[HoustonTexas1]

Hi I want to know if any of y'all can give me any information on the "Black Experience" of living in Hartford in the 50's in 60's. I recently attended the funeral of one of my neighbors and I found out that he grew up in Hartford. I obviously never got to ask him what life was like for him growing up there. Over the past couple of days my curiosity began to grow. I would like to know what part of town did most black people live in? What schools did they attend? Was there and racial tension back then? Any other related information would help.... I plan one day to go and visit the city, and kinda retrace his footsteps...

[nep321]

I don't think there were really any blacks in Hartford back then. It was mostly Italians.

[AntonioR]

I think in most places in the Northeast the black population was probably at a bare minimum. At some point in the 20th century a huge migration from the south to the north took place and that is when many of the traditional black communities in northeastern cities (such as Harlem in NYC) were formed. The northern US in general was simply not ground zero of slavery and that explains why the black population was not that large. Even today, a quick look at any map that shows the distribution and density of blacks nationwide clearly reveals that despite the massive emigration during the 20th century, the South is still the region where most blacks live.

Actually, one aspect of slavery was that at no point in the history of the USA did the slave population surpassed the white population; until recent decades the USA was basically always a country of 80%+ whites. I will never understand how it was possible for the current belief that most whites in the USA descend from slave owners to become so widespread when its so easy to debunk that by merely pointing out the huge imbalance between the size of the white population and the size of the African-descendant population.

Ah well, this is sort of off topic though because the OP wants to know what it was like to be black (and I pressume of working class origin) in Hartford in the mid-20th century and no one here is familiar with that.

One thing I can say is that many, if not most, people of visible African ancestry, even if partial, in CT appear to be recent migrants or descendants of recent migrants from the Caribbean and not so much bona fide African-Americans. At least in Stamford I get the impression that most blacks tend to be of Jamaican and Haitian descent, and many of the bona fide African Americans have less than 2 or 3 generations living in the city and possibly in the state/region.

[DanBev]

I guess by what I am reading,the posters were not alive at this time,I worked for HELCO and SNET.
At SNET we worked at Albany Ave.
The Blacks as you posted were predomintally in the north end of Hartford,south end was caucasian as was Bloomfield and Windsor.
A good many of the African Americans were brought in to work on farms and tobacco along with the Puerto Rican's.