Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Valparaiso, Indiana" in English language version.
Born: February 1, 1992 (Age: 28-110d) in Valparaiso, IN
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)More than 30 years ago, Barbara Frazier-Cotton, a single, black mother raising her six children in Chicago's public housing projects, brought her family to Valparaiso where they became the first to breach the city's color barrier. The house butted against a thick wooded area at the end of a short, curved drive. Officials refused to hook up municipal water, even though they lived within city limits. The family relied on well water. Thinking back, Walt Reiner to this day says he wouldn't wish on an enemy what Frazier-Cotton went through that first year in Valparaiso. On occasion, Frazier-Cotton also wonders aloud why she didn't just pack up and leave. More moments than she'd like to remember forced her to question whether she made the right decision. The phone rang often in the middle of the night. "Go home," the voice on the other end would say. "You don't belong here." Strange cars rolled down the driveway late at night. "I was afraid to call the police," she says. "They said earlier they wouldn't come." One summer night, she awoke, sat up in bed and looked straight at a man staring at her through an open window. The windows remained closed for a long time after that. People gawked at her in stores or on the street. A stranger once handed her a business card that read, "Keep Valparaiso Clean" on one side and "KKK" on the other. Crosses were burned on her lawn." For the most part, the schools and churches stood strong and supportive. Some Valparaiso educators even took the opportunity to have Frazier-Cotton speak to their students, offering them exposure to an otherwise inaccessible perspective on cultural diversity. Many Valparaiso University students befriended the family, regardless of race. Others in the city also accepted Frazier-Cotton into the community. Still, her children's names would often be the first mentioned when something turned up missing or vandalized.
<When her stepson showed up at her front door, the previous winter's tragic events at the university were quickly becoming a distant memory. Horace Smith Jr. arrived unannounced at her Cedar Lane house in early August of 1980, looking for a little space and time to straighten some things out. [...] His decision to come to Valparaiso proved costly. In the early morning hours of Aug. 22, 1980, two brothers on their way to go squirrel hunting found Smith dying in a ditch along U.S. 30, just west of Ind. 51. "He was unable to talk and was gasping for air. They tried to get him to state what happened, but he was incoherent," said First Sgt. Glen Edmondson of the Indiana State Police, who reviewed the file years later. Trooper Richard Bonesteel arrived just before 4 a.m. Smith was dead. Because Smith was black, officers assumed he was from Lake County and notified Gary police first. The initial report said Smith was either pushed from a moving vehicle or struck by a car while walking along the side of the road. The Lake County Coroner's office ruled out suicide, but listed the cause of death as undetermined. The case remains unsolved, a dense file in the state police's Cold Case division. Many specifics about the case are restricted because it technically is still under investigation. And family members are still reluctant to rehash details. Smith's body had cuts and bruises, but the only bone fracture was to the lower, rear portion of his skull, indicating someone probably hit him in the back of the head. Smith had no other broken bones, making it difficult to imagine he was hit by a car. Edmondson, filtering through decades old documents, says there were indications race played a role. "I think there's some of those issues that go on in these arguments because some of the people it makes mention of are black and some are white," Edmondson says. Betty Ballard, Frazier-Cotton's long-time friend, says Frazier-Cotton came to her house shortly after Smith's death, frightened because she had received a phone call from someone who may have had a hand in her stepson's death. "They called her and told her they were going to kill her," Ballard says. "She called me and told me, 'Betty, we've got to leave. They're going to kill us all.'" The day after Frazier-Cotton identified her stepson for police, the Vidette-Messenger, the local newspaper, ran two related front page stories. A small item explained how police had identified Horace Smith, a relative of Valparaiso's first black family, as the youth found dead along U.S. 30 days earlier. The main story described a cross burning on the lawn outside of the newspaper office. Two Ku Klux Klan business cards at the base of the cross read, "Racial purity is America's security." "The Klan is watching you" stickers were pasted on a van and a car in the building's parking lot. Ultimately, Smith's death proved to be Frazier-Cotton's breaking point. It was time to leave.
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