arthur ware
1889-1945
Life Story
Early Life in Newton County, Mississippi
Arthur Ware was born on April 13, 1889 (recorded in some records as 1890) in Newton County, Mississippi. He was the eldest son of Richard David Ware and Laura Cooper Ware, who raised their family on a farm in the Lawrence community of Beat 4. Arthur grew up alongside his siblings—Horace, Ardee, Richard, Jr., Addie, Ruby, and later Lettie Ann—in a household rooted in hard work, faith, and perseverance during the difficult decades following Reconstruction.
As a member of the first generation of his family born after emancipation, Arthur experienced both the opportunities and limitations of the Jim Crow South. His parents believed in the value of education, and like his mother and father, Arthur learned to read and write. At the same time, childhood on a Mississippi farm left little room for idleness. The 1900 federal census records ten-year-old Arthur attending school while also working as a farm laborer, reflecting the reality that every member of a farming household contributed to the family’s livelihood.
Leaving Mississippi During the Great Migration
As Arthur entered adulthood, economic opportunities for African Americans in rural Mississippi remained limited. Like hundreds of thousands of Black Southerners seeking better wages, greater personal freedom, and a future beyond sharecropping and agricultural labor, he joined the Great Migration, leaving Mississippi for the industrial North.
By the time of the World War I Draft Registration in 1917–1918, Arthur was living in Washington County, Pennsylvania. His registration card provides one of the few surviving personal descriptions of him, identifying him as a short, stout man with brown eyes and black hair.
Although the records do not identify his occupation during these early years away from home, his move reflected one of the most significant demographic shifts in American history, as millions of African Americans left the South in search of new opportunities.
Marriage and Building a Life in the North
Around 1924 or 1925, Arthur married Flossie, beginning a partnership that would last the remainder of his life.
By 1925, the couple had settled in Buffalo, New York, where they lived as boarders in the city’s Eighth Ward while Arthur sought stable employment. Like many migrant families during the 1920s, they continued moving where work was available.
During the latter part of the decade, Arthur and Flossie relocated to Monroe, Michigan, where Arthur found employment as a road construction laborer. There they achieved an important milestone by purchasing a home on Conant Street, valued at $800. For a Black migrant family only a generation removed from the poverty that followed slavery, homeownership represented far more than financial success—it symbolized security, independence, and the realization of opportunities that had been difficult to attain in the rural South.
Returning to Buffalo
By the mid-1930s, Arthur and Flossie returned permanently to Buffalo, New York, where they established their home on Milnor Street.
Federal census records and city directories consistently identify Arthur as a general laborer, one of countless African American workers whose physical labor helped fuel the growth of Buffalo’s manufacturing economy. While the work was often demanding and offered little public recognition, it provided the steady income that enabled many migrant families to establish lasting roots in northern cities.
Arthur’s life reflected the experience of many Black migrants who adapted to changing economic conditions while helping reshape America’s industrial workforce during the first half of the twentieth century.
Supporting the Nation During World War II
When the United States entered World War II, Arthur had already reached his early fifties and was beyond the age for military service. Nevertheless, he answered the nation’s call in another important way.
On April 27, 1942, Arthur registered under the Fourth Registration, commonly known as the “Old Man’s Draft.” His registration described him as standing 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighing 190 pounds, with brown eyes, black hair, and a dark complexion.
Perhaps most significantly, Arthur reported that he was employed at a TNT (trinitrotoluene) explosives plant, part of the nation’s rapidly expanding defense industry. TNT was the principal explosive used in artillery shells, aerial bombs, naval ammunition, and numerous other military weapons. Manufacturing these explosives required physically demanding and often hazardous work involving toxic chemicals and highly combustible materials.
Although Arthur was too old to wear a military uniform, his labor formed part of the vast industrial effort that supplied Allied forces throughout the war. Like millions of Americans who served on the home front, he contributed to the nation’s victory by producing materials essential to the war effort.
Final Years
Only a few years after joining the wartime workforce, Arthur’s life came to an early end.
He died in Buffalo, New York, on November 23, 1945, at the age of fifty-five. He was survived by his wife, Flossie, with whom he had shared the challenges and opportunities of life in the industrial North.
Although the surviving records reveal only fragments of his final years, they portray a man who spent his adult life adapting to changing circumstances while seeking economic stability for his family.
Legacy
Arthur Ware’s life mirrors one of the defining stories of twentieth-century African American history.
Born into a farming family in rural Newton County only a generation after emancipation, he witnessed the limitations imposed by the Jim Crow South and chose to seek opportunity elsewhere. His journey carried him from the fields of Mississippi to Pennsylvania, Michigan, and ultimately Buffalo, New York, where he built a home, earned a living through honest labor, and contributed to the nation’s wartime industrial production.
His story reflects the broader experience of the Great Migration, when millions of African Americans transformed not only their own lives but also the economic, cultural, and political landscape of the United States. Though the historical record preserves only scattered glimpses of Arthur’s life, those records reveal a man of resilience who embraced opportunity, adapted to change, and helped lay the foundation upon which future generations would build.
Resting Place
Unknown
Photos/Albums
Sources
- 1900 U.S. Census, Newton County, Mississippi, Beat 4, Enumeration District 93, sheet 10B, dwelling 189, family 189, Richard Ware household; Arthur Ware listed as born April 1889 in Mississippi.
- 1910 U.S. Census, Newton County, Mississippi, Beat 4, Enumeration District 102, sheet 6B, Richard Ware household.
- Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration (New York: Random House, 2010), 9–15; James N. Gregory, The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 13–36.
- World War I Draft Registration Card, Arthur Ware, Washington County, Pennsylvania, 1917–1918, Selective Service System Records, National Archives.
- Buffalo, New York, City Directory, 1925, Arthur Ware entry.
- 1930 U.S. Census, Monroe, Monroe County, Michigan, Arthur Ware household; Arthur employed as a road construction laborer and residing on Conant Street in an owner-occupied home valued at $800.
- Gregory, The Southern Diaspora, 181–210.
- Buffalo City Directories, 1935–1942; 1940 U.S. Census, Buffalo, Erie County, New York, Arthur Ware household.
- World War II Draft Registration Card (“Old Man’s Draft”), Arthur Ware, Buffalo, Erie County, New York, April 27, 1942, Selective Service System Records, National Archives.
- The draft registration identifies Arthur’s employer as a “TNT Plant.” Additional research may identify the specific wartime employer or defense contractor.
- Arthur Ware death record, Buffalo, Erie County, New York, November 23, 1945, New York State Department of Health. (If a death certificate or obituary is later obtained, this citation can be expanded to include cause of death, burial location, and informant.)
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