Southside Community Center
Visit Southside Community Center
305 South Plain Street
Ithaca, New York 14850
Phone: (607) 273-4190
The Southside Community Center (SCC) has been a gathering place and self-help organization for the African American community in Ithaca for more than eight decades. The SCC grew out of the organizing work of the local Frances Harper Women’s Club, formed in 1902 by members of St. James AME Zion Church, Calvary Baptist Church, and a local temperance group.
Such women’s clubs for African Americans proliferated in the Jim Crow era of the late 1800s and the early decades of the twentieth century, inspired by the leadership of Baltimore native Frances E. W. Harper (1825-1911). Harper was a writer, poet, and public speaker who championed the causes of abolition, suffrage and women’s rights, and temperance. In 1888, the activist gave a Women’s Christian Temperance Union lecture in Ithaca and spoke at the St. James AME Zion Church.
Originally the Frances Harper Women’s Club members focused on literary activities, according to sociologist Deirdre Hill Butler. By 1927, the clubwomen recognized the need for a community center to provide recreational, educational, and employment activities for young people. “The Negro youth of Ithaca had no central place for their activities,” recalled Frances Harper Club President Vera Irvin, some years later. “Realizing that the success of our group in meeting the responsibilities of citizenship was dependent on the training of our people, we raised the question, ‘Why not provide a center in which this objective can be worked out?’”
To pursue this effort, the Club formed the Serv-Us League the following year, involving leaders from both the Southside and the wider Ithaca community. Jessie Cooper, the League’s president, echoed Irving’s goals of citizenship education, noting, “The development of increased opportunities for better citizenship and the development of moral, economic and social welfare among the colored residents of our community, is the general purpose of the Serv-Us League. Our objectives—in the main—include the promotion of activities to engage the best use of the free time of the children and adults by employing recreational programs of character building and cultural types as well as facilities for wholesale recreation, music, community drama and constructive play.”
After raising funds from the entire Ithaca community and with support from the Community Chest (the precursor to the United Way), the Serv-Us League set up its first center in a rented home at 221 South Plain Street and then, in 1932, moved in to a home at 305 South Plain Street it purchased for its permanent facility. Unfortunately, the building was damaged in the devastating flood of 1935.
With local support and funding from the Works Progress Administration, the current stately red brick building was finished in 1938 and dedicated by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The design incorporated a large gymnasium named for acclaimed Cornell student-athlete Jerome “Brud” Holland (Cornell ’39), an office, and activities room on the ground floor. The second floor originally housed a meeting room, library, game room, and the director’s apartment.
Through the decades the Southside Community Center has provided sports, arts, and other after-school activities, employment support, and health services. Its current mission statement echoes its original goals, aiming to “affirm, empower, and foster the development of self-pride among the African American citizens of greater Ithaca” through education, recreation, and political and social awareness. In addition to afterschool activities, the SCC runs a food pantry, a pet clinic, and the RIBS (Recycle Ithaca’s Bicycles) program. The Center’s civic education activities include hosting Black Town Halls and serving as a voting site.
In an echo of its founding clubwomen, a mosaic mural on the front of the SCC building completed in 2019 celebrates “black girl alchemists,” a vision of the transformative power of black women’s leadership. Current programs offer young women leadership training and performance opportunities. “We talk about self-love and collective pride being absolutely revolutionary,” explained SCC board president Dr. Nia Nunn. “This work recognizes that when the community prioritizes the voices of black girls and black women, everybody benefits.”
The SCC’s annual Juneteenth celebration marks the anniversary of the date, June 19, 1865, that enslaved Texans belatedly learned of emancipation. Live music, dance performances, and delicious food attract hundreds of celebrants from all over. The Center’s annual Kwanzaa celebration in December honors African ancestors as it focuses on seven key principles: umoja (unity), kujichagulia (self-determination), ujima (collective work and responsibility), ujamaa (cooperative economics), nia (purpose), kuumba (creativity), and imani (faith).