Racial segregation redux, 1963
Nine years after publishing a weeklong series of articles in 1954 about racial discrimination in Pottstown, The Pottstown Mercury ran an even longer series of articles in 1963 about what progress had been made.
The series began, “In some ways, the Negro* in Pottstown is much better off than he was in 1954,” Newstell Marable, president of the Pottstown chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, explained. “In other ways — possibly the most important ways — he is as bad off as he was then.” The 1963 series found: The Black population had increased faster than the white population, to 7 percent of all residents.
There were three Black teachers in the Pottstown School District, up from none in 1954. But not one Black senior was expected to attend college in 1963.
There were two Black graduates from Pottstown Hospital School of Nursing, up from none in 1954.
There were a dozen Black salespeople in Pottstown stores, up from one in 1954.
There were two Black nurses at Pottstown’s two hospitals, up from none in 1954.
There were still no Blacks in any Pottstown financial institutions. “I don’t think the people of Pottstown are ready for one as a teller yet,” said one manager.
There were two Black police
officers, up from one in 1954.
There were no Blacks in any of Pottstown’s four fire companies.
A Black man served on Pottstown Council for the first time in 1961 as an appointee (there were 14 councilors, not seven, in 1963).
One Black man was voted on to a local service club (the Jaycees, there were no Blacks in any service or fraternal clubs in 1954).
Sunnybrook and North End swimming pools continued to be white-only.
Brookside Country Club was still white-only.
Bell Telephone Co. had one Black employee, up from none in 1954. Philadelphia Electric had none.
There were no Blacks at the Pottstown Post Office (because no one applied; the Philadelphia Post Office was 30 percent Black in 1963).
There were no Black white collar workers in Borough Hall (Kenneth Hines, an African American, was supervisor of the water department but worked out in the field).
There were no Black administrators in the Pottstown School District, although Richard Ricketts Sr. was director of the Bethany Recreation Center, which in 1963 was operated by the school district (and is now called the Ricketts Community Center in his honor).
Blacks were fairly well represented among Pottstown’s numerous factories, such as Firestone, Doehler’s, Bethlehem Steel, Flagg’s, and two clothing factories.
The organizations that most blatantly discriminated against Blacks were Pottstown’s four fire companies.
“We don’t want any colored people,” said borough Fire Chief Richard Moser. “We’re private institutions chartered by the state, and we have the right to vote for anyone we want.”
But the NAACP’s Marable pointed out the fire companies accepted tens of thousands of public tax dollars every year from the borough.
(The first Blacks were not accepted as volunteers into any of the four fire companies until the early 1970s. The first Black paid firefighter, Mark Gibson, was hired in 1998.)
Thursday: Pottstown’s worst segregation was in housing. There were only three specific areas where Blacks could rent or buy homes.
*Negro was the commonly used term in 1963 for people of African descent.