Bill Powell Golf pioneer first black man to design construct and own golf course call Clearview golf club

Powell was the grandson of Alabama slaves and was born in Greenville, Alabama. During his youth, Powell moved with his family to Minerva, Ohio. In high school there, he played golf and football. Later, at the state's historically African-American Wilberforce University, he played on the golf team. After serving in the United States Army Air Forces in World War II in England, he returned to the Canton, Ohio-area near Minerva in 1946, and began work first as a janitor and later as a security guard for the Timken bearing and steel company.[1] Due to racial segregation, he was banned from all-white public golf courses and was rejected for a bank loan to try to build his own. With financing from two African-American doctors and a loan from his brother, Powell bought a 78-acre (320,000 m2) dairy farm in East Canton, Ohio, and with his wife, Marcella, did most of the landscaping by hand. Two years later, in 1948, he opened the integrated Clearview Golf Club. In 1978, he expanded the course to 18 holes and earned a national-historic-site designation in 2001. As of the 2000s (decade), Clearview was the only course in the United States designed, constructed, owned and operated by an African American. Powell died in Canton, Ohio, on New Year's Eve, 2009, following complications from a stroke.