{"id":54110,"date":"2017-06-05T00:32:38","date_gmt":"2017-06-05T00:32:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=54110"},"modified":"2017-06-05T00:32:38","modified_gmt":"2017-06-05T00:32:38","slug":"longtown-descendants-breathe-new-life-into-historic-mixed-race-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=54110","title":{"rendered":"Longtown Descendants Breathe New Life Into Historic Mixed-Race Community"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/radio.wosu.org\/post\/longtown-descendants-breathe-new-life-historic-mixed-race-community\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em><strong>Longtown Descendants Breathe New Life Into Historic Mixed-Race Community<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/wosu.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">WOSU Public Media<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/radio.wosu.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">WOSU Radio<\/a><br \/>\nColumbus, Ohio<br \/>\n2017-05-31<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/radio.wosu.org\/people\/jerry-kenney\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Jerry Kenney<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/radio.wosu.org\/post\/longtown-descendants-breathe-new-life-historic-mixed-race-community\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mediad.publicbroadcasting.net\/p\/wosu2\/files\/styles\/medium\/public\/201705\/kaiser_family_longtown.jpg\" width=\"550\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<small>Kaiser family reunion at Longtown. <em>Kaiser Family<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n<p>In southwest <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ohio\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ohio<\/a>, about a mile from the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Indiana\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Indiana<\/a> state line, a long-forgotten town with a special place in African American history is struggling to be reborn.<\/p>\n<p>Longtown was established nearly 200 years ago in what is now <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Greenville,_Ohio\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Greenville<\/a>. The settlement grew into a thriving mixed-race community and a major stop on the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Underground_Railroad\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Underground Railroad<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Now, descendants of those pioneering settlers are working to bring Longtown back to life for others to experience.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Longtown\u2019s Founding<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In 1818, James Clemens, a freed slave from <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rockingham_County,_Virginia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rockingham County, Virginia<\/a>, settled in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Darke_County,_Ohio\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Darke County, Ohio<\/a>, with his wife Sophia Sellers and their five children, and began to farm.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey were the sons and daughters of slave masters,\u201d says historian and Longtown descendant Roane Smothers.<\/p>\n<p>Smothers says some slave owners not only acknowledged the children they bore with slaves but also provided them with financial support. Such was the case with James and Sophia, who purchased land in Ohio with the help of Sellers&#8217; father, he says&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/radio.wosu.org\/post\/longtown-descendants-breathe-new-life-historic-mixed-race-community\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>. Listen to the story (00:05:45) <a href=\"https:\/\/cpa.ds.npr.org\/wosu2\/audio\/2017\/06\/10001_jerry_longtown.mp3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Longtown was established nearly 200 years ago in what is now Greenville. The settlement grew into a thriving mixed-race community and a major stop on the Underground Railroad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2850,459,8,6940,20],"tags":[27076,21227,27072,21228,260,27075,27074,27073,27071,27070],"class_list":["post-54110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-audio","category-history","category-media-archive","category-slavery","category-usa","tag-connor-kaiser","tag-james-clemens","tag-jerry-kenney","tag-longtown","tag-ohio","tag-roane-smothers","tag-sophia-sellers","tag-wosu","tag-wosu-public-media","tag-wosu-radio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54110"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54111,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54110\/revisions\/54111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}