Ransom Place Historical District | Indianapolis, IN

The Ransom Place Historic District is the most intact 19th century neighborhood associated with African Americans in Indianapolis. The district was named after Freeman B. Ransom (1882-1947, an attorney and general manager of the Walker Manufacturing Company, a cosmetics firm founded by Madam C.J. Walker. He moved to Indianapolis around 1910 and raised his family on California Street in the same neighborhood that would eventually be named in his honor. It is a surviving fragment of the much larger black neighborhood that surrounded Indiana Avenu, which was home to many african american business and civic leaders, doctors, attorneys, and other professionals over its long history.

Today, the six-block district features beautifully restored homes dating all the way back to the Reconstruction, a nineteenth-century canal, the Walker Theatre, Crispus Attucks High School, as well as the campus of Indiana University-Purdue University.

The Ransom Place Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1992 for its significance in the history of Indianapolis’s African-American community.

Freetown Village | Indianapolis, IN

Symbolic of the many predominately African American settlements scattered throughout Indiana during the post Civil War years, Freetown Village is a living history museum featuring a variety of activities for all ages, including craft and heritage workshops, youth summer camp, touring performances, theatrical productions and various special events. The resident/actors of village are modeled after the approximately 3,000 men, women and children identified on the 1870 Indianapolis census.

Freetown Village
Address: 625 Indiana Ave, Indianapolis, IN
Phone: (317) 631-1870
Official Website: www.freetown.org
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Walker Theatre Center | Indianapolis, IN

A rare example of African Deco styling (which featured African shields and spears, sphinxes, and chimpanzees), the Walker Theatre Center, located in the Madame C.J. Walker Building, was concieved by Madam C. J. Walker, America’s first black millionairess, after she was charged a higher price to attend another downtown theater because of her race.

Walker died in 1919, before the theater was finished, but her daughter A’Lelia completed the theater in her mother’s memory. The theater building also contained a ballroom, casino, beauty shop, pharmacy, and coffee shop. It was located in the heart of the Indiana Avenue Cultural District, the center of entertainment, business and pride for the City’s African American community from the 1920s to the 1950s. Recently, the building has undergone a complete restoration.

Today, the Madame Walker Theatre Center’s annual performing arts season opens in early October and continues until early May. Each season’s programs showcase the talents of local, regional, national and international artists.

 

Walker Theatre Center
617 Indiana Avenue, Indianapolis, IN 46202
Phone: 317-236-2099
Official Website: www.walkertheatre.com
Map & Driving Directions