Stonemason Charles Tinner and his wife Elizabeth developed the community of Tinner Hill in the late 1800s. He created ten lots on what had previously been a tobacco plantation and bequeathed one to each of his children. In 1915, one of Tinner’s sons, Joseph, joined forces with Dr. E.B. Henderson and other neighbors to form the Colored Citizens Protective League to protest a segregation ordinance— an order that would have forced them out of their homes and into a separate part of town. The Supreme Court struck down forced housing…
