Phale Dophis Hale Sr. (1914-2009)

From Jet Magazine, November 1983.

  Ohio based clergyman, politician and civil rights leader Phale Dophis Hale achieved much in his near 95 years, being a Morehouse College graduate, Baptist minister, a seven-term state representative, and chairman of the Ohio Civil Rights Commission. From humble beginnings in Mississippi Hale rose to become one of the leading African-American religious and political leaders in the Buckeye State. One of twelve children born to Mississippi sharecroppers Church and Lee Ellen Hale, Phale Dophis Hale was born in Starksville on July 16, 1914.

  Bestowed the curious names Phale Dophis upon his birth, Hale's formative years were spent in the state in which he was born, and was a student at the Greenwood Colored High School. Following his graduation in 1933, Hale and a friend left Mississippi on foot to seek a new life, and after being taught how to ride the rails by hoboes, Hale found himself in Chicago seeking employment. He would later find work via the aid of a brother-in-law at a Buffalo, New York steel mill, and with this income and money lent from relatives enrolled at Morehouse College in the 1930s.

  Hale continued study at Morehouse through the late 1930s and after encountering tuition problems returned to steel millwork in Buffalo. He would return to Morehouse sometime later and would graduate in the class of 1940. During his time there became a friend of the Rev. Martin Luther King Sr. (1899-1984) and developed friendships with two of his sons, Martin Luther King Jr. and Alvin D. King. Hale's friendship with the future civil rights icon would see King be a guest pastor on two occasions at the same church Hale ministered at in Columbus, and he would also spend the night at the Hale home during his stays in the city.

  After turning his attention to religious work Phale Hale took his first ministry in LaGrange, Georgia in 1940, holding the pastorate of that town's First Baptist Church. In the same year as Hale's settlement in LaGrange, that town was the site of the murder of Austin Callaway, a black youth suspected in the assault of a white woman. Forcibly taken from his cell and shot multiple times by several white assailants, Callaway died of his wounds on September 9, 1940. In the wake of this lynching, Phale Hale "undertook investigations into the lynchings of blacks" and founded an NAACP chapter in the community. Hale would take further action by issuing a call for national NAACP leaders to do their own investigation into lynchings that had occurred. During his Georgia residency, Phale Hale married in August 1943 to Cleo Ingram (1922-2013), a Spelman college student. The couple's sixty-five-year marriage saw the births of four children, Phale Dolphis Jr. (1946-2009), Janice Ellen (1948-2017), Marna, and Hilton Ingram.

Phale Hale as he appeared in the Lima News, April 22, 1967.

  After five years in LaGrange Phale Hale and his wife removed to Fort Wayne, Indiana, where Hale would accept the pastorate of the Union Baptist Church. Like LaGrange, Hale would see widespread racism in the city, and would also found another NAACP chapter here. He is also noted as having led an early lunch counter sit-in in the city. His pastorship in Fort Wayne extended until 1950, and two years prior he earned his doctor of divinity degree from Gammon Theological Seminary and Chapel Theological School.

  In 1950 Phale Hale and his family removed to Columbus, Ohio, where Hale would enter into a forty-three-year pastorship at the Union Baptist Church. Shortly after his arrival, he would become president of the Franklin County NAACP chapter, and his time in that post (1950-1960) saw new employment opportunities for blacks open up in the city, as he:

"Placed the first Black teller in a bank in Columbus, Ohio, placed the first Black Highway Patrolman on the highways of the State of Ohio, and was responsible for the appointment of the first Black professor on the faculty of the Ohio State University."

 Over and decade and a half following his resettlement in Columbus, Phale D. Hale made his first move onto the Ohio political stage, announcing his candidacy for the Ohio House of Representatives from the 31st legislative district in 1966. He would win the election that November and continued to win reelection to the next seven Ohio legislative terms, retiring undefeated at the end of the 1980 house session. Hale's fourteen-year tenure in the house saw him chair the house committee on Welfare during the 1973-74 session and was also chair of the Human Resources committee. A founding member of the Black Elected Democrats of Ohio (now the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus) in 1967, Hale also served that group as its coordinator for the clergy. Hale's legislative service also saw him named as deputy director of the Democratic National Committee and continued service as a member of the American Baptist Theological Seminary (having been in office since 1957.)

Hale during his senate tenure.

  Following his retirement from the legislature in 1980, Phale Hale continued prominence in his state, being appointed as chairman of the Ohio Civil Rights Commission that year. He would serve until 1985, and continued to be socially active well into his later years, being the president of Columbus' Operation PUSH, a board member of the Mid Ohio Health Planning Federation and the Ohio Council of Churches, a member of the Columbus Area Anti Poverty Council, and for thirty-two years (1960-1992) served as director of the Ohio Baptist General Convention's Social Action Commission.

  In 1995, the then 81-year-old Hale was reappointed to the Democratic National Committee by then-President Bill Clinton, and in 1993 retired from his pastorship at Union Baptist Church. He and his wife Cleo celebrated their sixtieth wedding anniversary in 2003 and were feted with a family celebration in Columbus. After nearly six decades of distinction in his adopted city of Columbus, Phale Dophis Hale died on May 29, 2009, two months short of his 95th birthday. He was survived by his wife Cleo, who, following her death at age 91 in 2013, was interred alongside him at the Green Lawn Cemetery in Columbus.

Phale and Cleo Hale in September 2003, from Jet Magazine.