Discovering Jesse Owens’ Gold – By Hector Cantú

By 1955, Pittsburgh’s Hill District had seen better days.
Louis DeVito was a handyman in his 20s in the neighborhoods near downtown, doing odd jobs here and there – some landscaping, some construction. “He was a jack of all trades,” says DeVito’s son Albert. “He was married a year out of high school and had started a family.”

Among his circle of friends and business acquaintances was the owner of the Bailey Hotel in the heart of the Hill District, a cultural center of the city’s African-American community.

“The Bailey Hotel was pretty vibrant from the 1920s to the early ’50s,” says the younger DeVito. “It’s where African-American celebrities stayed when they came to town. This was a time when they couldn’t stay in downtown Pittsburgh because the hotels there were white only.”

Then things began changing.

Thousands of residents were displaced after a substantial portion of the district was slated for redevelopment. At about the same time, as segregation declined, more hotels began allowing African-American guests … see more …

Source: Discovering Jesse Owens’ Gold 

Read More: 

Discovering Jesse Owens’ Gold 

SPORTS COLLECTIBLES PLATINUM NIGHT^® AUCTION 7195
Aug. 19-20, 2017
Online: HA.com/7195a

INQUIRIES
Mike Gutierrez
214.409.1183
MikeG@HA.com
To request a catalog, call 866.835.3243 or visit HA.com/Catalogs