The Indiana Avenue Newspaper : Leslie Lynnton Fuller, Editor
Welcome to The Indiana Avenue Newspaper, an independent online community news outlet serving the Indiana Avenue District of Indianapolis.
While we focus on the District and surrounding areas including IUPUI, the I.U. Medical Complex, and surrounding businesses and organizations, we will also include news of note throughout the City, State, Nation & World.
During the era of enforced racial segregation, Indiana Avenue was where the Black community of Indianapolis worshipped, shopped, lived and was educated. The street contained churches and nightclubs, grocery stores and funeral parlors, the Indianapolis Recorder Newspaper, Crispus Attucks High School and the Madam Walker Building.
Under the process of urban renewal and interstate highway construction, large stretches of the Avenue were demolished. But the Recorder still publishes, Crispus Attucks still produces graduates, and people still get dressed up for an evening out at the Walker.
Indianapolis author and historian David Leander Williams has written “Indianapolis Jazz” a chronicle of the District’s masters and legends, among them J.J. Johnson, Willis “Brushfire” Kirk, Freddie Hubbard, David Baker, Locksley “Slide” Hampton, as well as the brothers Charles “Buddy”, William “Monk” and John “Wes” Montgomery.
While the storied nightclubs are gone, interest in the Indiana Sound is alive and well. Today, IUPUI is the state’s third largest university, the I.U. Medical Center is a hub of healing and research.
The Kurt Vonnegut Museum & Library is a literary landmark at 543 Indiana Avenue, and at Musicians Repair & Sales at 332 N. Capitol, the Oldham family continues to rent, repair and sell instruments to musicians, amateur and professional, as they have done since 1948.
We invite you to a celebration of Indiana Avenue, and to honor its past and anticipate its future.