Singing at Ohio’s Intersections: The Burnside Mennonaires and Civil Rights in the Mennonite Church

In the early 1950s, a Mennonite farmer from rural Plain City was out working in his field when he realized he needed a drink of water. Too far from his home, he approached residents of the neighboring African-American community of Burnside Heights, then on the outskirts of Columbus. This chance meeting led Plain City’s United Bethel Mennonite Church to establish a Bible school in Burnside at the request of the residents.
By the 1960s, the Bible school grew into an independent, predominantly Black Mennonite congregation, where congregants organized a choir they named “The Mennonaires.” While many white Mennonites thought of singing hymns in four-part harmony as a practice of their European-Anabaptist heritage, the Mennonaires performed music from African-American traditions of gospel music and spirituals. As much as the Mennonaires’ music reclaimed distinctly African-American heritage, they also used their performances to speak back to white Mennonite institutions.
Through recordings and appearances at Mennonite denominational conferences in the early ‘70s, the Mennonaires shaped conversations about racial justice and belonging within the American Mennonite Church in the wake of the Civil Rights era. Through the story and music of the Burnside Mennonaires, this presentation illuminates how Ohio’s musical heritage can be heard through entangled, multi-cultural heritage.
The speaker of this event is Dr. Austin McCabe Juhnke. This talk is part of the America 250 celebrations at the Ohio History Center. Included with museum admission.