Here was Madison’s first African-American neighborhood
The Madison Heritage Series
John Hill first set eyes on Madison while visiting a relative who was attending the University of Wisconsin. He moved his family here from Atlanta in 1910 to join a modest community of about 140 African Americans.
In 1917, Hill bought a house and attached grocery store at Dayton and Blount streets from Reverend Charles Thomas, pastor of St. Paul’s African Methodist Episcopal Church. Thomas had purchased the building, formerly used as a boarding house and meeting hall, from civic leader John Turner.
John and Amanda Hill operated Hill’s Grocery for more than 50 years. Their daughter, Freddie Mae, was the UW’s first African-American graduate. Their neighbors included the Miller family, who worked to improve the lives of African-Americans in the city, and Benjamin Butts, a former slave liberated by Wisconsin troops during the Civil War. The Hill building has been designated a Madison landmark for its rich cultural history.
Sidebar:
Churches have played a vital role in African-American neighborhoods,
offering community, shared worship and mutual assistance. Founded in 1902, the St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church is one of the oldest African-American congregations in Wisconsin. Organizers bought the original building from a Norwegian congregation and moved it to land donated by founding member William Miller at 631 East Dayton Street. One pastor of the church supplemented his meager wages by opening a grocery nearby, later selling it to church trustee John Hill. Hill’s Grocery became a neighborhood institution, operated by a single family longer than any other grocery store in Madison.
Marker is at the intersection of East Dayton Street and North Blount Street, on the right when traveling east on East Dayton Street.
Courtesy hmdb.org
