Willert Park and the Laughlin Family
In 1939, the U.S. Housing Authority constructed the Willert Park Courts specifically
for African-Americans, despite the
fact that the neighborhood was made up of African-Americans, Jews, and Italian-Americans.
When completed in 1939,
the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority rejected applications from whites
for one of the 172 apartments. By 1941, there
was a waiting list of nearly a thousand eligible African-Americans whose applications
had been refused for available housing in
other public projects around the city on the basis of their race. The story
below is from a family who lived in
what are now called the A.D. Price Courts during its first five years. Photo
is from 1939 (Library of Congress).
John Laughlin was born and raised in this home outside Sparta, Georgia. He
decided to go north in 1924
to find work. He chose Buffalo because his two brothers and a sister had already
found work there. The homestead above,
on 10 acres, remains in the Laughlin family. The photo above is from late
1980's.
Claudia Hall came to Buffalo from Macon, Georgia in 1924 to join her siblings
who had
preceded her. She and John Laughlin met and were married on December 27, 1924.
After living on
Peckham Street for a time, they moved into an apartment in the new Willert
Park Courts. Two children were born
to them during their Willert Park years. The photo above is from the 1930's.
John Laughlin worked at American Brass, Houdaille, and as a chauffer for wealthy
Buffalonians.
When Claudia Hall Laughlin first arrived in Buffalo, she was a maid at the
Statler Hotel. Later she catered parties
and was known for her cooking.
This well-dressed crowd of children are posed before two apartments at Willert
Park in 1946. In the first row at left
are Pete Laughlin (second from left) and Joan Laughlin (third from left).
The occasion may have been a birthday party.
In 1946, they purchased a home at 313 Watson for $2500 and lived there for
42 years, raising three
children . Claudia Hall Laughlin became a beautician so that she could work
out of their home while the children
were small. In 1994, the family donated the home to Habitat for Humanity.
The above image is a 2005 view.
Special thanks to John and Claudia Laughlin's second child,
Joan, for sharing photos and memories of
her parents. She recalls with pride her parents' industry, integrity and example.