
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
On his way to Hollywood, a young Black man named Winston Willis stopped in Cleveland in 1959 to shoot a little pool and walked away $35,000 richer. He used his winnings to open over two dozen businesses on Cleveland's East Side, a vibrant area that locals referred to as "Inner City Disneyland." For a time, Willis was a multi-millionaire, the largest employer of Black people in the Midwest, and a bold business mogul with a big reputation.
Nowadays, there's no trace of the "Miracle on 105th Street". That same intersection is dominated by the campus of a non-profit hospital system. And most people growing up in Cleveland today have never heard of Winston Willis.
Cleveland writer and race educator Ajah Hales examines the forces that punished Willis for daring to live the American dream, and goes on a search for his missing legacy.
4.6
35353,535 ratings
On his way to Hollywood, a young Black man named Winston Willis stopped in Cleveland in 1959 to shoot a little pool and walked away $35,000 richer. He used his winnings to open over two dozen businesses on Cleveland's East Side, a vibrant area that locals referred to as "Inner City Disneyland." For a time, Willis was a multi-millionaire, the largest employer of Black people in the Midwest, and a bold business mogul with a big reputation.
Nowadays, there's no trace of the "Miracle on 105th Street". That same intersection is dominated by the campus of a non-profit hospital system. And most people growing up in Cleveland today have never heard of Winston Willis.
Cleveland writer and race educator Ajah Hales examines the forces that punished Willis for daring to live the American dream, and goes on a search for his missing legacy.
3,916 Listeners
90,396 Listeners
37,426 Listeners
75,493 Listeners
5,647 Listeners
1,468 Listeners
27,637 Listeners
20,470 Listeners
15,552 Listeners
2,660 Listeners
9,797 Listeners
15,067 Listeners
19,008 Listeners
4,379 Listeners
1,405 Listeners
3,039 Listeners
215 Listeners
79 Listeners
675 Listeners
3,137 Listeners
1,750 Listeners
361 Listeners