Thirty years ago, a small group calling themselves The People's Movement, who operated the Drop Inn Center, organized a secret, illegal midnight move from their shelter on Main Street to their present location at 12th and Elm streets.
Starting at 7 p.m. Friday, the Drop Inn Center will celebrate a sort of V-Day - because to them, this was a giant move to address the plight of the homeless.
"We believed that everyone had a right to shelter,"said Bonnie Neumeier, co-founder of Shelter House Volunteer Group Inc., which operates the Drop Inn Center.
Buddy Gray, along with Neumeier and others, started a one-room shelter house at 1711 Vine St. Later the group moved to 1324 Main St. and had five rooms.
On the night of Jan. 13, 1978, the group was scheduled to be evicted and negotiations to get the 217 W. 12th St. building from the Teamsters had stalled.
"At midnight, we planned our move,"Neumeier said. "It is a good thing that there was a blizzard that night because the city didn't find out we had occupied the building until five days later."
The Drop Inn Center was able to remain in the building after the city established codes for regulating it.
While Gray became a champion of the homeless, he also was regarded by some as confrontational. He was shot and killed in 1996 by Wilbur Worthen, a homeless man whom Gray had befriended. Worthen was acquitted because of mental illness and died about two years ago.
Gail Holtmeier, director of development at the center, said a commemorative walk will take place at 7 p.m. Friday from 1324 Main St. to 12th and Elm.
From 2-3 p.m. Saturday, there will be an interfaith rededication ceremony at the Drop Inn Center. From 4-6 p.m., there will be stories, singing, food and a performance by Muse, Cincinnati's Women's Choir, at Memorial Hall.
OLD FRIENDS MEET AGAIN
Willie T. Clay, who wrote about his walks across the United States, is back in Cincinnati. He is not walking this time, but came to visit the ailing Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, his friend.
"I am here to pay my respects to him," said Clay, who lives in Los Angeles. He visited Shuttlesworth at Drake Center Monday along with local singer Kay Barksdale.lt;/p>
Clay's trek across the country included a walk from Cincinnati to Los Angeles' Watts neighborhood in 1960. The second part included a walk from New York's Harlem neighborhood to Cincinnati in 1975, marking the second printing of his book, "The Big Walk."
He said he is preparing for a third printing in which he will explain what he considers solutions to the problems of black Americans. "We need to stop using words like suffering, grassroots and minorities and replace them with words like investment, manufacturing, promoting and supporting," he said.
Clay, 74, is a 1960 graduate of the University of Cincinnati and a Korean War veteran.
He is the son of Percy Marshall, 95, of Kennedy Heights