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EDITOR'S NOTE: This is part of a weekly series on our region's history coordinated by the Trumbull County Historical Society.
Like many other black families, during the Reconstruction years after slavery and the turn of the century, my family participated in the Great Migration to the North seeking employment, education, social equality, and most importantly, relief from racial oppression.
Growing up in the small northeastern town of Braceville, I often pondered over the stories shared by my parents and grandparents, wondering how the pieces of two different puzzles fit together when my parents met.
My mother, Laverne Payne, is the daughter of Clifton and Annie Barrow Payne. She grew up in what is known as the Upper Allotment of Braceville. Grandpa Clifton Payne was the oldest son of Authur and Olie Blue Payne and great-grandson of Zylophia Payne. Over the last 60-plus years, we have traced my three-time great-grandmother, Zylophia, as an actual slave that came over on a ship.
Grandpa Clifton was born Sept. 29, 1903, in Dodge County, Georgia. At the age of 10, he left school in the fourth grade and took on the role of helping the family to survive after his father, Authur Payne, was shot by a disgruntled white man in Georgia. With the help of his grandparents, Peter and Missouri Payne, and a host of aunts and uncles, Grandpa Clifton was molded into a hardworking, stern man with strong values he would later instill in my mother and her siblings.
At 16, my grandfather left Georgia with his Uncle John Franklin, better known as "Son" Payne, and came to Monessen, Pa. Grandpa Clifton worked in the coal mines, sending money back home to Georgia to help the family. Between 1926 and 1930, Grandpa Clifton made trips back to Georgia, returning with family members migrating to Pennsylvania.
After several visits to Braceville and when only 23, Grandpa Clifton moved, becoming the first black to be hired at Standard Steel Mill in Newton Falls, where he could only work as a sweeper. After an unsuccessful attempt to purchase land in Newton Falls because of his race, Grandpa Clifton purchased a small plot of land in what is known as the Upper Allotment in the Midway Platt of Braceville. Here is where my grandparents, Clifton and Annie, started a family.
My father, Earnie Shavers, is the son of Curtis and Willie Bell Herbert Shavers. He grew up in what is known as the Lower Allotment of Braceville. Grandpa Curtis was the son of Ben and Pathenia Crenshaw Shavers, and they lived in Garland, Alabama. Grandpa Curtis was the great-grandson of Alex and Katie Shavers.
My three times great-grandparents, Jesse and Katie Shavers, were slaves. I do not know much about Grandpa Curtis's childhood, however, his decision to move to Ohio was due to a life-threatening matter. As sharecroppers, Grandpa Curtis and Willie Bell, or as we called her, Madea, had an altercation with a white man during the early 1950s in Garland, Alabama. Grandpa threatened the white man with a shotgun. Because my great-grandfather, Ben Shavers, was a porter on the train, the family could send Grandpa Curtis to Ohio to stay with his family where he would be safe. My great-uncle Dan Shavers, Ben's brother, had already migrated north and Grandpa Curtis stayed with Uncle Dan before moving his family. The sheriff of Garland, also a member of the Ku Klux Klan, made a trip to Ohio looking for my Grandpa Curtis, only to be strongly influenced to leave by Uncle Dan and other black men in the community. After finding employment and saving money, Grandpa Curtis was then able to move Grandma Madea, my dad, and his siblings to Braceville.
My Mom and Dad met as teenagers, married, and continued our branches of the Payne and Shavers family trees. My parents have always instilled in my sisters and me that our family history was important and privileges that we enjoyed and may have even taken for granted were bought at a price by our immediate ancestors. Both sets of grandparents shared the same morals and values practiced in our families. This was the foundation for all in the African American community and the bridge between upper and lower allotments in Braceville Midway Platt.