Dayton flies high with
Wright Brothers and Paul Laurence Dunbar

Visitors check out the wash room at the Paul Laurence Dunbar House. Courtesy Dunbar House

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By Le Datta Grimes

Location: Dayton and Montgomery County are located at the “Crossroads of America,” the intersection of Interstates 75 North/South and 70 East/West.

Size: The city of Dayton has a population of approximately 160,000, but the greater metropolitan area has a population of more than 500,000.

African American heritage sites and events:
Paul Laurence Dunbar, America’s first recognized African American poet laureate, was a childhood friend of Wilbur and Orville Wright. Dunbar wrote novels, plays, journals, essays, short stories and lyrics, and published more than 400 poems.

His home, the Dunbar House, an Italianate, early-20th-century house owned and operated by the Ohio Historical Society, is a National Historic Landmark. Visitors can see Dunbar’s Remington typewriter and his last poem, which lies unfinished on his desk, while listening to docents recite his poetry. Visitors will also enjoy additional artifacts, including a bicycle given to Dunbar by the Wright brothers, at the accompanying museum.

Just down the street, the Wright-Dunbar Interpretive Center at the Wright Cycle Company features interactive exhibits on the lives of the Wright brothers and Dunbar. The center’s hands-on displays are educational and fun, and explain the mechanics of flight. Visitors can see printing presses from this period and learn more about Dunbar’s life through films and readings of his poems.

The Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, founded in 1968 by Dayton native Jeraldyn Blunden, is rooted in the African American experience and focuses on delivering high-quality contemporary dance to the broadest possible audience through local performances, national and international touring, and educational programs.

Just outside Dayton at Wilberforce University is the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center, whose permanent exhibition, From Victory to Freedom: Afro-American Life in the ’50s, explores African American experiences in America from the end of World War II to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1964. A variety of photographs, artifacts, and life-size scenes depict “typical” lifestyles and activities in the ’50s; depictions include a barbershop, a beauty salon and a church interior complete with pews, pulpit and choir stand.

Two suggested group itineraries that trace the area’s African American history are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder and Flight to Freedom: Ohio’s Underground Railroad Tour. The itineraries can be seen at the convention and visitors bureau’s Web site: www.daytoncvb.com.

Other sites worth seeing:
Dayton Art Institute, a top midsize art museum, has a diverse collection of African, American, Asian and European art, including work by noted African American artist Sam Gilliam.

The National Museum of the United States Air Force, located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, has more than 300 aircraft and missiles on display, along with artifacts such as weapons, equipment and uniforms. The museum has a collection of presidential aircraft, including the Air Force One that brought President John F. Kennedy’s body, along with newly sworn-in President Lyndon Johnson and Kennedy’s widow, Jacqueline, back to Washington from Dallas in 1963 following Kennedy’s assassination.

SunWatch Indian Village/ Archaeological Park is a partially reconstructed Fort Ancient Native American village along the Great Miami River on the site of a 13th-century village.

The Boonshoft Museum of Discovery, formerly the Dayton Museum of Discovery, has interactive exhibits for all ages; they include a live animal zoo, a planetarium and laser shows.

Downtown’s RiverScape MetroPark, with its landscaped gardens, hanging flower baskets and reflecting pools, is a center of concerts and festivals in the summer, and an outdoor skating rink and light displays in the winter. The Five Rivers Fountain of Lights is a series of five lighted spires at the confluence of the Great Miami and Mad rivers. The fountains provide a football-field-size water screen for free laser-light and music shows on Friday and Saturday evenings in the summer.

Carillon Historical Park is a complex of 23 buildings on a 65-acre site just south of downtown, many filled with artifacts, that tells the history of the Miami Valley. Among the exhibits is the 1905 Wright Flyer III, the world’s first practical airplane.

Main selling points to African American groups:
• Affordability
• Accessibility
• Free world-class museums, such as the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, with its display dedicated to the Tuskegee Airmen, and the Dayton Art Institute
• African American heritage and roots

Little-known or quirky facts:
The cash register, air conditioning, the pop-top can and the ice-cube tray are among numerous inventions that have come out of Dayton.

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