Faburn DeFrantz: Executive Director of Senate Ave YMCA for Over 35 Years in Indianapolis
Faburn DeFrantz spent decades fighting for racial progress in Indianapolis and throughout Indiana.
DeFrantz moved to Indianapolis in 1913 to become the physical director of the Senate Avenue YMCA.
The Y, like many other institutions in the U.S. at the time, was segregated, and black YMCAs were often social and recreational centers for African American communities in large cities.
In 1916, when DeFrantz took over the leadership of the Senate Avenue Y as its executive secretary, he and his staff began to transform the branch into what historian Richard Pierce calls the “most significant African American Y in the country.
DeFrantz built the YMCA upon the traditional foundations-after school and on weekends, the building was full of boys and men playing all kinds of sports, many of the adults not only enjoying their own recreation but mentoring the youngsters around them.
