Still, the following people reflect a brief list of influential local black leaders of recent times.
Katherine Rumph
Katherine Rumph was the first African American councilwoman in Hamilton’s history. She served 12 years on council, from 1984 to 1995. Starting in 1989, she was known as Katherine Rumph-Cole. She was a strong supporter of the Booker T. Washington Community Center and many other Second Ward developments.
She was named a “Woman of Outstanding Achievement” in 1990 by the Hamilton YWCA for her exceptional impact in the community and contributions in eliminating racism and empowering women. She has been an active member, deacon, trustee and missionary society president of the Pilgrim Baptist Church.
In 1993, she created a scholarship fund for needy students at Hamilton High or Stephen T. Badin High, with preference to minority students. In 1996, Rumph-Cole moved to New Miami, married Edward Lee Butler, and was elected to the town council. She became mayor of New Miami in 2003.
Nate Sherman
For three decades, Nathaniel D. Sherman, Jr. made an impact with his work for the Hamilton Human Relations Commission. The commission was established in 1964 when the city council approved the proposal for it which had been written by Sherman, Irene Lewis and Jay Antenen. The city created its human rights department in 1967 and hired Sherman to lead the department. As department director, Sherman worked to improve minority housing opportunities, race relations, fair employment practices, and educational opportunities. He was also a leader who worked to improve the Booker T. Washington Community Center.
Sherman was considered to be the foremost pioneer for civil rights in Hamilton for nearly forty years. He served as president of the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People chapter from 1961 to 1967 and then led Hamilton’s civil rights department from 1968 to his retirement in 1998.
Sherman graduated from Hamilton High School in 1942 and served in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific during World War II, from 1943 to 1946. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Electronics at the American Institute of Technology in Chicago by 1953. He operated his own television repair shop and worked as a bailer at the Champion Paper Company before beginning his human rights career. Sherman was an active member of Hamilton’s Pilgrim Baptist Church from 1936 to his death in 1999. The Pilgrim Baptist Church’s Christian Center was renamed in Nathaniel Sherman’s honor in 1998 and renovated into senior housing.
Bob Harris
Bob Harris grew up in Hamilton’s Second Ward, attended Roosevelt Junior High School where he set an Ohio pole vault record for seventh-graders. He graduated from Garfield High School in 1969, before attending the Hamilton Campus of Miami University. He established his Bob Harris Photography Studio and Bob “Moo Duk Kwan” Harris Karate Studios in the ward where he still lives.
Harris began learning karate in 1962, first training at the Booker T. Washington Community Center when he was 13-years old. By 1976, he was the United States Karate Association’s national champion. Harris also won two National Black Belt Karate Association world championships during the 1970s. He was rated among the top fifty karate players in the world by Professional Karate Magazine in 1975 and has been named to the National Martial Arts Hall of Fame, National Black Belt Karate Association Hall of Fame and the All Stars Karate National Hall of Fame.
In 1995, Harris formed the South East Civic Association to create and stimulate jobs within the Second and Fourth Ward neighborhoods and to uplift the Hamilton community as a whole. Under his leadership, the civic association has successfully advocated a citywide cleanup during the 1990s and secured a $1.9 million streetscape and walk of fame on Bailey Square.
Alvin D. Smith
As editor and publisher of the weekly four-page Butler County American newspaper, Alvin D. Smith claimed to be “Fighting for Our Free Enterprise System of Government” and providing his readers with “Truth in News, In Editorials, In Advertising.” He founded the paper in 1940 and published it every Saturday until 1968. Smith’s paper received national notice when it was the only Negro newspaper in the United States that endorsed conservative Barry Goldwater for president in 1964.
Smith is credited with suggesting the name “Bambo Harris” for Hamilton’s low-income housing project of the Hamilton Metropolitan Housing Authority in 1942. The Lower Second Ward development along Front Street provided 141 housing units and cost $723,000 (or about $13 million dollars today).
Smith ran as an Independent candidate for a Hamilton City Council seat in 1943 and for the Ohio State Senate as a Democrat in 1944, but did not win election. In 1962, as a resident of Middletown, he ran as a Republican candidate for the Ohio State Assembly, finishing eleventh among 18 candidates for nine House seats.
Smith was a graduate of the Tuskegee Institute and a veteran of World War I. He was the author of a book, “George Washington Carver, Man of God.” The American Legion gave him an Award of Merit for “exemplary efforts of true Americanism, especially as it pertains to law and order.” Smith also received a citation from FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover for his support of law enforcement agencies. He died in Middletown of cancer in 1968.
Dr. Henry A. Long
Dr. Henry A. Long practiced medicine in Hamilton from 1938 to his retirement in 1974. He graduated from Ohio State Medical School and completed an internship at Homer G. Phillips Hospital in St. Louis. Long served in the U.S. Army during World War II, and retired from the medical corps with the rank of captain. He maintained a private practice in Hamilton and was one of the very few African American doctors to do so. Dr. Long’s commitment to his many low-income patients included making house calls day or night. He was a member of the staff at Fort Hamilton Hospital and at Mercy Hospital.
Long was a longtime member and deacon of the Pilgrim Baptist Church, the Toussaint Lodge #19 F & A.M., the National Urban League, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Ohio Medical Association and the Hamilton Academy of Medicine. He also was a longtime member of the Butler County Metropolitan Housing Board which named a senior citizen high-rise apartment building in his honor in 1974. Dr. Long died in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1996 at the age of 85, and was buried in Hamilton’s Greenwood Cemetery.
Alex “Boo” Ellis
Alex “Boo” Ellis was one of the first basketball stars of Hamilton High School. He led the 1954 Big Blue team to a 25-3 record and a state Class A championship as a senior, winning first team all-state and state tournament Most Valuable Player honors. He was the first Hamilton High player to reach 1,000 career points and the first to have his uniform number (#14) retired in his honor. After graduating in 1954, Ellis attended Niagara University in New York on a scholarship. He was a dominant player on the university’s basketball team, scoring 1,656 points and 1,533 rebounds in the three years he was allowed to play and led his team to two National Invitation Tournaments. Niagara University retired his #3 uniform jersey in his honor.
After his collegiate career, Ellis was selected as the first pick in the third round of the 1958 National Basketball Association draft by the Minneapolis Lakers. He played for the Lakers two seasons during 1958 to 1960. He then played six seasons for Continental Basketball Association teams, from 1960 through 1966, and three additional seasons with the Fabulous Harlem Magicians, a traveling professional team, owned and operated by Marcus Haynes. His basketball accomplishments placed him in the Hamilton City School District and Butler County Sports Halls of Fame.
Ellis believed in giving to the community. He was a member of the Good Guys Christian club, Concerned Citizens, participated in the Big Brothers and Sisters and served as a board member for the Human Relations Commission. Ellis served as program director and staff supervisor for the Booker T. Washington Community Center from 1971 to 1974. Ellis died in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 2010 at the age of 74.
Over the years, Hamilton has had a large number of African American residents that made many positive contributions to the community and worked to make the area a better place in which to live. The stories of the people highlighted in this article and the stories of other Black leaders can be found in the Butler County Historical Society archives. The society is located at 327 N. Second St., and is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Tuesdays through Fridays, and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays.
This column was shared with the Journal-News from the Butler County Historical Society. See it online at bchistoricalsociety.com.
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