War, had served bravely … only to be treated as second-class citizens upon their return to the United States. The lack of prejudice black American soldiers experienced in Europe would later set the stage for the call for better treatment at home, and Holly would become one of the men who would call the loudest and longest.
Holly’s family would move soon again, this time to Roanoke, Virginia where he returned to school and graduated from Roanoke Harrison High School. After the family moved to Detroit, he began working in his father’s trucking business while attending the Cass Technical Commercial School. Holly’s father, in addition to running his own business, was involved in organizing autoworkers, which must have made a great impression on him as a young man and no doubt was instrumental in determining the path Holly’s life would take in later years.
In 1926, Holly met and fell in love with Leola Lee. He married her and moved to Cleveland, the city in which she was raised. They had two sons, Arthur and Marvin. Holly initially found work in Cleveland as a porter at Halle Brothers Co., the most elegant department store in Cleveland. After being laid off from that job, he found employment as a clerk at the Federal Sanitation Company, a chemical manufacturing company, and then later as a chauffeur.
When Holly drove his employer to Chicago for the 1933 World’s Fair, where, according to the definitive book on Holly and his era, Alabama North, written by Kimberly L. Phillips, “he witnessed blacks with jobs and managerial positions that had been won through boycotts against while-owned stores.” Phillips further writes, “Holly must have heard the excited buzz that fourteen inexperienced black employees hired at the South Center Department Store had multiplied to become 60 percent of the 185 employees.”
Upon returning to Cleveland Holly excitedly recruited M. Milton Lewis, a college-educated black who could only find work selling insurance, and Harvey Johnson, who had a law degree from Western Reserve Law School, but was excluded from employment at white law firms. He held a meeting at his home to form the Future Outlook League (FOL) in 1935, with Holly serving as president, Lewis as vice-president, and Johnson as legal counsel.
From the very beginning, Holly’s insistence on direct, in-your-face action in the streets repelled the black middle class while drawing in the working class and those in need of employment. He was castigated as an “outsider” and a “foreigner” by the successful blacks that were more accustomed to negotiations and patience in their dealings with whites.
Despite his short stature, dark skin, and his pronounced southern accent (which many in the black middle class ridiculed, and former Cleveland Mayor Carl B. Stokes unfortunately referenced in somewhat uncharitable terms in his book Promises of Power) he was embraced by the black unemployed that found his presence and urgency appealing.  But there was precedence.
A few years after arriving in New York City, Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican by birth, had launched the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). By mid-1919, the organization had grown to over two million members with the simple message that blacks should own their own businesses. The reason for the explosive membership of his organization was simple: The NAACP, which had been formed in 1909, was comprised of whites and lighter-skinned blacks. Rumors persisted that if a black wasn’t as light-skinned as a brown paper bag they couldn’t gain entrance into the organization. This left out the vast majority of blacks, who eagerly joined Garvey’s organization. When Holly’s organization, which was built from the grassroots up came along, the thousands of blacks that felt excluded by the elitist NAACP had found a home.
Nonetheless, there still was widespread disinterest in the FOL in Cleveland by the established black power structure until William O. Walker, who had recently purchased the Call & Post, endorsed Holly’s efforts. It would prove to be a powerful endorsement that worked both ways. Eventually white businesses began to advertise in Walker’s publication, which Holly adroitly used to lambast older and more cautious leaders as “moss back reactionaries.”
The earliest “Don’t Buy” boycott appeared in Chicago in the late twenties. Black men who had served in uniform for their country were embittered and emboldened. They reasoned that if they had been good enough to fight and die, why weren’t they good enough to be hired, especially in their own neighborhoods? The first target was a small chain of grocery stores in Chicago’s black ghetto that refused to employ persons of color. Referred to as “Spend Your Money Where You Can Work,” this first campaign sparked a larger boycott against the Woolworth stores (which, at the time was one of the country’s largest national chains).
The Woolworth’s that refused to hire blacks was located in the middle of Chicago’s “Black Belt.” An aggressive black newspaper, the Chicago Whip, published fiery editorials endorsing the campaign. News of Chicago’s successful boycott sparked similar campaigns across the country, particularly in New York between 1932 and 1941.
The black press, which largely had been — and to some degree still is — ignored by the white mainstream media throughout much of our nation’s history would play a pivotal role in spreading the word about the boycotts and other battles confronting the black community nationwide. Newspapers like the Pittsburgh Courier, The Chicago Defender, the Baltimore Afro-American, the Amsterdam News and Cleveland’s Call & Post constantly agitated on the issue of jobs for blacks in their own communities. Robert Lee Vann, the Courier’s dynamic editor supposedly even brought the issue up at the White House in the spring of 1941.
As Call & Post publisher Walker occasionally recounted, about a dozen black newspaper publishers were summoned to the White House by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as America was about to enter World War II. Many of the papers had been publishing editorials questioning why blacks should join the military for service in yet another foreign war, after being treated so shabbily upon returning home from World War I.
President Roosevelt allegedly made both threats and promises at the meeting. He told the publishers that as long as the U.S. was not in a state of war, they could write and publish whatever they wanted. But he cautioned them that once a state of war existed, to editorialize against it constituted sedition, a crime for which he would have them arrested and imprisoned.
But Roosevelt knew they had a valid point and made them a promise. Don’t argue against the war effort and he would integrate the military after the conclusion of the conflict. They agreed, and while Roosevelt wasn’t alive to keep his word, his successor, President Harry Truman, did make good on the promise.
Walker said that before the meeting was over, Vann brought up the issue to the president about blacks not being able to get jobs in their own communities. Roosevelt said that while it wasn’t a federal issue, he would see what he could do to help the situation. It was Walker’s belief that Roosevelt was only interested in getting them out of the Oval Office as quickly as possible, and he never lifted a finger to help on the jobs issue.
With or without the president’s help, the issue was gaining momentum around the country.  Following Chicago’s example, blacks in Brooklyn and Harlem instituted “Don’t Buy” campaigns against various local white stores. Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., one of the most powerful black men in the U.S., was extremely aggressive on the issue and helped to place blacks in Harlem in hundreds of white-collar jobs.
This was during the height of the Depression and many folks, including whites, were out of work. Unionism was on the rise, and so was Communism. The FOL made strategic alliances with any groups that could help them advance their cause, and they did something the old-line black organizations had been reluctant to do: They put women in leadership roles, which was unprecedented.
Women like Marge Robinson and Isabelle Shaw were members of the “Investigation Committee,” which, again according to Phillips, “examined store practices and met with owners.” Most of the owners were reluctant to change their hiring practices. Holley resorted to picketing, which eventually yielded results.
According to Phillips, “Over the second half of the 1930s thousands of employed and unemployed African Americans, many of them migrants, were schooled in independent radical activism under the aegis of the league’s boycotts and meetings.” But jobs were not all that Holly was after. He wrote to a friend: “These men and women who are being placed in various stores will take the places of the white man and be the merchants of tomorrow with the experience acquired under the white man’s instruction.”  He clearly wanted business ownership, similar to Garvey.
Saturday was the busiest shopping day of the week and when blacks showed up at the Woodland Market at 55th Street and Woodland with their signs that read “Fools Trade Where They Can’t Work” enough shoppers turned away to cause storeowners to begin rethinking their hiring policies. In some cases, blacks were hired within days, in others it would take weeks or more of picketing.
Other store owners, like white southerner Frank Barnes (who owned a store on East 73rd and Kinsman Avenue), remained recalcitrant and went to court to obtain an injunction that stopped the picketing. But Holly and his followers went door-to-door with leaflets and eventually drove Barnes Grocery Store out of business.
Holly and the other leaders of the FOL sometimes faced tear gas, and at other times were arrested. Yet they persevered and eventually persuaded storeowners to hire blacks in decent numbers. When blacks got hired they joined the FOL and became exceptionally loyal to the organization. The membership roles began to grow to the point where the established black leadership could no longer ignore Holly and the FOL. It was turning into a potent force, one to be reckoned with. And then Holly turned the attention of the organization towards downtown,
I clearly recall a 1947 protest at The May Co. a department store that was located in downtown Cleveland, which still refused to hire black sales clerks. Picket lines formed in front of the store — black folks carrying signs that read, “Don’t Shop Where You Can’t Work.” My mother was carrying one of the signs as I stood across Euclid Avenue with my father.
He was one of the dozen or so black men — bar owners, numbers runners, professional boxers — standing silently across the street from the protest (a few with pistols in their pockets) observing. Others also brought their children along to watch history unfold. I was four years old at the time.
The white police officers glowered at the knot of black men, and the black men glowered right back. I recall Holly and another man crossing the street to briefly huddle with the black men and then walking over and speaking with the police officers before going back to talk to the demonstrators. The term “shuttle diplomacy” had yet to be invented, but Holly had already mastered it. In short order, May Co. officials agreed to hire three black sales clerks. It wasn’t long after pickets appeared that Ohio Bell followed suit and hired Artha Woods (who went on to serve on the Cleveland City Council, and later as clerk of that body) as its first black female telephone operator in Cleveland.
The next month, I was among the first group of black kids to ride the merry-go-round at the previously segregated Euclid Beach Park. In 1946, City Councilman Charles V. Carr had introduced an ordinance to make it illegal for amusement park operators to discriminate. And, by the summer of ’47 (after some protests had turned violent) that battle was also won and the park was integrated.
Just as Birmingham, Ala., is known as the birthplace of the black civil rights movement, Cleveland can rightly claim to be the birthplace of the black economic and political rights movement in this country in large part due to the efforts of Holly, Carr and their associates.
When “downtown” success finally came, the FOL didn’t rest on its accomplishments. They forged ahead and expanded their efforts to include factories and other businesses where blacks had been historically underrepresented, and strengthened alliances with unions.
Holly was an acknowledged master at organizing. Active in the Democratic Party he took on Herman Finkle for the City Council seat in Ward 12 in 1937, which at the time encompassed much of the Central neighborhood. Although he lost, his zeal and skills caught the attention of Democrats statewide. He founded the statewide Federation of County Democrats of Ohio, Inc.
Carl Stokes, the first black mayor of a major American city, (in addition to the unkind remarks mentioned earlier), paid great homage to Holly in his autobiography. He wrote, “… when I was twenty-one, I had the privilege of learning about the realities of politics from John O. Holly.”
Stokes went on to say that Holly was among the most remarkable men he’d ever known, and that as a child growing up in the projects on 40th Street near Quincy Avenue, like so many others in the community, he came to revere the man as a hero.
“We didn’t call it black pride back then,” writes Stokes, “but if there was ever black consciousness and pride in Cleveland, it came though John O. Holly. He came along at a time when Negroes lacked any leadership from within. And to be black-complexioned even minimized your mobility within the ghetto.” But nothing stopped Holly.
Unlike many other so-called black leaders of that era — and to some extent even today — Holly took men like Carl Stokes under his wing and schooled them in the art of politics, thus preparing a new generation of leaders.  Stokes readily admitted that without this tutelage he probably would never have become the nation’s first black mayor.
Holly died in December of 1974 at age 71 at Richmond General Hospital, leaving behind his second wife Marguerite; He was interred in Highland Park Cemetery. Cleveland’s main post office at 30th and Orange Avenue is named for John O. Holly, Cleveland’s original black leader.
Teaching Cleveland Digital is a repository of writing, pictures and videos to support the teaching of Cleveland, Northeast Ohio and Ohio @ www.teachingcleveland.org. View all posts by
Author Posted on July 27, 2013Categories Black Political Power in Ohio Pre World War 2
Previous Previous post: News Aggregator Archive 8 (7/6/13 – 12/28/13)
Next Next post: Cleveland’s Original Black Leader: John O. Holly By Mansfield Frazier
History of the Cleveland-area’s Hispanic population and where most live now, Sept 27, 2022
Great Lakes Science Center marks 25 years, keeps evolving, educating, entertaining, Cleveland.com, September 27, 2022
Candidates for Cuyahoga County Executive: Chris Ronayne and Lee Weingart debate. The City Club of Cleveland 9.20.22
A bumpy road to regionalism by Jay Miller, Crain’s Cleveland Business 9/19/22
Updating the list of Cleveland’s most influential people: Brent Larkin July 17, 2022
“A Man is Passing” Poem written on the death of CLE Mayor Tom L Johnson 1912 by Edmund Vance Cooke
11 weeks after Jackie Robinson’s debut, Larry Doby arrived By Frederic J. Frommer/Washington Post July 5, 2022
Will Cleveland Ever Develop Its Lakefront? Cleveland Magazine August 2022
The Rise and Fall of the Cleveland Air Races by Vince Guerrieri June, 2022
A look back at 9 previous downtown Cleveland lakefront proposals that didn’t move ahead – Plain Dealer May 30, 2022
Myths surround ‘Untouchable’ lawman Eliot Ness. What’s the truth? Washington Post June 1, 2022
Tour the tunnels below Cleveland’s Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument – May 3, 2022
CLEVELAND: AN HISTORICAL OVERVIEW from Encyclopedia of Cleveland History (1987)
Cleveland’s 50 Most Important Moments of the Past 50 Years – Cleveland Magazine, April 2022
Categories Select Category Timeline of Cleveland/NE Ohio The Western Reserve 1796-1820    “Cleveland’s First Neighborhood – The Flats”    Along the Cuyahoga    Connecticut Western Reserve    Explorations Pre 1788    Lorenzo Carter    Moses Cleaveland    Oliver H. Perry/Battle of Lake Erie/War of 1812    Samuel and Hannah Huntington    Speculation, Sales and Real Estate    The Firelands    Women in the Western Reserve Pre Industrial 1820-1865    Building the Railroads    Cleveland Annexation of Ohio City    Columbus Bridge Street War    Leonard Case Sr./Leonard Case Jr.    The Abolition Movement    The Civil War and Cleveland    The Civil War and Ohio    The Erie and Ohio Canals Industrial Revolution 1865-1900    Amasa Stone    Charles F. Brush    Cleveland and the Gilded Age-student documentary    Cleveland in the Gilded Age by Dr. John Grabowski    Cleveland’s Millionaires    Flora Stone Mather    Henry Chisholm and Cleveland Rolling Mill Company    Henry Flagler in Cleveland    James A. Garfield    Jeptha Wade    John D. Rockefeller    John Hay in Cleveland    Mark Hanna    Maternity Homes    Millionaires Row    Municipal Government in Cleveland 1876-1900    Orphanages, 1851-1933    Philanthropy and Charity    Samuel Mather    School Reform in 1892    Settlement Movement    The Flats 1880 to 1920    William McKinley Progressive Era: 1900-1920    “Cleveland in 1912” The Lecture (Video)    1900-1919 A Retrospective Year-by-Year Timeline    Brand Whitlock    Charles E. Ruthenberg and Socialism in Cleveland    Charles Willard “Billy” Stage    Cleveland 1912: Civitas Triumphant    Cleveland Economic History -The First 200 Years    Cleveland Foundation    Collinwood School Fire    Daniel Morgan    Edward W. Bemis    Frederic C. Howe    George Barnsdale Cox    Harris Cooley    Hazen Pingree    Henry George    Henry Thomas Hunt Mayor of Cincinnati    Herbert C. Bigelow    How Cleveland Women Got the Vote    Misc Articles on the Progressive Period in Ohio    Myron Herrick    Newton D. Baker    Ohio Constitutional Convention of 1912    Peter Witt    Photo Gallery    Ralph Hayes    Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones    The City Club    The Group Plan (The Mall)    Theodore E. Burton    Tom L. Johnson    World War 1 in Cleveland City Managers Political Bosses 1920’s    1920-1929 A Retrospective Year-by-Year Timeline    Charles W. Chestnutt    City Manager Government    Cleveland Clinic Origins    Fred Kohler    Garrett A. Morgan    Jane Edna Hunter    Linda Eastman and the Cleveland Public Library    Margaret Bourke-White    Maurice Maschke    Police Actions Against Asians in 1920s Cleveland    Political Bosses    The Cleveland Orchestra    The Metroparks    Walter Burr Gongwer    Warren G. Harding in Ohio    William Hopkins 1930’s    1930-1939 A Retrospective Year-by-Year Timeline    Eliot Ness    Frances Payne Bolton    Great Lakes Exposition    Harold Burton    John O. Holly    Public Housing / Ernest Bohn    Steel Industry    The Depression in Cleveland/Ohio    The New Deal in Ohio    The Van Sweringens    WPA in Cleveland African American Migration    African American History in Cleveland    Black Political Power in Ohio Pre World War 2    Notable Blacks of Cleveland from Cleveland Memory World War 2 – Post War 1940’s    1940-1949 A Retrospective Year-by-Year Timeline    Bill Veeck and the 1948 Cleveland Indians    East Ohio Gas Explosion 1944    Frank Lausche    Karamu House    World War 2 in Cleveland 1950’s Suburbanism    1950-1959 A Retrospective Year-by-Year Timeline    An Overview of the Suburbs    Civil Defense in Cleveland    Cleveland Economic History -The First 200 Years    Cleveland Museum of Art    Cyrus Eaton    Dorothy Fuldheim    Housing    Rock and Roll    The Creation of the Highway System in NE Ohio    Urban Renewal/Erieview    Viktor Schreckengost Carl Stokes – Civil Rights 1960’s    1960-1969 A Retrospective Year-by-Year Timeline    Carl Stokes    Cleveland in the 1960s incl. Mike Roberts Essay    Cleveland’s Muhammad Ali Summit, 45 Years Later    Cuyahoga River Fire    Hough Riots    Lee-Seville Public Housing Controversy    Martin Luther King Jr. in Cleveland    Robert F. Kennedy Speech At Cleveland City Club    School Desegregation Crisis of 1963-64    Stanley Tolliver    The Glenville Riots 1968 Ralph Perk – Dennis Kucinich 1970’s    1970-1979 A Retrospective Year-by-Year Timeline    Cleveland in the 1970s (incl. Mike Roberts essay)    Community Organizing in Cleveland 1975-1985    Dennis Kucinich    James Rhodes    Kent State Shootings May 4, 1970    More than a bus ride: Deseg. of the Cleve Schools    Muny Light vs. Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co.    Ralph Perk    WMMS-FM 1980’s – 1990’s    “The Women Who Would Be Mayor” by Marian Morton    1980-1999 A Retrospective Year-by-Year Timeline    Cleveland in the 1980’s – Mike Roberts    Cleveland in the 1990’s – Mike Roberts    Cleveland in the 2000’s – Mike Roberts    George Forbes    George Voinovich Era as Mayor    Howard Metzenbaum    James Rokakis    John Frederick Seiberling    John Glenn    Louis Stokes    Michael R. White Era as Mayor    Playhouse Square    Richard Celeste    Robert Hughes    Stephanie Tubbs Jones    The Struggle For Stability by Dr. Thomas Campbell 2000s    Frank Jackson    Jane Campbell Books We Suggest    Books We Suggest Cleveland Cleveland History E-Books    Clevelands History E-Books Cleveland History Self Study: Syllabus of Essays    Cleveland History Self Study: A 5 Week Syllabus Cleveland Politician Interview Series    Cleveland Politician Interview Series Columbus Documentaries E-Books Elegant Cleveland Ethnic History of Cleveland    African Americans in Cleveland    Chinese in Cleveland    Cleveland Cultural Gardens    Eastern Orthodox in Cleveland    Ethnic Settlement in Cleveland       Hispanics in Northeast Ohio    Germans in Cleveland    Hungarians in Cleveland    Irish in Cleveland    Jews in Cleveland    Mormons in Cleveland    Polish in Cleveland    Protestants in Cleveland    Religion in Cleveland    Roman Catholics in Cleveland    Russians in Cleveland    Turks in Cleveland    Ukrainians in Cleveland History Day Live Events NE Ohio Neighborhoods and Their History    Asia Town from Fresh Water Cleveland    Beachwood    Bedford and Bedford Heights    Broadway/Slavic Village    Buckeye Neighborhood    Campus District    Central/Kinsman    Chagrin Falls    City of Cleveland/NE Ohio Neighborhoods    Cleveland Heights    Collinwood/Waterloo    Detroit Shoreway    Downtown    East Cleveland    Glenville    Gordon Square    Hough    Hudson    Lakewood    Little Italy    Lyndhurst    Mid Town    Mount Pleasant    Newburgh    North Olmsted    North Ridgeville    Ohio City    Olmsted Falls    Parma    Playhouse Square    Rocky River    Shaker Heights    South Euclid    Tremont    University Circle    Warrensville    West Park/Kamm’s Corners    Westlake Northeast Ohio Public Policy Forums Policies    2014 Cuyahoga County Executive Election    2014 Ohio Governor Election    Adult/College Education    African American Political Power in the 21st Cent    Agriculture    Cincinnati    Cuyahoga County    Energy    Environment    Foster Care in Northeast Ohio    Greater Cleveland    Healthcare Delivery    Healthcare Economic Opportunity    Housing    Immigration    Journalism       Roldo Bartimole    Lake and River Fronts    Manufacturing/Technology    Minority Participation in the New Economy    News Aggregator Archives    Ohio    Ohio Constitution    Overview    Philanthropy in NE Ohio    Planning    Primary and Secondary Education    Professional Sports    Regional Govt vs Home Rule    Regionalism    State of the County/City/State of Downtown    The Arts    Transportation    Voting Rights in Ohio    Water Teaching Cleveland    Introduction Teaching Cleveland Digital Media    About Us The Best Uncategorized    Teaching Cleveland Classes Video Candidate Election Forums Cincinnati Cleveland Photos League of Women Voters Ohio Congressional Redistricting Pittsburgh Women History in Cleveland