'The Berrys played a role with inspiring me toward excellence'

The story of how 19 mothers and 37 children marched daily — rain or shine — for two years to end segregation of Hillsboro’s public schools would have been lost, if not for members of the community urging others to help save this important piece of Ohio’s history.

“The Lincoln School Story,” a documentary made by WOUB with funding of Ohio Humanities, was screened to kick off Berry Day Week on Monday at the Athena Cinema, in Uptown Athens.

Berry Day Week celebrated the accomplishments of Edward and Mattie Berry, who owned the very successful Berry Hotel in Uptown Athens from 1892-1974. Several businesses are joining this year’s celebration by offering themed items.

Professor Emeritus David Descutner, a member of the Mount Zion Black Cultural Center board, introduced Rebecca Asmo, executive director of the Ohio Humanities, to the crowd of about 100 people in the second-floor theater.

The documentary follows a group of Black mothers from Hillsboro in the 1950’s as they fight for school desegregation after the Brown versus the Board of Education decision. WOUB will air the film on Juneteenth, June 19.

Asmo noted that the march was the longest sustained action of the Civil Rights Movement. “It started a year before the Montgomery bus boycott and it went on almost a year after that bus boycott had ended. But it was a story that until a few years ago, was really almost lost to history.”

Among the reasons Asmo cited as why the story was almost lost was that the march was led by women and children.

“Like a lot of the Civil Rights Movement was, women really were the backbone of the movement, but just often weren’t recognized as such. Another reason was that this action was primarily reported on in Black newspapers and publications. … (I)t was reported a little bit in the Cincinnati Enquirer but almost not at all in any of the other ‘papers of record’ in Ohio, which really often didn’t report on black stories.”

Most of the publications have been destroyed and weren’t digitized.

Asmo noted that after the march was over, people didn’t talk about it much.

“They just really tried to get on with their lives. There was tension in the community,” Asmo said. “They wanted to just kind of go on and be members of the community. So there were children of some of the marchers, children of the children who didn’t even know that their parents were involved in it.”

Asmo noted that the story came light because of local organizers in Hillsboro. “That’s the same thing that’s happening here, with the Mount Zion Baptist Church Preservation Society, with the Mount Zion Black Cultural Center, and really with all of the projects that you are doing here in Athens. (The projects make) sure that you are resurrecting and continuing to tell the story of the Black community and the Black Wall Street here in Athens, Ohio.”

Also speaking at the event was Chris Boyd, an Ohio University graduate who owned Zachary’s Deli, which was located where Gameday Spirit Fanstore, 30 N. Court St., is today.

He noted that the Berrys inspired and still inspire him every day.

“So, I first learned about the Berry Hotel after Zachary’s opened in 1991 — didn’t know about it before,” Boyd said. “Where Zachary’s was literally … if we walk out our side door and all of a sudden there’s the parking lot, which was the footprint of the Berry Hotel. So it confronted me every single day. … The scale of the footprint was 10 times the size of Zachary’s, which was another thing. I’m thinking like, ‘Wow, this man had this hotel in that day.’ I mean, what an accomplishment.”

Boyd noted that the Berrys gave him daily inspiration, “and it still does, quite frankly. I remember imagining the adversity that he must have experienced, that they must have experienced, during their time. And again, looking at the size and scale of what they accomplished nationally. With Bibles in the rooms, closets, hangers and sewing kits, which are now just kind of standard in hotels. So really, really sharp people.”

The concept for Zachary’s was born out of a marketing research class survey project for a class Boyd took at OU.

He worked on refining the plan to the point that he decided to seek financing and set up an appoint at a local bank.

“I remember getting up to set an appointment to present this business plan,” Boyd said. “That appointment was with a senior official from Hocking Valley Bank, which ironically is right across the street. And, he laughed me out of his office. I was so excited. I dressed up and and presented my plan, and it was really kind of mean-spirited. … That influenced me to make it better. And so I went back to the drawing board, and I created a new business plan, and I made improvements on that.”

His father and a family friend, both successful small business owners at the time, put up money for Zachary’s to open. Boyd also got a Small Business Administration loan of $60,000.

“I remember one local business owner after we were open, saying to me that he heard that we got some type of minority business grant from the government to open,” Boyd said. “And I remember thinking to myself that he was in total denial that there were Black folks with money and smarts enough to build what looked and operated like a franchise business, but wasn’t.”

Boyd noted that his business was successful because of the community’s support. Some of Zachary’s regular customers were in the audience.

He noted that on the first day the restaurant opened, they received their first catering order. It, and subsequent orders over the years, came from the community members who supported him throughout his time in Athens.

“I just remember, catering order after catering order coming in from people that I knew, who were leveraging their resources at the university to host events,” Boyd said. “And I’m thinking like, ‘Man, they’re taking a chance on us.’ But that also gave us accountability, because we didn’t want to disappoint them.”

Among the things Boyd did while running Zachary’s was work for two years to get the population of the city of Athens restated. New liquor permits are issued based on population. Zachary’s was on a wait list for a permit for three years.

“I worked with the guy in Marietta who was part of the regional Ohio Regional Development Authority who didn’t laugh me out of his office, but helped me by giving me numbers and telling me what to do,” Boyd said. “It took me a while. I noted projects and got a few signatures from people — a lot of them didn’t know what they were signing. But I proved that the population had grown by over 10,000 people.”

Zachary’s got its liquor permit and opened a bar that specialized in high-end mixed drinks.

As the business grew, Boyd and his wife eventually decided to open a second location in Columbus. It opened without any working capital, so they started fundraising.

“That process influenced me later to become a financial adviser, which is what I do now,” Boyd said. “Some of my first clients were former business partners of ours. So that was a very important process. You never know why you’re doing something sometimes.”

As a financial adviser, Boyd often tells his life story and how it relates to his current job at Morgan Stanley. “There’s lots of parallels between Zachary’s and wealth management, hospitality business, and what we do now. And I love to talk about it. So in life, it’s not often about what happens, but instead how you respond.”

Although Boyd never saw the Berry Hotel, he saw the impact of the Berrys’ work.

“I saw what a husband and wife team could do. I saw the results of overcoming adversity, and I saw what the insistence of maintaining the highest quality and customer service standards looks like to people. I saw what it looked like to be of service to your community, at Mount Zion Church. And the Berrys played a role with inspiring me toward excellence then and now as a black business professional.”

Prior to the screening, Sonya Armstrong, of Charleston, West Virginia, portrayed Charlotte Scott, a once enslaved woman from Marietta. Upon hearing of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, Scott started a fund in 1872 to erect the Emancipation Memorial monument in Washington, DC’s Lincoln Park.

On May 23, 2004, former Mayor Rick Abel issued a Proclamation declaring “Berry Day” in Athens and a historical landmark was installed at the site of the hotel. In 2023, Mayor Steve Patterson reissued the proclamation and several businesses joined in by creating “Berry Day specials” to honor Berry’s entrepreneurial legacy.