Date of Award
Spring 4-13-2026
Document Type
Distinction Paper
Degree Name
History-BA
Department
History & Political Science
Advisor
Dr. Richard Yntema
First Committee Member
Richard Yntema, Ph.D.
Second Committee Member
Dee Knoblauch, Ph.D.
Third Committee Member
Tammy Birk, Ph.D
Keywords
African American education, Columbus Ohio, Colored Conventions Movement, James Preston Poindexter, Black political activism, Common School Movement, educational equality, Black print culture, church-based organizing, school desegregation
Subject Categories
Higher Education
Abstract
This research shows that the Ohio Colored Conventions and the leadership of Reverend James Preston Poindexter were central in gaining access to tax-supported education for Columbus’s Black youth and ultimately securing the integration of the city’s public schools. Drawing on evidence from convention proceedings, addresses, newspapers, and school board reports, this study shows that African Americans in Columbus agitated for educational equality decades earlier than previously recognized, consistently asserting that education was fundamental to freedom, citizenship, and social advancement. The records reveal that Convention strategies such as petitioning, print mobilization, mass meetings, and church-based organizing directly shaped local political action, as Poindexter carried these practices into grassroots campaigns that challenged exclusion, exposed inequality, and demanded accountability from the Board of Education. The establishment of the Loving School represents a political victory achieved through sustained Convention-based agitation, even as the lived experience of segregation revealed its limitations and prompted a continued shift toward integration. By placing Columbus within the broader history of the Colored Conventions Movement, this study demonstrates that Black communities in the Midwest were already organized, politically active, and deeply engaged in shaping public education, blending Convention organizing, church leadership, and print activism to secure the right of every Black child to be educated and to advance a broader vision of equality, rights, and freedom.
Licensing Permission
Copyright, all rights reserved. Fair Use
Acknowledgement 1
1
Acknowledgement 2
1
Recommended Citation
Keel, Jade C., "Organizing Freedom: The Colored Conventions Movement, Church Power, Black Political Agency in Columbus, Ohio's Struggle for Equal Education" (2026). Undergraduate Distinction Papers. 135.
https://digitalcommons.otterbein.edu/stu_dist/135