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TTTTTm’rnrA group of men stands outside the Iowa Federation Home in 1938. All three were probably members of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity. The Iowa Federation Home housed members of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity for two years, from 1937 to 1939, and again from 1950 to 1951. (James B. Morris Jr., photo album, 1937-1941, Special Collections, University of Iowa Libraries)Homes/Preservinghistory to live with it daily► FROM PAGE 7Band students able to live in Iowa City.”Built in 1913, the house became know as the Tate Arms in the 1940s when Elizabeth “Bettye” Tate and her husband Junious “Bud” Tate bought it. The Tates rented to up to 20 black male students at a time in the house, between 1940 and 1961. Bettye Tate sold the building in 1979. She died in 1999, and when Iowa City opened its alternative high school in 2005, it was named in her honor.In one instance in 1921, which is documented in the nomination, a white supremacist group, possibly a local branch of the Ku Klux Klan, outbid the UI’s chapter of the black fraternity Kappa Alpha Psi to prevent them from purchasing a site for their chapter house.Some of those fraternity students lived for a few years at the Iowa Federation Home. Started by the Iowa Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs (IFCWC) in 1919 at the urging of a group of black female students, it housed black womenElizabeth Crawford (later Elizabeth Tate), reportedly taken in 1926. (University of Iowa Libraries)between 1919 and 1951, with a few stints of renting to the fraternity. IFCWC members originally asked the UI to purchase a home to use as a dormitory for black women or to help them raise money for a home. In the end, they had to fundraise to purchase the house themselves.“I look at how hard the black students worked to get the Federation home up and running,” Carlson said. “In 1916, the black female students all lived in differentplaces throughout the city. They didn’t have a community where they could rely on each other for academic support, for moral support in a white supremacist world. They worked hard to make this happen, to make sure they could live in the same place each year that was secure and permanent.”Carlson said he hopes people who learn this history understand it is connected to the present.“I would hope that people would understand how we got to the point we are today, what struggles people had in the past and what people overcame to get where we are today and what still has to be overcome,” he said. “Even though racial segregation housing is now outlawed, any black student you talk to, I’m sure, can tell you stories about how they’ve felt discriminated against in one way or another.” Jessica Bristow, historic preservationist for the city, said having these homes on the national register can help draw attention to the stories of the people who lived there, storiesthat have not always been well documented in the official historical record. Of 75 sites in Iowa City with some sort of historic landmark status — including both local and national designations — she knows of only three that are directly related to black history — these two homes and the Bethel AME Church.The Tate Arms and Iowa Federation homes are now privately owned and still serve as student rental housing. However, on the grass outside both homes there is now educational signage with information about their history.“Part of the reason we preserve our history is so we can be reminded of it daily and live with it. And here we have these two houses that can shine a spotlight on it,” she said. “They are providing another format for us to really talk about our own civil rights history. The more we can talk about that, the better. We still have a pretty rocky history as far as civil rights go.”Comments: (319) 398-8339; alison.gowans@thegazette.com
Newspaper Details
Cedar Rapids Gazette
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, US
Sat, Feb 22, 2020
Page 20
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USA 15 Apr 2022
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