Airing in June on 91.7 WVXU — Wednesdays at 5:49 a.m., 7:50 a.m., and 4:50 p.m.
Airing in June on 90.9 WGUC — Fridays at 6:58 p.m. and Sundays at noon.
In Jim Crow America, Black Americans couldn’t travel like their white counterparts. Every time you stopped at a restaurant, a gas stop, a bathroom, you’d have to check: can you enter? Is it safe? The Green Book — a directory of Black-friendly businesses — became the “bible of Black Travel” in the 1940s and 50s.
This Juneteenth Cincinnati Shorts series explains the origins, rise in popularity, and eventual end of the Green Book. It also sets the stage for our following shorts — each about a Green Book site in Walnut Hills that, despite the forces of urban renewal, highway construction, and gentrification, remains standing.
From 1833 to 1851, Harriet Beecher Stowe and her family called a two-story yellow brick house in Walnut Hills home. Her experiences there – across the river from slave-owning Kentucky – inspired Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
In the 1930s, the house was converted into The Edgemont Inn — a tavern and boarding house that became a mainstay in Cincinnati’s Green Book listings.
Today, you can step inside and experience the building’s two significant eras of Black history – just as they once were.
When greats like Duke Ellington, Jackie Robinson, or Thurgood Marshall came to Cincinnati, they couldn’t stay at the white-only inns downtown – so they went to The Manse Hotel and Annex in Walnut Hills. With its 108 luxurious rooms, first-class restaurant, and large ballroom, the Manse was the crowning achievement of Horace Sudduth, a Black businessman who became one of the city’s wealthiest Black residents in the 1950s.
You heard briefly about Cincinnati’s remaining Green Book sites in our shorts; now prepare to be immersed in their history. Our host will take you to Walnut Hills and discuss what these places meant — and continue to mean — to Walnut Hills and Cincinnati residents.
This one-hour special will air in place of Cincinnati Edition at 12:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.
In the 1910s, millions of migrants from the rural South arrived in Cincinnati seeking employment. Affordable housing was scarce; workers and their families packed into dark, dangerous tenements. Seeing poverty on the rise, local millionaire Jacob Schmidlapp built something unusual for the time: low-income lodging filled with high-quality amenities. It was called The Gordon Hotel.
Deqah Hussein-Wetzel (Co-Host)
Deqah is a Cincinnati-based Somali-American architectural historian. She started Urban Roots in order to increase awareness around how history is preserved (and not).
Vanessa Maria Quirk (Co-Host)
Vanessa is a New-York-based journalist and the co-host of City of the Future and Uncertain Things. She brings serious storytelling skills (and A-game alliteration) to the pod.
Connor Lynch (Editor)
Connor is a podcaster and documentary filmmaker. He takes the Urban Roots scripts and turns them into cinematic, sound-rich audio stories.
Tania Mohammad
Tania is a Karachi-born storyteller and whose projects focus on culture and history. Now based in New York City, she most recently hosted and produced the Undiscarded: Stories of New York podcast.