At the close of World War I, as American troops returned home after defending democracy, Black Marionites still had to demand equal treatment as they lived and worked in an expanding, industrializing, modernizing Marion, according to a recent lecture by Dr. Margaret Sumner, associate history professor at The Ohio State University at Marion.
One prominent Black business leader, Donson W. Lett, ran a new bathhouse and hair salon with his wife, Esther Gardner. In 1917, the Letts discovered that downtown lunch vendors were charging their Black employees more than white customers for meals. They were furious.
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