Black People... After 1865 by Dr. Leroy Vaughn, MD, MBA, Historian After 1865

BLACK PEOPLE
AND THEIR PLACE IN WORLD HISTORY

by DR. LEROY VAUGHN, MD, MBA, HISTORIAN is now available on amazon.com.

AFTER 1865

BLACK COWBOYS

THE BLACK STATUE OF LIBERTY

LYNCHING

FIVE BLACK PRESIDENTS

BLACK INVENTORS

WEST POINT ACADEMY AND BLACK CADETS

BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS AND BLACK SOLDIERS

BLACK COWBOYS

The deaths of Roy Rogers and Gene Autry saddened us all because many of us grew up watching these fictional cowboys help tame the old west. However, what’s even sadder is that virtually none of us can name a single Black cowboy either real or fictional. The very word “cowboy” was initially only applied to Black men who took care of cows. Similarly, Black men who worked in the house were called “house boys.” Nevertheless, once cowboys became the heroes of western novels and later television, Black people totally disappeared from the Old West.
Joseph G. McCoy created the need for “cowboys” when he established a market and railroad-shipping center at Abilene, Kansas. Before McCoy was able to convince the Union Pacific Railroad to extend its tracks into Abilene, ranchers in Texas had no way to get their cattle to beef hungry Eastern and Midwestern markets. Most of the cattle were merely slaughtered for their hides. It was estimated that over four million cattle grazed in Texas at the end of the Civil War. Once the marketplace for buyers and sellers of cattle was created, cattlemen had only to get their herds from Texas into the Abilene, Kansas cattle trains. The best known trail for delivering these cattle was called the Chisholm Trail. Its main stem ran from the Rio Grand through Austin, Waco, and Fort Worth, Texas before entering Oklahoma and finally Kansas.
A cattle crew of eleven men, the trail boss, eight cowboys, a wrangler and a cook, usually managed an average herd of 2,500 cattle. Approximately two to four Black cowboys were present on most cattle drives because among them were many of the best riders and ropers in the Midwest. Ironically enough, all cowhands - whether White or Black - soon became known as cowboys which White Texans strongly resented. The eight cowboys usually rode in pairs with two in the front and rear and two on each side of the herd. Moreover, the cook was usually a retired Black cowboy and the wrangler was frequently a Black teenager who took care of the horses.
Ab Blocker, one of the most famous of the trail bosses, said he intentionally hired large numbers of Black cowboys because of their outstanding performances during the two to three month long arduous and dangerous trail drives. One Black cowboy actually saved his life. All the real cowboys - Black, Brown, Red, and White - shared the same jobs and dangers. They ate the same food and slept in the same area. Cowboys had to be willing to work almost day and night to the point of exhaustion and under the most strenuous conditions. They continuously risked death through drowning (at river crossings) and attacks from wild animals including wolves and snakes. They also faced illness produced by high winds and freezing thunderstorms.
This constant threat of danger developed an extreme comradery among cowboys on the trail. In fact, when a Black cowboy became the first person imprisoned in the new Abilene jail, his Black and White cowboy crew immediately broke him out and ran the sheriff out of town. At the end of their long cattle drives, a few Black cowboys remained on northern ranges to become horse breakers, ranch hands and even sheriffs or outlaws, but most of them drew their pay and rode back to Texas for yet another cattle drive.
Despite the legendary performances of great lawmen like Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson, Black soldiers, known as the Buffalo Soldiers, were primarily responsible for keeping law and order in the Old West. Their peace keeping missions between cattlemen and farmers (who fought to keep cattle off of their crops) was primarily responsible for making expansion of the cattle empire possible. The Buffalo Soldiers were also the primary force that helped stop Indian attacks on cattlemen moving up the Chisholm Trail. The Congressional Act of July 28, 1866 established two Black infantry regiments and two Calvary regiments. All four saw continuous service in the West during the three decades following the Civil War. The Black Calvary fought in almost every part of the West from Mexico to Montana. Both General Miles and General Merritt praised their Black troops as “courageous, skilled, intelligent, and brave in battle.”
It should not be surprising that Black men were among the best horse riders in the Old West because they were traditionally responsible for the care and maintenance of horses while working as stable boys, trainers, and jockeys. In fact, thirteen of the fourteen jockeys who participated in the first running of the Kentucky Derby were Black. Moreover, from 1875 until 1902 Black jockeys won eleven Kentucky Derby titles. Isaac Murphy, who won the Kentucky Derby in 1884, 1890, and 1891, was recognized as America’s finest rider during the last two decades of the 19th century. Forty years passed before Earl Sande tied his record of three Kentucky Derby titles. Black jockeys continued their outstanding performances until racism barred them from the racetracks and replaced them with White jockeys.
In July 1876, the booming new town of Deadwood, South Dakota, decided to have a roping contest to settle once and for all who was the best roping cowboy. Contestants came from miles around to win the $200 prize. A Black cowboy named Nat Love, who subsequently wrote his autobiography, was several minutes faster than his nearest competition. With the roping contest completed, a dispute soon arose over who was the best marksman. Nat Love also won the subsequent shooting contest by placing all fourteen of his rifle shots in the bull’s eye target at 150 yards. In addition to the prize money, Nat Love was given the title “Deadwood Dick” which he carried with “honor” ever after.
Bill Pickett is credited with having originated the sport of “bulldogging.” Bulldogging is defined as “throwing a steer by seizing the horns and twisting the neck.” According to Bill Pickett’s boss, Zack Miller who owned the 101 Ranch, “Bill Pickett was the greatest sweat and dirt cowhand that ever lived - bar none.” The Miller Brothers’ 101 Ranch later became famous for putting on one of the finest rodeos in the world and played in such places as Chicago, New York, London, and Mexico City. One of their greatest attractions was Bill Pickett who would actually bring down steers with only his teeth.
As the agricultural frontier moved west, the open range was transformed into farms with barbed-wire boundaries, which significantly reduced the public domain for cattle trails. The long cattle drives also gradually declined as the railroads built branch lines into large Texas cities. By 1890, the legendary era of the cowboy was over, except in fictional novels where Black cowboys completely vanished from their role as self-reliant and masterful heroes of the Old West.

BLACK COWBOYS BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abbott, E. & Smith, H. (1939) We Pointed Them North: Recs. of a Cowpuncher. NY: Farrar & Rienhart.
Adams, A. (1931) The Log of a Cowboy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.
Adams, R. (ed.) (1957) The Best of the American Cowboy. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Atherton, L. (1961) The Cattle Kings. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.
Bard, F. (1960) Horse Wrangler: Sixty Years in the Saddle in WY and MT. Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press.
Billington, M. & Hardaway, R. (eds.)(1998) Afr. Ams. on the West. Frontier. Niwot, CO. Univ. Pr. of CO.
Branch, E. (1961) The Cowboy and His Interpreters. New York: Cooper Square Publishers
Bronson, E. (1910) Cowboy Life on the West. Plains. Reminiscences of a Ranchman. NY: Geo. H. Doran Co.
Durham, P. & Jones, E. (1965) The Negro Cowboys. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Katz, W. (1992) Black People Who Made the Old West. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press
Leckie, W. (1967) The Buffalo Soldiers. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Pelz, R. (1989) Black Heroes of the Wild West. Seattle: Open Hand Publishers.
Ravage, J. (1997) Black Pioneers: Images of the Black Experience.. Salt Lake City: Univ. of Utah Press.
Savage, W. (1976) Blacks in the West. Westport: Greenwood Press.

THE BLACK STATUE OF LIBERTY

In 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte stated that history was only “a lie agreed upon.” Nothing could be more illustrative than the history of the Statue of Liberty originally called “Liberty Enlightening the World.” The liberation of African American slaves was the only inspiration for the creation of a Statue of Liberation for Edouard Rene LeFebvre DeLaboulaye. He recruited a young sculptor, Frederick Auguste Bartholdi, to create a Black female slave statue holding a broken chain in her left hand and with broken chains of slavery at her feet.
The official web site of the Statue of Liberty states that the statue was given to the people of the United States by the people of France as an expression of friendship and to commemorate the centennial of American Independence (1776). The Encyclopedia Britannica states Bartholdi designed the Statue of Liberty as a monument to the Franco-American alliance of 1778. These are absolute and total lies! Edouard Rene LeFebvre DeLaboulaye, an internationally renowned lawyer and author of a three-volume history of the United States, first discussed the idea of a symbol to represent the end of U.S. slavery at a dinner party in 1865, at his country home near Versailles, France. In attendance at the dinner party were many abolitionists including Victor Hugo and Frederick Auguste Bartholdi, who had initially been retained to create a sculptured bust of Mr. DeLaboulaye.
Victor Hugo and Edouard DeLaboulaye were leaders of the French abolitionist movement. They hated slavery and were in strong support of John Brown when he attempted to arm slaves in West Virginia for rebellion by raiding the armory at Harpers Ferry in 1859. After John Brown failed and was hanged, Hugo and DeLaboulaye took up a collection among the French people and presented a gold metal to John Brown’s widow.
After Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States in 1861, the French liberals and abolitionists including Hugo, Bartholdi, and DeLaboulaye urged Lincoln to free the slaves even if civil war resulted. Lincoln was told: “You would become the first country in history to have fought a war against itself to free the internal slave and you would go down in history as a truly great country and a beacon of light to all freedom loving people.” The French abolitionists saw the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 as a worthless piece of paper since it only freed slaves in the Confederate controlled states where Lincoln had no jurisdiction and not in Union controlled states where Lincoln was still in authority. When the war ended in 1865, French abolitionists were extremely happy and in addition to again urging Lincoln to free all slaves, DeLaboulaye and Bartholdi requested permission to build and dedicate a monument or colossal statuary to that freeing of all slaves in America. When Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, DeLaboulaye again headed the abolitionists’ committee that presented a gold metal to Mrs. Lincoln, just as he had done for the widow of John Brown.
In addition to a staunch abolitionist, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi (1834-1904) was an outstanding French sculptor. Bartholdi trained to be an architect in Alsace and Paris and then studied painting with Ary Scheffer and sculpture with J. F. Sioux. Bartholdi’s life and ideas changed dramatically after 1855 when he toured Egypt and witnessed the magnificent colossal monuments and statues created by the ancient Black Egyptians. Bartholdi’s creation of a giant Black ex-slave female with broken chains at her feet and left hand was readily accepted in France. Although liberals, freemasons, and businessmen with American interests were the most enthusiastic supporters of the project, by 1881 some 100,000 people and 181 towns throughout France had contributed money.
In 1871, Frederic Bartholdi at the urging of DeLaboulaye undertook a voyage to America to sell his idea of a colossal statue clearly symbolizing the end of chattel slavery in the United States. He was armed with a large terracotta statue and numerous drawings to clearly illustrate his proposed Statue of Liberty. The original African face of the Statue of Liberty was published in The New York Post dated June 17, 1986 as part of the centennial celebration. Bartholdi found little American support for his African slave model. In 1878, as the African head of Miss. Liberty first went on display at the Universal Exposition in Paris, France, rampant reaction raged throughout the American South.
Bartholdi finally had to abandon his original ideas and changed the Statue of Liberty to the features we are now familiar with. The African face was re-sculptured into the face of his mother Madame Bartholdi. A tablet of law tucked into her folded arm that bears the date July 4, 1776, replaced the broken chains in the slave’s left hand. Ironically, the chains were left at the feet but the meaning changed from broken American slavery to broken English tyranny.
On May 18, 1986 during the centennial celebration, The New York Times joined The New York Post in describing the original Statue of Liberty and the intention of DeLaboulaye and Bartholdi in presenting this statue to America. It’s unconscionable that the Encyclopedia Britannica and the official Statue of Liberty literature can still lie and say that this is a monument celebrating American Independence of 1776 and/or the Franco-American alliance of 1778. Dr. Jack Felder sums it up clearly: “Once in place, Miss. Liberty received a new meaning. She was hailed as the ‘Mother of White Exiles,’ greeting European immigrants seeking freedom in America. Nothing in the original conceptions of Bartholdi or DeLaboulaye envisioned this role for their stature.”

BLACK STATUE OF LIBERTY BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bohlen, C. “Does She Say the Same Things in her Native Tongue?” New York Times, May 18, 1986
Felder, J. (1992) From the Statue of Liberty to the Statue of Bigotry. New York: Jack Felder.
Felder, J. “Black Origins and Lady Liberty.” Daily Challenge. July 16, 1990
Felder, J. “This Miss. Liberty Was Modeled on Racism.” Black American, July 3, 1986.
Robinson, C. & Battle, R. (1987) The Journey of the Songhai People. Philadelphia: Farmer Press
Sinclair, T. Was Original Statue a Tribute to Blacks? New York Voice, July 5, 1986
The New York Post, “Statue of Liberty” June 17, 1986.

LYNCHING

Lynching is defined as mob execution, usually by hanging, without the benefit of trial and often accompanied with torture and body mutilation. The usual scenario included a mob of up to 5,000 White men attacking a single, defenseless Black man and executing him for a crime he was never convicted of or even charged with in most cases. Lynching is considered one of the most horrific chapters in African American history and is only exceeded by slavery in cruelty and savagery toward another human being.
Ironically, the term “lynch” is derived from the name of Charles Lynch, a Virginia planter and patriot during the American Revolution, who directed violence toward White British loyalists. After the Civil War and emancipation, lynching became almost synonymous with hanging and torturing African American males. Between 1882 and 1930 more than 3,300 Black male victims were hanged, burned alive, castrated, and mutilated by mostly southern White mobs who have never faced any charges for these criminal acts. Coroners and law officials typically attributed the murders to “parties unknown.” Most historians and sociologists agree that mob executions were really about social control and to maintain the status quo of White superiority and had little to due with crime control.
Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) could easily be called the mother of the anti-lynching movement. She was the first of eight children born to slave parents in Holly Springs, Mississippi. After emancipation, she attended several schools run by northern Methodist missionaries including Rust College. In 1879, after the yellow fever epidemic claimed the lives of both her parents, she moved to Memphis, Tennessee with the younger children and accepted a teaching position. Because of her great concern for racial injustice, Wells was invited to write for a local church paper. As her fame increased, she was asked to contribute to several Baptist newspapers. She eventually became editor and partner of the “Free Speech and Headlight” Baptist newspaper.
In 1892, the brutal lynching of three close friends in Memphis started Ida B. Wells on a militant, uncompromising, single-minded crusade against lynching from which she would never retreat. Her three friends committed the crime of opening a grocery store, which successfully competed with a White grocer directly across the street. For the crime of becoming too “uppity”, a large White mob took the three proprietors from their grocery store, tortured and killed them. Ms. Wells wrote angry editorials in her newspaper encouraging Blacks to leave Memphis if possible and to boycott White businesses, which left several White companies including the newly opened streetcar line on the verge of bankruptcy.
Ida B. Wells decided to launch her anti-lynching movement on several fronts. She first wanted to explode the myth that lynching was primarily to protect White women from rape by Black men. She published detailed statistics on lynching, which demonstrated that less than one-fifth of the victims of lynch mobs were even accused of rape by their killers. She said that racist southern White mobs “cry rape” to brand their victims as “moral monsters” and to place them “beyond the pale of human sympathy.” She wrote that while Southern White men raped Black women and children with impunity, they considered any liaison between a Black man and a White woman as involuntary by definition. She pointed out that children produced by White-Black relationships were called “mulatto” from the Spanish word for mule because racist Whites believed that mixed-race children, like the offspring of donkeys and horses, were an inferior breed that could not reproduce. When Ms. Wells suggested in print that White women were often willing participants with Black men, a large White mob destroyed the presses of her newspaper and would have killed her had she not been visiting friends in New York. Thomas Fortune invited her to stay in New York and write for the “New York Age.” She was also allowed to exchange the circulation list of the “Free Speech” for a one fourth interest in the “Age” and immediately began to write a series on lynching.
The second approach of Ida B. Wells in her anti-lynching movement was to appeal to the Christian conscience of powerful non-southern Whites. She published two pamphlets (“Southern Horror” in 1892 and “A Red Book” in 1895) in hopes that extensive statistical analyses of lynching would clearly point out that the southern rape fantasy was merely “an excuse to get rid of Negroes who were acquiring wealth and property.” She pointed out that the same lynch mob that killed a Nashville Black man accused of visiting a White woman left unharmed a White man convicted of raping an eight year old girl. Since Ms. Well’s viewed lynching as primarily an economic issue, she hoped that economic pressure from the “ruling-class Whites” could produce southern social change. She began a lecture tour in the Northeast in 1892 and in 1894 she lectured in England where she helped organize the British Anti-Lynching Society. Ms. Wells was able to effect a curtailment of British investment in the South by suggesting that this could influence American sentiment. In 1895, Ida B. Wells toured the northern and western states organizing American anti-lynching societies.
Ida B. Wells told African Americans that her analysis of mob violence suggested that it abated whenever Blacks exercised “manly self-defense.” In “Southern Horrors” she suggested, “a Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every Black home.” She also told Blacks that they must retaliate with their economic power. She urged Blacks to boycott White businesses or to migrate to Oklahoma since Black labor was the industrial strength of the South. She said: “The more the Afro-American yields and cringes and begs, the more he has to do so, the more he is insulted, outraged, and lynched.”
Since Southern courts would not punish lynching participants, Ms. Wells lobbied for legislation that would make lynching a federal crime. In 1901, Ida B. Wells met with President William McKinley and pressed for his support with anti-lynching legislation. However, she could not get McKinley or Theodore Roosevelt to support an anti-lynching bill that was introduced in Congress in 1902. As one of the founding members of the NAACP in 1909, she made her anti-lynching campaign including anti-lynching legislation among the NAACP’s highest priorities. The NAACP investigated specific incidents and published national statistics on lynching in an attempt to sway public support to put a stop to lynching. In 1918, the NAACP was able to get Republican Congressman Leonidas Dyer to introduce a bill that subjected lynch mobs to a charge of capital murder for their actions. The Dyer Bill passed in the House of Representatives but failed in the Senate because southern Democrats never allowed the bill out of committee. Congressman Dyer re-introduced the bill each year for the next ten years, but it never again passed either house.
As a result of the life-long crusade of Ida B. Wells against lynching, she became the inspiration for organizations throughout the country that opposed lynching. For example, The American Civil Liberties Union, The Commission on Interracial Cooperation, and
The Communist Party of the United States all played a role in the anti-lynching campaign. Ironically, White middle class Southern women for whom lynching was suppose to protect, formed the Jessie Daniel Ames Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching in 1930. In honor of her legacy, a low-income housing project in Chicago was named after Ida B. Wells in 1941; and in 1990, the U.S. Postal Service issued an Ida B. Wells commemorative stamp. The “militant,” “uncompromising,” “outspoken,” and “fearless” Ida B. Wells can surely look back upon her life as a genuine success in helping to end one of the most horrific chapters in African American history.
Strange Fruit
By Billie Holiday

Southern trees bear a strange fruit

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root

Black bodies swingin' in the Southern breeze

Strange fruit hangin' from the poplar trees

Pastoral scene

of the gallant South

The bulgin' eyes

and the twisted mouth

Scent of magnolias

sweet and fresh

Then the sudden smell

of burnin' flesh

Here is a fruit

for the crows to pluck

For the rain to gather

For the wind to suck

For the sun to rot

For the tree to drop

Here is a strange

and bitter crop

LYNCHING BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adams. R. (1969) Great Negroes: Past and Present. Chicago: Afro-Am Publishing Co., Inc.
Appiah, K. & Gates, H. (eds.) (1999) Africana. New York: Basis Civitas Books.
Aptheker, B. (ed.) (1977) Lynching and Rape: An Exchange of Views. American Institute for Marxist Studies.
Aptheker, H. (1951) A Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States. NY: Citadel Press
Bennett, L. (1975) The Shaping of Black America. Chicago: Johnson Publishing Co.
Bennett, L. (1988) Before the Mayflower. New York: Penguin Books.
Davis, M. (1982) Contributions of Black Women to America. Columbia, South Carolina; Kenday Press.
Duster, A. (1970) Crusade for Justice: Autobiography of Ida B. Wells. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
Franklin, J. & Meier, A. (eds.) (1982) Black Leaders of the 20th Century. Chicago: Univ. of Illinois Press
Franklin, J. (1988) From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Lerner, G. (ed.) (1973) Black Women in White America. A Documentary History. NY: Vintage Books.
Low, A. & Glift, V. (eds.) (1983) Encyclopedia of Black America. New York: Neal Schuman Publishers.
Sally, C. (1993) The Black 100. New York: Carol Publishing Group.

FIVE BLACK PRESIDENTS

Joel A. Rogers and Dr. Auset Bakhufu have both written books documenting that at least five former presidents of the United States had Black people among their ancestors. If one considers the fact that European men far outnumbered European women during the founding of this country, and that the rape and impregnation of an African female slave was not considered a crime, it is even more surprising that these two authors could not document Black ancestors among an ever larger number of former presidents. The presidents they name include Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren Harding, and Calvin Coolidge.
The best case for Black ancestry is against Warren G. Harding, our 29th president from 1921 until 1923. Harding himself never denied his ancestry. When Republican leaders called on Harding to deny the "Negro" history, he said, "How should I know whether or not one of my ancestors might have jumped the fence." William Chancellor, a White professor of economics and politics at Wooster College in Ohio, wrote a book on the Harding family genealogy and identified Black ancestors among both parents of President Harding. Justice Department agents allegedly bought and destroyed all copies of this book. Chancellor also said that Harding's only academic credentials included education at Iberia College, which was founded in order to educate fugitive slaves.
Andrew Jackson was our 7th president from 1829 to 1837. The Virginia Magazine of History, Volume 29, says that Jackson was the son of a White woman from Ireland who had intermarried with a Negro. The magazine also said that his eldest brother had been sold as a slave in Carolina. Joel Rogers says that Andrew Jackson Sr. died long before President Andrew Jackson Jr. was born. He says the president's mother then went to live on the Crawford farm where there were Negro slaves and that one of these men was Andrew Jr.'s father. Another account of the "brother sold into slavery” story can be found in David Coyle's book entitled "Ordeal of the Presidency" (1960).
Thomas Jefferson was our 3^rd president from 1801 to 1809. The chief attack on Jefferson was in a book written by Thomas Hazard in 1867 called "The Johnny Cake Papers." Hazard interviewed Paris Gardiner, who said he was present during the 1796 presidential campaign, when one speaker states that Thomas Jefferson was “a mean-spirited son of a half-breed Indian squaw and a Virginia mulatto father.” In his book entitled "The Slave Children of Thomas Jefferson," Samuel Sloan wrote that Jefferson destroyed all of the papers, portraits, and personal effects of his mother, Jane Randolph Jefferson, when she died on March 31, 1776. He even wrote letters to every person who had ever received a letter from his mother, asking them to return that letter. Sloan says, "There is something strange and even psychopathic about the lengths to which Thomas Jefferson went to destroy all remembrances of his mother, while saving over 18,000 copies of his own letters and other documents for posterity." One must ask, "What is it he was trying to hide?"
Abraham Lincoln was our 16th president from 1861 to 1865. J. A. Rogers quotes Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks, as saying that Abraham Lincoln was the illegitimate son of an African man. William Herndon, Lincoln's law partner, said that Lincoln had very dark skin and coarse hair and that his mother was from an Ethiopian tribe. In Herndon's book entitled "The Hidden Lincoln" he says that Thomas Lincoln could not have been Abraham Lincoln's father because he was sterile from childhood mumps and was later castrated. Lincoln's presidential opponents made cartoon drawings depicting him as a Negro and nicknamed him “Abraham Africanus the First."
Calvin Coolidge was our 30th president, and he succeeded Warren Harding. He proudly admitted that his mother was dark because of mixed Indian ancestry. However, Dr. Bakhufu says that by 1800 the New England Indian was hardly any longer pure Indian, because they had mixed so often with Blacks. Calvin Coolidge's mother's maiden name was "Moor." In Europe the name "Moor" was given to all Black people just as the name Negro was used in America.
All of the presidents mentioned were able to pass for White and never acknowledged their Black ancestry. Millions of other children who were descendants of former slaves have also been able to pass for White. American society has had so much interracial mixing that books such as “The Bell Curve”, discussing IQ evaluations based solely on race, are totally unrealistic.

FIVE BLACK PRESIDENTS BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adler, D. (1987) Thomas Jefferson: Father of our Democracy. New York: Holiday House.
Bakhufu, A. (1993) The Six Black Presidents, Washington, D.C.: PIK2 Publications.
Bennett, L. (1988) Before the Mayflower. New Penguin Books.
Brodie, F. (1974) Thomas Jefferson, An Intimate History. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
Curtis, J. (1982) Return to These Hills: VT Yrs. of C. Coolidge. Woodstock, VT: Curtis-Lieberman Books.
Dennis, R. (1970) The Black People of America. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co.
Erickson, E. (1974) Dimensions of a New Identity: Jefferson Lectures. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
Kane, J. (1981) Facts About the Presidents: From Geo. Washington to Ron. Reagan. NY: H. W. Wilson Co.
Mapp, A. (1987) Thomas Jefferson: A Strange Case of Mistaken Identity. New York: Madison Books.
Morrow, E. (1963) Black Man in the White House. New York: Coward-McCann Inc.
Remini, R. (1966) Andrew Jackson. New York: Harper & Row
Reuter, E. (1969) The Mulatto in the United States. Haskell House.
Rogers, J. (1965) Sex and Race. St. Petersburg, FL: Helga Rogers Publishing
Rogers, J. (1965) The Five Negro Presidents. St. Petersburg, FL: Helga Rogers Publishing.
Sullivan, M. (1991) Presidential Passions: Love Affairs of Am’s Pres. Wash. Johnson. NY: Shapolsky Pub.
Whitney, T. (1975) The Descendants of the Presidents. Charlotte, NC: Delmar Printing Co.

BLACK INVENTORS

When the famous anthropologist Dr. Richard Leakey discovered bones in Africa in 1956, which were millions of years old, his accomplishment was belittled by people who regularly asked the question, "but what has Africa contributed to world progress?" He could not understand why people were so poorly informed, since he knew that the collective contributions of Black people to civilization, science, and invention are so extensive that it is not possible to live a full day in the United States, or any other part of the world without sharing in the benefits of those contributions. Still the genius of the Black imagination that has influenced every aspect of life in the United States and elsewhere is virtually unknown to most people.
Very few homes in America have as many as two books, which discuss the achievements of the Black race, either past or present. During the slave trade, many of the slaves from the former Songhay Empire were highly educated and were credited with teaching Caribbean and American farmers successful agricultural techniques. They also invented various tools and equipment to lessen the burden of their daily work. Most slave inventors were nameless, such as the slave owned by the Confederate President Jefferson Davis who designed the ship propeller used by the entire Confederate Navy.
Following the Civil War, the growth of industry in this country was tremendous and much of this was made possible with inventions by ethnic minorities. By 1913 over 1,000 inventions were patented by Black Americans. Among the most notable inventors were Jan Matzeliger, who developed the first machine to mass-produce shoes, and Elijah McCoy, who invented automatic lubrication devices for steam engines. Granville Woods had 35 patents to improve electric railway systems including the first system to allow moving trains to communicate. He even sued Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison for stealing his patents and won both cases. Garrett Morgan developed the first automatic traffic signal and gas mask, and Norbert Rillieux who created the technique for converting sugar cane juice into white sugar crystals. Moreover, Rillieux was so brilliant that in 1854 he left Louisiana and went to France where he spent ten years working with the Champollions deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics from the Rosetta Stone. Lewis Latimer created an inexpensive cotton-thread filament, which made electric light bulbs practical because Edison's original light bulb only burned for a few minutes. More recent inventors include McKinley Jones, who invented the movable refrigeration unit for food transport in trucks and trains and Lloyd Quarterman who with six other Black scientists, worked on the creation of the atomic bomb along (code named the Manhattan Project.) Quarterman also helped develop the first nuclear reactor, which was used in the atomically powered submarine called the Nautilus.
Lets conclude with two current contributors. It should not be surprising that we don't know about the wonderful contributions of Blacks in the past because we are not even made aware of the startling scientific achievements during our own lifetime. For example, Otis Bodkin invented an electrical device used in all guided missiles and all IBM computers, and Colonel Frederick Gregory, who was not only the first Black astronaut pilot but the person who also redesigned the cockpits for the last three space shuttles. Gregory was also on the team that pioneered the microwave instrumentation landing system. In 2000, Bendix Aircraft Company began a worldwide promotion of this microwave instrumentation landing system that can land planes without a pilot.

Dr. Mark Dean—Inventor of the Personal Computer

Biography Published On IBM’s Website

 

Dr. Mark E. Dean is an IBM Fellow and vice president of the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California. He oversees more than 400 scientists and engineers doing exploratory and applied research in various hardware, software and services areas, including nanotechnology, materials science, storage systems, data management, web technologies, workplace practices and user interfaces. An engineer by training, Dr. Dean has more than 25 years experience in the IT industry -- all with IBM -- where he has been central to the design of a wide range of IBM computers. 

Dr. Dean has held various positions in several different cities and IBM divisions. Prior to assuming leadership of the Almaden lab in 2004, Dr. Dean was vice president for hardware and systems architecture in IBM's Systems and Technology Group (STG) in Tucson, Arizona. While there, he significantly enhanced STG's hardware and systems strategy and architectures to support continued market share growth and industry leadership in IBM's server and storage systems business. Before STG, Dr. Dean was a vice president in IBM's Storage Technology Group, focused on the company's storage systems strategy and technology roadmap.
Prior to his time in Tucson, Dr. Dean was the vice president for Systems Research at IBM's Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, where he was responsible for the research and application of systems technologies spanning circuits to operating environments. Key technologies from his research team include petaflop supercomputer systems structures (BlueGene), digital visualization, design automation tools, Linux optimizations for servers and embedded systems, algorithms for computational science, memory compression, S/390 & PowerPC processors, embedded systems research, formal verification methods and high-speed low-power circuits.
In 1997, Dean was named to be both director of the Austin Research Laboratory and director of Advanced Technology Development for the IBM Enterprise Server Group. Achievements there included testing of the first gigahertz CMOS microprocessor, design of a high-speed DRAM and development of the "cellular" server architecture, which is optimized for managing, storing, searching, distributing and mining complex data (such as video, audio and high-resolution images).
Before this, Dr. Dean held several engineering positions at IBM in the area of computer system hardware architecture and design in Boca Raton, Florida, and Austin. He has developed all types of computer systems, from embedded systems to supercomputers. He was also chief engineer for the development of the IBM PC/AT, ISA systems bus, PS/2 Model 70 & 80, the Color Graphics Adapter in the original IBM PC and numerous other subsystems. One invention -- the Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) "bus," which permitted add-on devices like the keyboard, disk drives and printers to be connected to the motherboard -- would earn election to the National Inventors Hall of Fame for Dean and colleague Dennis Moeller.
Dr. Dean received a BSEE degree from the University of Tennessee in 1979, an MSEE degree from Florida Atlantic University in 1982, and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1992. He has papers published in the IEEE Computer Society Press, MIT Press, and IBM Research Journal.
Dr. Dean's most recent awards include: member of the American Academy of Arts and Science and National Academy of Engineering, IEEE Fellow, the CCG Black Engineer of the Year, the NSBE Distinguished
Engineer award, the University of Tennessee COE Dougherty Award, induction into the National Inventor's Hall of Fame, and recipient of the Ronald H. Brown American Innovators Award. Dr. Dean was appointed to IBM Fellow in 1995, IBM's highest technical honor. He is a member of the IBM Academy of Technology. He has received several academic and IBM awards, including thirteen Invention Achievement Awards and six Corporate Awards. Dr. Dean has more than 40 patents or patents pending.

BLACK INVENTORS BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adams, R. (1969) Great Negroes Past and Present. Chicago: Afro-Am Publishing Co.
Burt, M. (1989) Black Inventors of America. Portland: National Book Co.
Diggs, L. (1975) Black Innovations. Chicago: Institute of Positive Education.
Haber, L. (1970) Black Pioneers of Science and Invention. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc.
Harris, M. (1964) Black Inventors: the Revolutionary Period. New York: Negro History Associates
Harris, M. (1964) Early American Inventors, 18th and 19th Centuries. New York: Negro History Assocs.
Harris, M. (1974) Granville T. Woods Memorial: Collector’s Edition. New York: Negro History Assocs.
Hayden, R. (1992) 9 African American Inventors. Frederick, Maryland: Twenty-first Century Books.
Klein, A. (1971) Hidden Contributions: Black Scientists & Inventors in Am. NY: Doubleday and Co.
Latimer, L. (1890) Incandescent Electric Lighting: A Practical Description of the Edison System NY: D. Van Norstrand Co.
Rogers, J. (1989) Africa’s Gift to America. St. Petersburg, FL: Helga Rogers Publishing.
Van Sertima, I. (1983) Blacks in Science Ancient and Modern. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.

WEST POINT ACADEMY AND BLACK CADETS

The U.S. Military Academy at West Point (West Point), New York was initially established as a corps of engineers by President Thomas Jefferson under an 1802 Act of Congress. General Sylvanus Thayer was appointed superintendent in 1814 and became known as the “Father of West Point” because of his academic expansion. Since members of Congress had to nominate West Point cadets, no African Americans were nominated until the Reconstruction period when Black voters elected Black Congressmen. The 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th constitutional amendments made Black Congressmen possible. Emancipation was accomplished by the 13^th amendment (1865); citizenship through the 14^th amendment (1868); and the 15^th amendment granted suffrage to Black males (1870).
African American Congressmen nominated 27 Blacks to West Point between 1870 and 1887. Only 12 members of the group passed the academic and physical examinations for admission. Academically, they were examined in mathematics (including fractions and decimals) in addition to the rules of correct grammar. Candidates also had to demonstrate knowledge of “U.S. and world geography, by discussing various historical periods, wars, and U.S. administrations.” The physical examination required the absence of infectious and chronic disease. During the four-year program, the cadets studied French, Spanish, chemistry, engineering, philosophy, law, mathematics (including calculus), mineralogy, and geology. Despite the many nominations, only three African Americans graduated from West Point during its first 130 years of existence.
The first African American nominated to West Point was James Webster Smith who attended from 1870 until January 1874. James Smith was described as “a hot headed activist, bent on righting the wrongs of racial inequality.” Smith was forced to repeat his first year at West Point because of an alleged lie in response to a charge of inattention in the ranks. After his fourth year, Smith wrote his patron, David Clark of Connecticut, complaining about the academy’s mistreatment of Black cadets. His letters sparked a congressional board of inquiry, which eventually recommended the court martial of several White cadets. However, since one of the White cadets was the nephew of William Belknap, Secretary of War, the punishment was reduced to a mere reprimand. Smith’s personal and public need to eradicate social injustice at West Point resulted in extreme classmate hatred and the eventual dismissal of Smith from the academy for fighting after a court martial and three-week imprisonment.
Johnson Chesnut Whittaker was chosen to fill the vacancy created by James Smith’s dismissal. Contrary to Smith, Whittaker was described as a quiet, shy, cowardly student who sought solace in the Bible. After completing four years and just prior to his final examinations, Whittaker was found on the floor of his room, “bleeding and insensible, bound hand and foot to his bedstead. His head was partly shaved, and his feet and hands slashed.” Whittaker claimed that three masked men were responsible, and this created such uproar in the press that Congress initiated another investigation. A court of inquiry accused Whittaker of self-mutilation to avoid his final examinations.
He received a court martial and was sentenced to a dishonorable discharge from the military and one year hard labor in prison. President Chester Arthur reversed the entire proceedings but did
not allow him to finish the Academy.
Henry Ossian Flipper, a former slave, was a roommate of both James Smith and Johnson Whittaker and was determined to finish at all costs. Henry received his appointment to West Point upon the recommendation of Congressman James Freeman, who needed the Black vote for re-election. Despite threats, bribes as high as $5,000, and refusal of any cadets to speak to him for four years, Flipper became the first Black West Point graduate on June 14, 1877. Prominent Blacks throughout the nation were proud of Flipper’s accomplishment and Charles Douglass, son of Frederick Douglass, sponsored a New York City reception in his honor.
On January 2, 1878 Flipper received his commission as second lieutenant and was assigned to the all Black 10^th U.S. Calvary (called the Buffalo Soldiers) at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Henry Flipper performed exceptionally well during his first four years and was well liked by everyone. He served admirably in a number of combat assignments on the frontier and also worked brilliantly as an engineer. He designed and perfected a drainage system that eliminated diseased stagnant rainwater (and subsequent malaria) that was plaguing the fort. Still known as “Flipper’s Ditch”, it became a national landmark in 1977. Unfortunately, he was transferred to Fort Davis, Texas in 1881 commanded by the racist Colonel William Shafter. Shafter disliked Blacks in general and the Buffalo Soldiers in particular. Shortly after Lieutenant Flipper’s arrival, he was accused of stealing commissary funds. Flipper stated at his court martial that he hid the funds in his personal trunk because there was no secure place to keep the commissary funds and that Colonel Shafter was fully aware of this. Despite the fact that Colonel Shafter had Lucy Smith, Flipper’s White housekeeper, laundress, and cook, searched and that $2,800 in commissary checks were found in her blouse, this fact was never mentioned at the trial. Moreover, the local town merchants, who highly admired Flipper, took up a collection and replaced all the missing funds. The court martial panel could not convict Flipper of embezzlement but were able to convict him of “conduct unbecoming an officer and gentleman.” Although the Army’s Judge Advocate General concluded that the conviction was racially motivated, President Chester Arthur refused to reverse his conviction, and Flipper was dishonorably discharged.
Henry Flipper used his outstanding education at West Point to carve out a distinguished career as a civil and mining engineer, especially in and around Mexico, since he had learned fluent Spanish. He initially worked for an American mining company surveying land in Mexico. When Texas and Arizona joined the United States, Flipper translated Spanish land deeds and titles for the Land Grant Court and investigated their authenticity in Mexico City records. Flipper later joined the Justice Department and Senate Foreign Relations Committee as an expert on Mexican political developments. Subsequently, Secretary of Interior, Albert Fall, a close friend of Henry Flipper, chose him as chief civil engineer in determining the course for the Alaskan railroad lines.
Flipper unsuccessfully devoted his entire life to clearing his name. Four bills were introduced in Congress between 1903 and 1908 to clear Flipper, but racist southern politicians allowed the bills to die in committee. Despite all of his accomplishments, he died at age 84 (1940) bitterly disappointed. The redemption of Flipper’s name was rekindled by a schoolteacher from Valdosta, Georgia named Ray MacColl who learned about Flipper while taking a Black history course and embarked on a tireless campaign to right what he regarded as a major injustice. Through MacColl’s efforts, the Army’s Board for the Correction of Military Records reviewed the circumstances of Flipper’s discharge and changed his discharge from dishonorable to honorable in 1976. Moreover in 1977, exactly 100 years after his graduation, the Henry O. Flipper Memorial Award was established at West Point and is given annually to the cadet who best demonstrates leadership, self discipline, and perseverance. On February 11, 1978, his remains were reburied with full military honors in his hometown of Thomasville, Georgia (from an unmarked grave in Atlanta).
On February 19, 1999, President Clinton granted Henry Flipper the first posthumous pardon in American history, calling the pardon “an event that is 117 years overdue.” Retired General Colin Powell, who attended the pardon ceremony, kept a picture of Flipper on the wall of his office at the Pentagon when he was Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff. Powell wrote in his autobiography: “We knew that the path through the underbrush of prejudice and discrimination had been cleared by the sacrifices of nameless Blacks who had gone before us, the Henry Flippers…and to them we owed everything.”
Henry Flipper is now a revered figure at West Point where a memorial bust is dedicated to him in the cadet library. Eighty Black cadets graduated in West Point Academy’s class of 2000, and they should never forget that African Americans “stand tall because we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us.” Pioneers are those with “arrows in their backs,” and we must never stop honoring our pioneers.
FIRST BLACK WEST POINT COMMANDER

Lt. Emily Perez

The first Black woman to serve as Corps Commander Sergeant Major at West Point.
Perez graduated in the top 10 percent of her class, out-ran many men, directed a gospel choir and read the Bible every day. She also headed a weekly convoy as it rolled down treacherous roads, pocked with bombs and bullets near Najaf, Iraq.
As platoon leader, she insisted on leading her troops from the front. Shortly before shipping out to Iraq with the 204^th Support Battalion, 2^nd Brigade, 4^th Infantry Division, she flew cross-country to be a bone marrow donor for a stranger who was a match.
At 23, she was the 64^th woman from the U.S. military killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. September, 2006

BLACK CADETS BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ambrose, S. (1966) Duty, Honor, Country: A History of West Point. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press.
Black, L. & S. (1985) An Officer and a Gentleman: Milit. Car. of Henry O. Flipper. Dayton, OH: Lora Co.
Donaldson, G. (1991) The History of African-Americans in the Military. Malabar, FL: Krieger Publishing Co.
Eppinga, J. (1996) Henry Ossian Flipper. Plano, Texas: Republic of Texas Press.
Flipper, H. (1878) Colored Cadet at W. Point. Autobio. of Lieut. Henry O. Flipper. NY: Homer Lee & Co.
Foner, J. (1974) Blacks and the Military in American History. New York: A New Perspective Publishing Co.
Glass, E. (1921) History of the Tenth Cavalry. Tucson: Acme Printing Co.
Greene, R. (1974) Black Defenders of America: 1775-1973. Chicago: Johnson Publishing.
Harris, T. (ed.) (1963) Negro Frontiersman: Western Memoirs of H. O. Flipper. El Paso, TX West. Col. Pr.
Lanning, M. (1997) Afr.-Am. Soldier From Crispus Attucks to Colin Powell. Secaucus, NJ: Carol Pub. Gr.
Mullen, R. (1973) Blacks in America’s Wars. New York: Pathfinder.
Nalty, B. (1986) Strength for the Fight: A History of Black Americans in the Military. NY: Free Press.

BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS AND BLACK SOLDIERS

Despite stellar performances through five previous wars, Black servicemen in the early 1900’s were hated by the South and despised and unappreciated by the North. Southerners hated Blacks in uniform because radical Republicans in Congress had used Black soldiers to police the South during Reconstruction and as added humiliation after their Civil War defeat. After Reconstruction, Black soldiers were sent to the Western frontier to fight “hostile Indians,” but found the environment of White racism tremendously more hostile than the Native Americans. Nothing more typified American racial hatred for the Black soldier than the “Brownsville Affair.”
During the summer of 1906 the First Battalion of the 25^th Infantry Regiment was transferred from Fort Niobrara in Nebraska to Fort Brown, a post near Brownsville, Texas at the mouth of the Rio Grande River, to protect against Mexican revolutionaries. These 167 men had outstanding credentials for service, loyalty, discipline, and bravery during battles fought in Cuba and the Philippines. Six of these Black soldiers held the Medal of Honor and thirteen had been awarded citations for bravery in the Spanish-American War. More than half of the soldiers had been in uniform for more than five years; twenty five had served in active duty for more than ten years; and one had accrued more that twenty seven years. The citizens of Brownsville were appalled and wrote William Howard Taft, the Secretary of War, requesting that he keep the White 26^th Infantry at Fort Brown instead. The War Department refused to repeal the order and responded to the Brownsville citizens: “The fact is that a certain amount of race prejudice between Whites and Blacks seems to have become almost universal throughout the country, and no matter where Colored troops are sent there are always some who make objections to their coming.”
The Brownsville citizens immediately posted new signs announcing “NO NIGGERS OR DOGS ALLOWED” on saloons, restaurants, and all public and recreational facilities. However, since Brownsville is located near the Mexican border, most of the town’s inhabitants were low paid Mexican workers, and these Hispanics welcomed the soldiers at their establishments. Consequently, Whites became very concerned that the assertive Black infantrymen might inspire Mexicans to challenge the status quo of White dominance and to resist local Jim Crow practices. As much as the White citizens of Brownsville hated Black soldiers, they saw an interracial alliance as an even greater threat to their town and felt compelled to eliminate the Black military presence by whatever means necessary.
Shortly after midnight on August 14, 1906 a group of men across the road from Fort Brown and dressed in army uniforms began firing shots randomly into buildings and at streetlights for about ten minutes. The random bullets killed a bartender, and seriously wounded a police lieutenant. Military rifle cartridges and clips from Springfield rifles recently issued to the 25^th Regiment were found at the scene. Several Brownsville citizens immediately claimed that they saw Blacks shooting. Major Penrose said it could not have been Black soldiers because all the battalion’s soldiers were accounted for by company commanders at the 10:00 PM curfew check and again immediately after the shooting. The rifles were also checked and none had been recently fired. The Major stated that anyone could wear an army uniform because old uniforms were routinely discarded outside the fort and that ammunition and rifles were known to have been sold to the citizens of Brownsville by the White 26^th Regiment that occupied the fort before the Black soldiers. Brownsville Mayor, Fred Come, organized an investigating committee of local citizens who found witnesses who professed to have heard voices that sounded Black. Five witnesses said they saw Black soldiers but could not identify anyone, and they were not under oath. The committee prefaced their questions by stating: “We know that this outrage was committed by Negro soldiers. We want any information that will lead to a discovery of who did it.” The committee did not call a single soldier to the inquiry.
After one day of testimony the committee sent a telegram to President Theodore Roosevelt stating: “Our women and children are terrified and our men practically under constant alarm and watchfulness. No community can stand this strain…we ask you to have the troops at once removed from Fort Brown and replaced by White soldiers.” President Roosevelt ordered two investigations, one by Major August Blocksom and a second by General Ernest Garlington, a racist native of South Carolina. They took as evidence the testimony of White citizens and spent military cartridges and concurred that Black soldiers had committed the crime. They completely ignored the testimony of a civilian employee of the fort who swore that after the shooting he had seen four Brownsville citizens dressed in uniforms and carrying rifles. The officers concluded that the Black soldiers’ denial of the shooting was proof of “collusion” and a “conspiracy-of-silence” and since no soldier would confess, they recommended dismissing the entire battalion. General Garlington added: “The secretive nature of the race, where crimes charged to members of their color are made, is well known.”
President Theodore Roosevelt delayed his decision until after his re-election so as not to loose much needed Black support. Subsequently, on November 28, 1906, he ordered the discharge of all 167 soldiers of the First Battalion without honor, and he denied the soldiers all back pay and pension benefits. The soldiers never received a formal trial or the benefit of legal counsel, and this remains the only example of mass punishment without the benefit of trial in U.S. military history. White people across the country celebrated Roosevelt’s decision. The “New Orleans Picayune” reported: “Whatever may be the value of the Negro troops in time of war, the fact remains they are a curse to the country in time of peace.” In December 1906 during the first congressional session after the Brownsville incident, Congressman John Garner of Texas, whose district included Brownsville, introduced a bill that “called for elimination of all Blacks currently in the military and barring Black enlistment.” Although his bill was defeated, he re-introduced similar bills in each of the next three sessions. Franklin Roosevelt rewarded Garner’s racial hatred by selecting him as his Vice President in 1932 and 1936.
Senator Joseph Foraker of Ohio tried to rally support without success for the Black soldiers and even proposed a bill providing the men an opportunity to reenlist. Foraker’s defense of the Brownsville soldiers and criticism of the White House “so infuriated Theodore Roosevelt that the President proceeded to “hound the Senator from public life.” However, 66 years later (March 1971) Black California Congressman Augustus Hawkins introduced legislation to amend the records of the 25^th Regiment to “honorable discharge.” On December 6, 1972, President Nixon signed a bill authorizing a one-time pension payment of $25,000 to 86 year old Dorsie Willis, the only survivor among those discharged, and thus partially corrected one of the greatest injustices in military history.

BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS BIBLIOGRAPHY

Donaldson, G. (1991) The History of African-Americans in the Military. Malabar, FL: Krieger Pub. Co.
Foner, J. (1974) Blacks and the Military in American History. New York: A New Perspective Pub. Co.
Greene, R. (1974) Black Defenders of America: 1775-1973. Chicago: Johnson Publishing.
Lane, A. (1971) Brownsvile Affair: National Crisis and Black Reaction. Port Washington, NY: Nat. Univ. Pubs. Kennikat Press.
Lanning, M. (1997) African-American Soldier from Crispus Attucks to Colin Powell. Secaucus, NJ: Carol Publishing. Gr.
Moebs, T. (1994) Black Soldiers - Black Sailors - Black Ink: Chesapeake Bay, MD: Moebs Publishing Co.
Mullen, R. (1973) Blacks in America’s Wars. New York; Pathfinder.
Naulty, B. (1986) Strength for the Fight: A History of Black Americans in the Military. New York: Free Press.
Weaver, J. (1970) The Brownsville Raid. New York: W.W. Norton.

.

Black People...After 1776 - By Dr. Leroy Vaughn, MD, MBA, Historian

BLACK PEOPLE
AND THEIR PLACE IN WORLD HISTORY

by DR. LEROY VAUGHN, MD, MBA, HISTORIAN is now available on amazon.com.

AFTER 1776

SLAVE CHILDREN OF THOMAS JEFFERSON

PAUL CUFFEE

DAVID WALKER

RICHARD ALLEN AND THE A. M. E. CHURCH

WAR OF 1812

THE JOHN BROWN TEST

BLACK PEOPLE OF THE OLD WEST

BLACK WOMEN OF THE OLD WEST

AFRICAN AMERICANS AND THE CIVIL WAR
.

SLAVE CHILDREN OF THOMAS JEFFERSON

In the 1860 census in the South, there were 500,000 mulatto or mixed race slaves and 350,000 slave owners. Thus, every slave owner had on average produced more than one slave child. The slave children of former President Thomas Jefferson, and their direct descendants, are among the most carefully studied families in the history of America because of their outstanding achievements up to and including Chairman of the Board of DuPont Chemical Corporation.
Thomas Jefferson is considered the greatest and most brilliant statesman this country has ever produced. Moreover, among the founding fathers, he was the one who was the most vocal opponent of slavery and did the most to contribute to its abolition. He wrote the Declaration of Independence with a clause opposing slavery, which was taken out at the insistence of the other signers. He wrote the Northwest Ordinance in 1783, and included a clause that prohibited slavery in the new areas of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Jefferson negotiated the Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803, and included a provision, which prohibited the introduction of slavery into these new areas. While president, Thomas Jefferson pushed through Congress a bill in 1808, which prohibited the importation of slaves and authorized the U.S. Navy to seize and confiscate ships containing slaves on the high seas. Thomas Jefferson was married to Martha Wayles, the daughter of John Wayles, for 10 years before she died in 1776. Upon the death of Martha Wayles and her father, Jefferson inherited 11,000 acres of land and 135 slaves. Sally Hemmings was one of the slaves inherited. She was also a daughter of John Wayles and an African slave, and thus his wife's half sister. Jefferson fell in love with this mulatto slave after she accompanied his daughter to France, where he was U.S. Ambassador in 1787. Their first son "Tom" was born in 1789. Sally Hemmings produced Beverly Hemmings in 1798, while Thomas Jefferson was Vice President, and three other children while Jefferson was President, including Harriet in 1801, Madison in 1805, and Eston in 1808.
Beverly and Harriet Hemmings were allowed to run away in 1822. Harriet married a White person and never acknowledged her parents. Beverly ended up in England where he also passed for White. His great-grandson, Edward Graham Jefferson, migrated back to the U.S. and became a naturalized American citizen. He subsequently became CEO of DuPont Chemical Corporation, retiring in 1986 and was a member of the Board at AT&T Corporation, Chemical Bank, and Seagram Corporation.
Sally Hemming's first son, Tom, eventually married Jemima, the slave daughter of a master named Drury Woodson, and changed his name to Tom Woodson. He became the distributor of an abolitionist newspaper and a leader in the Black community. Federal Judge Timothy Lewis in 1991, became the first prominent person to admit publicly that he was a descendant of Sally Hemmings and son, Tom Woodson. This was only after his Senate confirmation hearings. Most descendants were ashamed of their slave ancestry.
Frederick Madison Roberts, the grandson of Madison Hemmings, became the first Black man ever elected to the State Assembly of California. He also became a close friend of Earl Warren and helped found UCLA, that is, the University of California at Los Angeles. Sally Hemming's last born son, Eston, had a son named John Wayles Jefferson who founded the Continental Cotton Company, which was very successful.
Thomas Jefferson was the most vocal opponent against slavery and spent his entire life working for the abolition of slavery. He strongly believed that “all men are created equal” and that they could achieve equally if only given the opportunity. Jefferson would be proud to know that his slave children confirmed his theory about racial equality by their outstanding achievements.

SLAVE CHILDREN OF THOMAS JEFFERSON BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adler, D. (1987) Thomas Jefferson: Father of Our Democracy. New York: Holiday House.
Bakhufu, A. (1993) The Six Black Presidents. Washington, D.C.: PIK2 Publications.
Bear, J. & Betts, E. (1987) Thomas Jefferson’s Farm Book, University Press of Virginia.
Bennett, L. (1988) Before the Mayflower. New York: Penguin Books.
Brodie, F. (1974) Thomas Jefferson, An Intimate History. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
Erickson, E. (1974) Dimensions of a New Identity: Jefferson Lectures. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
Jefferson, I. (1951) Memoirs of a Monticello Slave. University of Virginia
Kane, J. (1981) Facts About the Presidents: From Geo. Wash. to Ronald Reagan. NY: H. W. Wilson Co.
Malone, D. (1981) Jefferson and His Times: The Sage of Monticello. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.
Mapp, A. (1987) Thomas Jefferson: A Strange Case of Mistaken Identity: New York: Madison Books.
Reuter, E. (1969) The Mulatto in the United States. Haskell House.
Sloan, S. (1992) The Slave Children of Thomas Jefferson. Berkeley: The Orsden Press.
Sullivan, M. (1991) Presidential Passions: Love Affairs of Am’s Pres. - Wash. - John. NY: Shapolsky Pub.
Tinsell, C. (1964) The Secret Loves of the Founding Fathers. New York: Devin-Adair Co.

PAUL CUFFEE

America’s Richest African American

Paul Cuffee (1759-1817) was the richest African American in the United States during the early 1800’s, but never stopped championing the cause of better conditions for his people. At the age of 19, he sued the Massachusetts courts for the right to vote stating that taxation without representation should be illegal. He built on his own farm, New Bedford’s only school for the children of “free Negroes” and personally sponsored their teachers. He authored the first document of its kind addressed to the New Jersey Legislature asking that body “to petition the Congress of the United States that every slave be freed and that every Colored man that so desired be allowed to leave America.” By 1811, Paul Cuffee finally concluded that if the richest Black person in America was considered a second class citizen, then emigration back to Africa was the only answer for Black social, economic, and political self-determination. On December 12, 1815 Cuffee personally sponsored and transported nine families (38 people) back to Africa in what he hoped would be the first of many such voyages.
Paul Cuffee was one of ten children born to a slave father, Saiz Kufu (later, Cuffee) and an Indian mother. The father was freed by his Quaker master in 1745, and earned enough money working for ship owners to buy a 116-acre farm in Dartmouth, Mass. in 1766. Paul left the farming to his siblings and chose a maritime life and by age 14 was working full time on whaling ships. By age 18, he had become so thoroughly self-taught in mathematics, navigation, and other seafaring skills that he decided to built his own boat for self-employment. During the Revolutionary War, he made enough money smuggling goods pass British blockade patrol ships that he was able to purchase a shipyard and construct three small whaling boats between 1787 and 1795. During one season alone, Cuffee and his crew captured six whales and Cuffee proved his courage and commitment by asking his crew to lower him to the side of the boat where he personally harpooned two whales.
Paul Cuffee’s early activity was fraught with danger as he purchased and delivered freight along the Atlantic seaboard. Pirates were a constant threat and on more than one occasion his ship was captured and all of his merchandise stolen, but he never stopped pursuing his dream. The Fugitive Slave Act was also a constant threat, especially since Cuffee exclusively staffed his businesses and ships with Blacks to demonstrate their equality and to reinforce their self-confidence and sense of racial pride. The Fugitive Slave Act legalized the seizure of any Black person suspected of escape from slavery by any White person. Since African Americans could not testify in court, “the Black accused would have to find and persuade a White person to appear at his trial and convince the authorities that the accused was free” or risk being resold into slavery. Moreover, Paul Cuffee was once arrested for several days and his boat seized during a delivery to Vienna, Maryland by Federal Collector of Customs, James Frazier. In 1796, Maryland had passed a law “requiring any ‘suspicious’ free Black to six months of servitude.” Since a vessel owned and operated by Blacks was unprecedented, it was certainly “suspicious”. Whites were also concerned about what this demonstration of Black achievement might have on otherwise obedient slaves. However, Cuffee had “impeccable mercantile credentials, proof of registry at Bedford, Massachusetts, and receipts from such reliable merchant houses as William Rotch and Sons.”
As the Cuffee commercial enterprises continued to prosper, he expanded by purchasing a 200-acre farm, a gristmill, and by building ships large enough to enable him to purchase and deliver freight internationally. In 1800 Cuffee built the 162-ton “Hero” which sailed around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope eight times while delivering merchandise from Portuguese East Africa to Europe. Paul Cuffee’s largest ship was the 268-ton “Alpha” which Cuffee and nine Black crewmembers sailed from Savannah, Georgia to Gothenburg, Sweden with a large cargo in 1806.
Despite the fact that Paul Cuffee was the richest Black man and largest Black employer in America, he was convinced that no amount of wealth would make a Black man socially acceptable in America and that Blacks would always be “resident aliens.” He felt the only answer was to develop a strong Black African nation. Cuffee declared: “Blacks would be better off in Africa, where we could rise to be a people.” When William Rotch told him of a British program to repatriate unwanted Blacks living in London to Sierra Leone, he immediately sailed to England for more information.
Cuffee hoped that a strong Black nation could trade with Great Britain and the United States and that educated “free Negroes” from America could provide the much needed technology. American technology was needed because a British law (1731) forbid any White person from teaching any Black person a trade, thus reducing London’s “Black Poor” to unemployable beggars whom the government wanted sent to Africa.
While traveling to England and Sierra Leone, Paul Cuffee used an introductory letter from President Thomas Jefferson to help him gather data on manufacturing, operating costs, threatening colonial practices, and available trade opportunities. Cuffee found the residents of Sierra Leone very receptive to his prescription for reviving Black industry. They also hoped that a strong economic and social return of Africa to its past glory would help dissuade the slave trade. A large percentage of the population of Freetown were former American slaves who had fought with the British during the Revolutionary War and then were evacuated to Nova Scotia, Canada with the White British Loyalists. Both severe racism and severe climate encouraged the Black Nova Scotians to leave en-mass for Sierra Leone in November 1792. Paul Cuffee hired Aaron Richards, a Black settler in Freetown as the captain’s apprentice “to prepare the road to progress,” and before leaving, Cuffee founded the “Friendly Society for the Emigration of Free Negroes from America”. After his return to America, “Cuffee began a speaking tour to introduce free Blacks to the notion of nation building in Africa.”
The War of 1812 interrupted Cuffee’s trade and emigration plans until 1815, at which time he paid $4,000 from personal funds to transport 38 African Americans to Sierra Leone, and he successfully secured homesteads for all of his Black American brethren at his expense. Failing health prevented any future trips and Cuffee died on September 9, 1817. Paul Cuffee’s legacy is not as a wealthy Black man but as a wealthy Black man who fought for the betterment of his people and was always willing to back his convictions with self-sacrifice, discipline, determination, and financial resources.

PAUL CUFFEE BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adams, R. (1969) Great Negroes: Past and Present. Chicago: Afro-Am Publishing Co. Inc.
Al-Mansour, K. (1993) Betrayal by Any Other Name. San Francisco: The First African Arabian Press.
Appiah, K. & Gates, H. (eds.) (1999) Africana. New York: Basis Civitas Books.
Aptheker, H. (1951) A Documentary History of the Negro People in the US: NY: Macmillan Pub. Co.
Aptheker, H. (1968) To Be Free. New York: International Publishers
Asante, M. & Mattson, M. (1991) Historical & Cultural Atlas of African Ams. Nzzzzy: Macmillan Pub. Co.
Bennett, L. (1975) The Shaping of Black America. Chicago: Johnson Publishing Co.
Bennett, L. (1988) Before the Mayflower. New York: Penguin Books.
Franklin, J. (1988) From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Karenga, M. (1993) Introduction to Black Studies. Los Angeles: The University of Sandore Press.

Litwack, L. & Meier, A. (1988) Black Leaders of the 19th Century. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

Low, A. & Clift, V. (eds.) (1983) Encyclopedia of Black America New York: Neal Schuman Publishers.

McIntyre, C. (1992) Criminalizing a Race: Free Blacks During Slavery. Queens, NY: Kayode Publications.

DAVID WALKER

In 1829, David Walker published the first of four articles that he called “Walker’s Appeal.” In it he encouraged all slaves to become free by killing their masters. The South exploded in anger and offered a reward for Walker of $10,000 dead or alive. Laws were passed threatening to hang anyone with “Walker’s Appeal” in their possession. Anti-slavery leaders of both races in the North and South rejected the violence advocated in Walker’s publication and forced him to circulate it at his own risk and expense.
David Walker proclaimed to the slaves: “…it is no more harm for you to kill the man who is trying to kill you than it is for you to take a drink of water.” Walker hated slavery despite the fact that he was born free as the product of a free mother and slave father. Afraid that his stirring publication meant eminent danger, Walker’s wife and friends urged him to flee to Canada but he refused. Walker said: “I will stand my ground. Somebody must die in this cause. I may be doomed to the stake and the fire or to the scaffold tree, but it is not in me to falter if I can promote the work of emancipation.”
Despite the great efforts of both the North and South to stop its publication, “Walker’s Appeal” became one of the most widely read and circulated books ever written by a Black person. David Walker was considered a hero by most abolitionists, who considered his book the boldest attack ever written against slavery.
Although the violent aspects of Walker’s Appeal are most emphasized, he also offered Whites an olive branch if they would end slavery: “Treat us like men, and there is no danger but we will all live in peace and happiness together. For we are not like you: hard hearted, unmerciful, and unforgiving. What a happy country this will be if Whites will listen.” Walker viewed his publication as a religious document giving Blacks an obligation from God to eradicate the evils of slavery. Walker said: “…answer God Almighty, had you not rather be killed than to be a slave to a tyrant who takes the life of your mother, wife, and children?”
He told the White slaveholders: “You may do your best to keep us in wretchedness and misery to enrich you and your children, but God will deliver us from under you.”
David Walker was born in Wilmington, North Carolina on September 28, 1785. He was self-taught and read extensively the literature on slavery - especially on the history of resistance and oppression. In 1820, he moved to Boston, Massachusetts where he opened a second hand clothing store. He began writing for a Black newspaper called “The Freedom Journal” in 1827.
David Walker published “Walker’s Appeal” on September 28, 1829. The full title is “Walker’s Appeal in Four Articles: Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America". Walker created such fear among slaveholding states that governors and city officials alike held emergency meetings to deal with its obvious implications. True to his word, Walker did not flee the country and was murdered in 1830. The “Appeal” was the inspiration for several slave rebellions including the terrifying slave rebellion of Nat Turner about one year after Walker’s death.
David Walker’s selfless devotion to the liberation of his people and his revolutionary spirit also served as an important model for future militants like Henry Highland Garnet who published Walker’s “Appeal” and his own work entitled “Address to the Slaves of the United States” in a single volume in 1848.

From David Walker's Appeal—ARTICLE I
OUR WRETCHEDNESS IN CONSEQUENCE OF SLAVERY

MY BELOVED BRETHREN: THE INDIANS OF NORTH AND OF SOUTH AMERICA-THE GREEKS-THE IRISH, SUBJECTED UNDER THE KING OF GREAT BRITAIN-THE JEWS, THAT ANCIENT PEOPLE OF THE LORD-THE INHABITANTS OF THE ISLANDS OF THE SEA-IN FINE, ALL THE INHABITANTS OF THE EARTH, (EXCEPT HOWEVER, THE SONS OF AFRICA) ARE CALLED MEN, AND OF COURSE ARE, AND OUGHT TO BE FREE. BUT WE, (COLOURED PEOPLE) AND OUR CHILDREN ARE BRUTES!! AND OF COURSE ARE, AND OUGHT TO BE SLAVES TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND THEIR CHILDREN FOREVER!! TO DIG THEIR MINES AND WORK THEIR FARMS; AND THUS GO ON ENRICHING THEM, FROM ONE GENERA­TION TO ANOTHER WITH OUR BLOOD AND OUR TEARS!!!!
I PROMISED IN A PRECEDING PAGE TO DEMONSTRATE TO THE SATISFACTION OF THE MOST INCREDULOUS, THAT WE, (COLOURED PEOPLE OF THESE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA) ARE THE MOST WRETCHED, DEGRADED AND AB­JECT SET OF BEINGS THAT EVER LIVED SINCE THE WORLD BEGAN, AND THAT THE WHITE AMERICANS HAVING REDUCED US TO THE WRETCHED STATE OF SLAVERY, TREAT US IN THAT CONDITION MORE CRUEL (THEY BEING AN ENLIGHTENED AND CHRISTIAN PEOPLE,) THAN ANY HEATHEN NATION DID ANY PEOPLE WHOM IT HAD REDUCED TO OUR CONDITION. THESE AFFIRMATIONS ARE SO WELL CONFIRMED IN THE MINDS OF ALL UNPREJUDICED MEN, WHO HAVE TAKEN THE TROUBLE TO READ HISTORIES, THAT THEY NEED NO ELUCIDATION FROM ME. BUT TO PUT THEM BEYOND ALL DOUBT, I REFER YOU IN THE FIRST PLACE TO THE CHILDREN OF [OLD TESTAMENT HEBREW PATRI­ARCH] JACOB, OR OF ISRAEL IN EGYPT, UNDER [EGYPTIAN KING] PHARAOH AND HIS PEOPLE. SOME OF MY BRETHREN DO NOT KNOW WHO PHARAOH AND THE EGYPTIANS WERE-I KNOW IT TO BE A FACT, THAT SOME OF THEM TAKE THE EGYPTIANS TO HAVE BEEN A GANG OF DEVILS, NOT KNOWING ANY BETTER, AND THAT THEY (EGYPTIANS) HAVING GOT POSSESSION OF THE LORD'S PEOPLE, TREATED THEM NEARLY AS CRUEL AS CHRISTIAN AMERICANS DO US, AT THE PRESENT DAY. FOR THE INFORMATION OF SUCH, I WOULD ONLY MENTION THAT THE EGYPTIANS, WERE AFRICANS OR COLOURED PEOPLE, SUCH AS WE ARE-SOME OF THEM YELLOW AND OTHERS DARK-A MIXTURE OF ETHIOPIANS AND THE NATIVES OF EGYPT-ABOUT THE SAME AS YOU SEE THE COLOURED PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES AT THE PRESENT DAY…..

FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT
APPROVED, SEPTEMBER 18, 1850—SECTION 6

And be it further enacted, That when a person held to service or labor in any State or Territory of the United States, has heretofore or shall hereafter escape into another State or Territory of the United States, the person or persons to whom such service or labor may be due, or his, her, or their agent or attorney, duly authorized, by power of attorney, in writing, acknowledged and certified under the seal of some legal officer or court of the State or Territory in which the same may be executed, may pursue and reclaim such fugitive person, either by procuring a warrant from some one of the courts, judges, or commissioners aforesaid, of the proper circuit, district, or county, for the apprehension of such fugitive from service or labor, or by seizing and arresting such fugitive, where the same can be done without process, and by taking, or causing such person to be taken, forthwith before such court, judge, or commissioner, whose duty it shall be to hear and determine the case of such claimant in a summary manner; and upon satisfactory proof being made, by deposition or affidavit, in writing, to be taken and certified by such court, judge, or commissioner, or by other satisfactory testimony, duly taken and certified by some court, magistrate, justice of the peace, or other legal officer authorized to administer an oath and take depositions under the laws of the State or Territory from which such person owing service or labor may have escaped, with a certificate of such magistracy or other authority, as aforesaid, with the seal of the proper court or officer thereto attached, which seal shall be sufficient to establish the competency of the proof, and with proof, also by affidavit, of the identity of the person whose service or labor is claimed to be due as aforesaid, that the person so arrested does in fact owe service or labor to the person or persons claiming him or her, in the State or Territory from which such fugitive may have escaped as aforesaid, and that said person escaped, to make out and deliver to such claimant, his or her agent or attorney, a certificate setting forth the substantial facts as to the service or labor due from such fugitive to the claimant, and of his or her escape from the State or Territory in which he or she was arrested, with authority to such claimant, or his or her agent or attorney, to use such reasonable force and restraint as may be necessary, under the circumstances of the case, to take and remove such fugitive person back to the State or Territory whence he or she may have escaped as aforesaid. In no trial or hearing under this act shall the testimony of such alleged fugitive be admitted in evidence; and the certificates in this and the first [fourth] section mentioned, shall be conclusive of the right of the person or persons in whose favor granted, to remove such fugitive to the State or Territory from which he escaped, and shall prevent all molestation of such person or persons by any process issued by any court, judge, magistrate, or other person whomsoever.

DAVID WALKER BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adams, R. (1969) Great Negroes: Past and Present. Chicago: Afro-Am Publishing Co. Inc.
Al-Mansour, K. (1993) Betrayal by Any Other Name. San Francisco: The First African Arabian Press.
Appiah, K. & Gates, H. (eds.) (1999) Africana. New York: Basis Civitas Books.
Aptheker, H. (1951) A Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States. NY: Citadel Press.
Aptheker, H. (1968) To Be Free. New York: International Publishers.
Bennett, L. (1975) The Shaping of Black America. Chicago: Johnson Publishing Co.
Bennett, L. (1988) Before the Mayflower. New York: Penguin Books.
Franklin, J. (1988) From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Litwack, L. & Meier, A. (1988) Black Leaders of the Nineteenth Century. Chicago: Univ. of Illinois Press.
Low, A. & Clift, V. (eds.) (1983) Encyclopedia of Black America. New York: Neil Schuman Publishers.
McIntyre, C. (1992) Criminalizing a Race: Free Blacks During Slavery. Queens, NY: Kayode Publications
Sally C. (1993) The Black 100. New York: Carol Publishing Group.
Wiltse, C (ed.) (1965) David Walker’s Appeal. New York: Hill & Wang.
Zinn, H. (1980) A People’s History of the United States. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.

RICHARD ALLEN AND THE A. M. E. CHURCH

The African Methodist Episcopal Church (A. M. E. Church) was one of the first Black organizations dedicated to Black self-improvement and Pan-Africanist ideals.

The A. M. E. Church was also distinguished by its commitment to political agitation,Black education, and social activism. The interest in education initially culminated in the founding of Wilberforce University in 1863, as the first Black college founded by Blacks. Numerous other A. M. E. Colleges soon followed. A. M. E. pastors were also responsible for numerous lawsuits against public school segregation, which eventually led to the 1954 case: “Brown vs. Board of Education.” During the Civil Rights movement, the A. M. E. Church was very active, and in addition to a pragmatic gospel, the church addressed the housing, welfare, and unionization issues of new immigrants to northern cities. However, nothing more completely captures the spirit and embodiment of the A. M. E. Church than its founder and first bishop, Richard Allen.
Richard Allen was born into slavery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on February 14, 1760 and shortly thereafter his entire family was sold by a Philadelphia lawyer, Benjamin Chew, to a Delaware plantation owner, Stokely Sturgis. Although the slave master was unconverted, he allowed Richard Allen to attend Methodist meetings. In addition to their antislavery beliefs, Allen was especially impressed by their emphasis on a simple set of virtues including honesty, modesty, and sobriety and converted to Methodism at age 17. By age 20, Allen was able to convert his slave master and to convince him that slaveholding was wrong. Allen was allowed to buy his freedom for $2,000 by working a variety of odd jobs over the next five years. Once freed, “Allen traveled widely on the Methodist circuits, preaching, holding prayer meetings, and giving religious counsel to groups of White and Black Christians in the small towns and rural settlements of Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New York.” While in Philadelphia, Allen was asked by the elders at St. George Methodist Church to preach to their Black members. After the Black membership increased dramatically, Richard Allen determined that his calling was to minister to the “uneducated, poor, and un-churched community” and that he could best reach them in a separate Black church. However, the White Methodist elders ridiculed the whole idea with “very degrading and insulting language.”
St. George’s Black membership became so large that the church was forced to build a new seating gallery. When church authorities demanded that Blacks sit in the rear of the gallery, Allen and others decided they had been insulted enough: “We all went out of the church in a body and they were no more plagued with us.” The Black Methodists agreed to purchase a blacksmith shop and to move it to a lot Allen had purchased with his own savings. Carpenters were hired to make the building suitable for church meetings and on April 9, 1794, Bishop Asbury dedicated the structure as “Bethel African Church.” Bishop Asbury also ordained Allen as the first Black Methodist deacon and within four years the Bethel membership increased from 45 to 457 members. Richard Allen’s success was the inspiration for many other Black Methodist groups to form African Methodist Churches throughout the Northeast especially in New York, Delaware, and Maryland.
Since Bethel African Church was still under White Methodist ecclesiastical jurisdiction, White Methodists sued for legal control of Bethel, but in 1807 the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled in Allen’s favor. In 1816, Allen organized a national convention of Black Methodists, since many of them had similar White Methodist challenges. The convention delegates resolved that the churches they represent “should become one body under the name ‘African Methodist Episcopal Church’ in order to secure their privileges and promote union and harmony among themselves.” Richard Allen became the new denomination’s first Bishop and retained that title until his death in 1831.
Richard Allen dedicated his entire life toward uplifting his fellow African Americans. He felt that true Christians had to stretch out their hands beyond the circle of family and friends “to comfort the poor neighbor, the stranger, the widow, and the orphan.” He helped establish the Free African Society, the Bethel Benevolent Society, and the African Society for the Education of Youth “in order to support one another…from a love to the people of our complexion whom we behold with sorrow.” Bethel Church became the scene of numerous Black conventions to discuss the abolition of slavery and racial discrimination, and Richard Allen was commonly recognized as the leader of free Northern Blacks. Allen also published “An Address to Those Who Keep Slaves” in which he attacked slavery and the arguments for it.
Allen spent the final years of his life vehemently opposing the American Colonization Society, which Whites organized in 1817 to support the emigration of free Blacks from America to Africa. The American Colonization Society argued that free Blacks would have to leave this country to find true freedom, since the Fugitive Slave Act allowed any White person to call a free Black a fugitive slave. Since African Americans could not testify in court and therefore could not defend themselves, they had to find someone White who could speak in their behalf or they would become enslaved. Richard Allen himself was once called a fugitive slave, but fortunately, he was so famous that he not only won his case but had his accuser thrown into jail for three months. The American Colonization Society also argued that African Americans could help civilize and convert their less fortunate African brothers. However, Allen angrily responded that American Blacks could not convert or civilize anyone since they were mostly illiterate and uneducated themselves. He felt the real purpose of the colonizationists was to expel the most vociferous opponents of slavery. Allen told the American Colonization Society: “We will never separate ourselves voluntarily from the slave population in this country; they are our brethren and we feel there is more virtue in suffering privations with them than fancied advantage for a season.”
Richard Allen propelled the A. M. E. Church to the center of Black institutional activity during his lifetime. Allen’s life, as much as his sermons, remained an effective example for the future leadership of the A. M. E. Church. Moreover, his leadership direction is responsible for the continued proliferation of A. M. E. membership throughout the 19^th and 20^th century, which today has more than 3,000,000 million members world wide.

RICHARD ALLEN AND THE A. M. E. CHURCH BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adams, R. (1969) Great Negroes: Past and Present. Chicago: Afro-Am Publishing Co., Inc.
Appiah, K. & Gates, H. (eds.) (1999) Africana, New York: Basis Civitas Books.
Aptheker, H. (1951) A Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States. NY: Citidel Press.
Asante, M. & Mattson, M. (1991) Historical & Cultural Atlas of African Ams. NY: Macmillan Pub. Co.
Bennett, L. (1975) The Shaping of Black America. Chicago: Johnson Publishing Co.
Bennett, L. (1988) Before the Mayflower. New York: Penguin Books.
Franklin, J. (1988) From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans. NY: Alfred A. Knopf.
Handy, J. (1902) Scraps of African Methodist Episcopal History. Philadelphia: A. M. E. Book Concern.
Litwack, L. & Meter, A. (1988) Black Leaders of the 19th Century. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Low, A. & Clift, V. (eds.) (1983) Encyclopedia of Black America. New York: Neil Schuman Publishers.
MyIntyre, C. (1992) Criminalizing a Race: Free Blacks During Slavery.
Sally, C. (1993) The Black 100. New York: Carol Publishing Group.
Wesley, C. (1935) Richard Allen: Apostle of Freedom. Washington, DC.

WAR OF 1812

African American soldiers and sailors played a tremendous role in helping America defeat the British during the Revolutionary War. Most northern states were so grateful for the contributions of Black soldiers that they abolished slavery shortly after the war. Even Virginia passed a law freeing all slaves who had participated in the Revolutionary War. However, peacetime produced a total amnesia to the contributions of Blacks in the military and a request for their participation was not made again until the War of 1812 (June 18, 1812-December 24, 1814).
After the Revolutionary War, southerners were determined to never again allow African Americans, neither free nor slave, to “gain dignity and prestige by fighting for the United States.” They were instrumental in the passage by Congress of the Military Act (May 8, 1792), which called for the enrollment of “each and every able-bodied White male citizen between the ages of 18 and 45.” When the Marine Corps was established by a congressional act on July 11, 1798, Secretary of War Henry Knox issued a directive that “No Negro, mulatto, or Indian is to be enlisted,” and this directive was followed for the next 150 years. Only World War II manpower shortages forced the Marine Corps to change its 150-year policy and recruit African Americans. Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Stoddert followed the lead of the Army and Marine Corps and instructed his recruiters in August 1798 “…no Negroes, mulattos, or Indians.”
During the early 1800s, the British had the most powerful Navy in the world, especially after defeating France’s Napoleonic Navy. Still at war with Napoleon, a British naval blockade from Maine to Georgia was used to prevent American trading with French merchants. Moreover, because of a tremendous shortage of sailors, the British not only boarded and searched merchant vessels on the high seas but would frequently claim that American sailors were British deserters and force them to work on British ships (called impressment).
The impressment of three African American sailors from the American frigate “Chesapeake” on June 22, 1807 is called the first major incident leading to the War of 1812, and is frequently compared to the killing of Crispus Attucks which was called the first major incident leading to the Revolutionary War.
A group of expansionist congressmen called “War Hawks” convinced President James Madison to sign a declaration of war against Great Britain on June 18, 1812. In addition to conquering the British on the high seas, they hoped to expel the British from Canada, since most British troops were still fighting Napoleon. However, extreme racism left America ill prepared for this unpopular war. Not only did White men fail to enlist, but New England Whites also started a separatist movement and held a convention in Hartford, Connecticut in December 1814 to further solidify their demands. Moreover, the Canadian invasion was a total failure, and the British continued to defeat American Whites until they occupied Detroit and most of Ohio. J. A. Rogers states that the British practically wiped out American sea-borne trade and captured Florida and much of the South with Black volunteers whom they promised freedom. On August 24, 1814 the British Army captured Washington D.C. and burned many public buildings to the ground including the White House and Capital. The Encyclopedia Britannica says America was thoroughly defeated in this war while gaining none of the avowed aims and that only legend has converted defeat into the illusion of victory. Military historian Gary Donaldson states that only after the United States was brought to the edge of losing its independence were African Americans allowed in the military.
White residents of both Pennsylvania and New York now welcomed Blacks into the military to defend their cities from the advancing enemy and even promised slaves freedom after three years of service. General Andrew Jackson begged Blacks in New Orleans to fight the British and promised them equal pay with Whites, 160 acres of land, and participation in all Black battalions led by Black officers to avoid White prejudices. Jackson said: “Through a mistake in policy, you have heretofore been deprived of participation in the glorious struggle for national rights in which our country is engaged. This no longer shall exist. As Americans, your country looks with confidence to her adopted children for a valorous support.”
On March 3, 1813 the Navy officially authorized the recruitment of Blacks because of the severe manpower shortage, thus reversing their official exclusion since the congressional act of 1798. Experienced Black sailors who had previously worked on whaling boats and as merchant marines flocked to the Navy and were credited with much of America’s success in defeating the British Navy in the Great Lakes region. Commodore Thomas McDonough said the accuracy of his Black gunners was responsible for his victory on Lake Champlain. Commodore Isaac Chancey said he had fifty Black crewmembers that were among his very best.
On September 10, 1813, Commodore Oliver Perry defeated the British fleet on Lake Erie after a savage three hour battle and acknowledged the contributions and individual bravery of his 100 Black seamen in his Battle Report and also noted: “They seemed to be absolutely insensitive to danger.” Military historian Michael Lanning states: “The American naval victories in which Black sailors played such a critical role, finally forced the war-weary British to agree to a peace treaty.” The “Treaty of Ghent” was signed on December 24, 1814 in Belgium restoring pre-war conditions.
Unaware that the war had ended, sixty British ships containing 12,000 men sailed up the Mississippi River on January 8, 1815 in an attempt to capture New Orleans. The men of the “Louisiana Battalion of Free Men of Color” were in the front line of American soldiers who dealt the British their worst defeat of the war, inflicting 4,000 casualties compared to only sixty of their own. After the battle, General Andrew Jackson praised the Black soldiers: “I was not ignorant that you possessed qualities most formidable to an invading enemy…the President of the United States shall hear how praise worthy was your conduct in the hour of danger.” Jackson kept his promises of $124 and 160 acres of land to both White and Black soldiers. However, glory faded quickly for the “Louisiana Battalion of Free Men of Color”; they were soon disbanded and again faced pre-war prejudices. In city celebrations of the “Battle of New Orleans” for the next 100 years, not a single Black person was allowed to participate in the festivities.
White America, again, quickly forgot the contributions of Blacks in the military. A War Department memorandum on March 3, 1815 discharged all Blacks from the military stating: “A Negro is deemed unfit to associate with the American soldier.” The Navy issued orders in 1839 restricting Black enlistments to less than 5% and only in positions of cooks, mess boys, and servants, and this was signed by the same Isaac Chauncey who had highly praised his Black sailors during the War of 1812. Peacetime again became the chief promoter of racial exclusion in America and as always, when African Americans were no longer needed, they were also no longer wanted.

WAR OF 1812 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Donaldson, G. (1991) History of African-Americans in the Military. Malabar, FL. Krieger Pub. Co.
Foner, J. (1974) Blacks and the Military in American History. New York: A New Perspective Pub. Co.
Greene, R. (1974) Black Defenders of America: 1775-1973. Chicago: Johnson Publishing.
Langley, H. (1967) Social Reforms in the US Navy: 1798-1862. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
McConnell, R. (1968) Negro Troops of Antebellum Louisiana.. Baton Rouge, LA: LA State Univ. Press.
Moebs, T. (1994) Black Soldiers Black Sailors Black Ink….. Chesapeake Bay, MD: Moebs Publishing Co.
Mullen, R. (1973) Blacks in America’s Wars. New York: Pathfinder.
Nalty, B. (1986) Strength for the Fight: A History of Black Americans in the Military.
Rogers, J. (1989) Africa’s Gift to America. St. Petersburg, FL: Helga Rogers Publishing
Wilson, J. (1977) The Black Phalanx: A History of the Negro Soldier ... Wars of 1775-1812, 1861-1865
Zinn, H. (1980) A People’s History of the United States. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.

THE JOHN BROWN TEST

Dr. Leonard Jeffries recommends that before you call a White person a “true friend,” that person should pass the “John Brown Test.” Since history records numerous John Browns the question is, exactly which John Brown does Dr. Jeffries consider a good role model for White friendship? Rhode Island College changed its name to Brown University in 1804 to honor one person named John Brown. However, this John Brown made his fortune exchanging rum for slaves, so he couldn’t possibly be the White friend role model. John Robert Brown (1909-1993) was Chief Justice for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and played a pivotal role in championing and enforcing civil rights legislation in the South. He is most noted for ordering in 1962 that African-American James Meredith be enrolled in the all-White University of Mississippi. Most Black people would be happy to have a White friend like John Robert Brown, but Leonard Jeffries says the “real” John Brown died at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia in 1859.
The “real” John Brown had an entire book written about him in 1909 by W. E. Burghardt DuBois which was reprinted in 1996 by International Publishers. One of the greatest women in African American history, Harriet Tubman, regarded this John Brown and not President Abraham Lincoln as the true emancipator of her people.
The “real” John Brown was born in Torrington, Connecticut on May 9, 1800 about four months before the attempted insurrection of slaves under Gabriel in Virginia in September of the same year. He was raised in Hudson, Ohio where his family migrated in 1805. By the age of 16, he had already joined the church and soon became such an experienced bible student that “when any person was reading he would correct the least mistake.” His love for religion was exceeded only by his love for family where he fathered 20 well-disciplined, hard-working children. After seven of his children died before adulthood, he concluded that in some way his own sin and shortcomings were bringing upon him “the vengeful punishment of God.” He felt his greatest sin was not doing enough “to increase the amount of human happiness.”
In 1839, a turning point occurred in Brown’s life when he was visited by a Black preacher named Fayette. Fayette described slavery as “the foulest and filthiest blot on 19th century civilization.” He added: “as a school of brutality and human suffering, of female prostitution and male debauchery; as a mockery of marriage and defilement of family life; as a darkening of reason, and spiritual death, slavery has no parallel.” John Brown fell to his knees and “implored God’s blessing on his purpose to make active war on slavery, and he bound his family in solemn and secret compact to labor for emancipation.”
John Brown was convinced that the first step toward emancipation was education. He noted that all pro-slavery states were vehemently opposed to educating slaves and made this a capital offense. John was also aware that slaveholders actively pursued African American schools and churches and burned them to the ground after Nate Turner’s slave revolt on August 21, 1831. Brown felt that once the master-slave relationship was broken, Black people deserved their own state and educated Blacks would be needed for self-government. He actively campaigned for the establishment of African American schools and even tried to establish a school himself in Hudson, Ohio. When Oberlin College opened its doors to “Negroes” in 1839, and appointed his father as a trustee, John Brown was overjoyed.
On August 1, 1846, Gerrit Smith, a wealthy New York abolition leader, offered free Blacks 100,000 acres of his land in North Elba, New York for farms. Because of the bleak climate and harsh soil, Black farmers found it very difficult to succeed until John Brown volunteered to help. He went to Gerrit Smith at Petersboro, New York in April 1848 and said: “I am something of a pioneer…I will take one of your farms myself, clean it up and plant it, and show my Colored neighbors how such work should be done. I will look after them in all needful ways and be a kind of father to them.”
In 1854, the government announced that Kansas would become a slave-free state open for settlement. Consequently, five of Brown’s sons moved to Kansas in October 1854 but were appalled at what they discovered. Large pro-slavery gangs were traveling throughout Kansas killing anti-slavery farmers and burning their properties. When John Brown’s sons informed him what was happening, he loaded a wagon full of weapons and headed for Kansas. In May 1856, shortly after John Brown’s arrival in Kansas, two thousand pro-slavery Missourians surrounded Lawrence, Kansas, the capital city, and brutally killed many of the anti-slavery settlers and sacked and burned half the town. On the same day, Senator Brooks killed Senator Charles Sumner by a crushing blow to the head in the U.S. Senate Chamber for telling the truth about Kansas. John Brown was angry and “indignant that there had been no resistance; that Lawrence was not defended; and denounced the men as trembling cowards, or worse.” In retaliation, Brown and his sons entered Missouri at night and dragged five of the pro-slavery ringleaders out of their cabins and hacked them to death with swords. This blow, called the Pottawatomie Murders, is said to have freed Kansas by plunging it into civil war, and compelling men to fight for freedom, which they had vainly hoped to gain by political diplomacy. Kansas’s anti-slavery settlers repelled Missouri’s pro-slavery settlers’ last invasion on September 15, 1856, and Kansas was finally declared a slave-free state. John Brown was now free to return to the East to resume his plan to free southern slaves by force.
Between 1857 and 1859, John Brown visited the homes of Frederick Douglas, Harriet Tubman (pictured left), Henry Highland Garnet, Martin Delaney, and many other leading African American abolitionists to gain their support for his plan to free all southern slaves by force. All of the abolitionists were extremely impressed by John Brown’s intense desire to end slavery. Although they believed in John Brown, most did not believe his plan was humanly possible. Nevertheless, only sickness prevented Harriet Tubman from joining John Brown on his southern invasion after she had actively recruited soldiers for his cause.
When told that he might die executing his plan, Brown exclaimed: “Did not my Master Jesus Christ come down from Heaven and sacrifice Himself upon the altar for the salvation of the race, and should I, a worm, not worthy to crawl under his feet, refuse to sacrifice myself?” On October 16, 1859, John Brown with an armed band of 16 Whites (including 2 of his sons) and 5 Blacks attacked the federal armory at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. He had hoped that by capturing the armory arsenal, escaped slaves would join his rebellion, forming an “army of emancipation” with which to liberate their fellow slaves. Unfortunately, he was surrounded by U.S. Marines and overpowered. He was tried and convicted of slave insurrection and hanged on December 2, 1859. Many believe that Brown’s attack helped immortalize him and hasten the Civil War, which did bring emancipation.
If Leonard Jeffries could find a single friend, Black or White, who even comes close to passing the “John Brown Test”, he should consider himself truly blessed. The truth is, only one person in this country’s history, either Black or White has ever passed the John Brown Test, and he was the “REAL” John Brown.

JOHN BROWN TEST BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aaron, D. (1973) The Unwritten War. New York: Oxford University Press.
Appiah, K. & Gates, H. (eds.) (1999) Africana. New York: Basis Civitas Books.
Aptheker, H. (1951) A Documentary History of the Negro People in the US. New York: Citadel Press.
Aptheker, H. (1969) American Negro Slave Revolts, New York: International Publishers.
Asante, M. & Mattson, M. (eds.) (1991) Historical & Cultural Atlas of Afr. Ams. NY Macmillan Pub. Co.
Bennett, L. (1988) Before the Mayflower. New York: Penguin Books.
DuBois, W. (1972) John Brown - New York: International Publishers.
Franklin, J. (1988) From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans, NY Alfred A. Knopf.
Loewen, J. (1995) Lies My Teacher Told Me, New York: Simon & Schuster.
Low, A. & Clift, V. (eds.) (1983) Encyclopedia of Black America. New York: Neal Schuman Publishers.
Oates, S. (1970) To Purge This Land With Blood. New York: Harper & Row.
Scheidenhelm, R. (ed.) (1972) The Response to John Brown. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Stavis, B. (1970) John Brown: The Sword and the Word. New York: A.S. Barnes.
Warch, R & Fanton, J. (eds.) John Brown. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Zinn, H. (1980) A People’s History of the United States. New York HarperCollins Publishers.

BLACK PEOPLE OF THE OLD WEST

President Roosevelt called December 7, 1941, the day Pearl Harbor was bombed, as a day that will forever be recorded in infamy. For Black pioneers in the old west, February 2, 1848 will forever be recorded in infamy. This is the day the peace treaty was signed which ended the Mexican War and gave to the United States the territories of Texas, California, Nevada, Utah and parts of Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico.
The African Americans who arrived with the earliest Spanish expeditions to California helped create a culture that accepted them as equals. Blacks purchased large segments of land and became successful businessmen with the establishment of hotels and trading centers. Los Angeles was founded by 26 people of African ancestry and only two Caucasians. Maria Rita Valdez, whose Black grandparents were among the founding members of Los Angeles, owned Rancho Rodeo de Las Aguas, today called Beverly Hills. Francisco Reyes, another Black resident, owned the San Fernando Valley. In the 1790's, he sold it and became mayor of Los Angeles. Pio Pico, whose grandmother was listed as mulatto in the 1790 census, was governor of California from 1845-1846 when the Mexican War started. Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles is named after this Black governor.
William Leidesdorff (pictured left) is one of San Francisco's most famous citizens. He was born in St. Croix, Virgin Islands to a Danish planter and his African wife. He sailed for California in 1841, after becoming a wealthy businessman, aboard his 160-ton schooner called "Julia Ann." He shortly thereafter became a landowner, having purchased a 35,000-acre estate in San Francisco and soon became treasurer of the San Francisco City Council. He helped set up the first public school system which was open to everyone, regardless of race, creed, or color. Leidesdorff opened the first hotel in San Francisco, introduced the first steamboat to the city, and organized its first horse race. Today a street in downtown San Francisco bears the name of this remarkable early Black citizen.
Things changed rapidly after February 2, 1848, when the United States assumed control of California. President Polk announced the discovery of gold in California in 1849, and the population soared ten fold within two years. Although racial lines had been ignored before California became American territory, Black hatred and discrimination moved westward with the White wagon trains. Most White Californians were convinced that no matter how honest, reliable, hard working or wealthy a Black neighbor might be, he ought not be granted any rights a White man was bound to respect. In 1852, the legislature of California passed a law, deeply hated by Blacks, which prohibited any Black person from testifying in court. This prevented Black men from supporting their land claims, Black women from identifying rape assailants, and Black businessmen from suing those who had cheated or robbed them. Other anti Black laws produced segregated schools and prohibited Blacks from voting as well as from serving in the military.
In addition, the Fugitive Slave Law was passed in 1852 by a 14 to 9 vote, which also permitted a slave owner to remain an indefinite time in the state, thus institutionalizing slavery despite its prohibition in the state constitution.
A Black exodus from California to Canada occurred in 1858, when the California legislature tried to pass a bill banning Black immigration. Blacks were terrified because Oregon's legislature passed a law the previous year, which provided for the expulsion of all Black people within three years. Any Black remaining after three years would be whipped every six months or forced into labor without pay. Oregon's exclusion provision was passed in 1857 and was not repealed until 1927.
Our Black ancestors in the old west could only dream about how wonderful their lives may have been if the Mexican government had won the war and had not signed the peace treaty on the infamous day of February 2, 1848.

BLACK PEOPLE OF THE OLD WEST BIBLIOGRAPHY

Appiah, K. & Gates, H. (eds.) (1999) Africana New York: Basis Civitas Books.
Aptheker, H. (1951) A Documentary History of the Negro People in the US. New York: Citadel Press.
Beasley, D. (1919) The Negro Trail Blazer of CA, Los Angeles: Times Mirror Printing and Binding House.
Billington, M. & Hardaway, R. (eds.) (1998) African Ams. on the West. Front. Niwot, CO: Univ. Pr. of CO
Graebner, N. (ed.) 1968) Manifest Destiny. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.
Jay, W. (1849) A Review of the Causes and Consequences of the Mexican War. Boston: B. B. Mussey & Co.
Katz, W. (1992) Black People Who Made the Old West, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press
Lapp, R. (1977) Blacks in Gold Rush California. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press.
Pelz, R. (1989) Black Heroes of the Wild West. Seattle: Open Hand Publishers.
Ravage, J. (1997) Black Pioneers: Images of the Black Experience.. Salt Lake City: Univ. of Utah Press.
Savage, W. (1976) Blacks in the West. Westport: Greenwood Press.
Schroeder, J. (1973) Mr. Polk’s War: Am. Opposition and Dissent 1846-1848. Madison: Univ. of WI Press.
Smith, G. & Judah, C. (eds.) (1966) Chron. of the Gringos: U. S Army ... 1846-1848. Albuq.: Univ. of WI Pr.

BLACK WOMEN OF THE OLD WEST

Although our novels and movies are filled with heroes from the old west, African American heroes are virtually never mentioned. Moreover, historians have also contributed to this unjust and unbalanced recording of our glorious western saga by completely ignoring the many accomplishments of Black men and women, despite the fact they were accurately reported in newspapers, government records, military reports, and pioneer memoirs. As members of a double minority, Black women have suffered an even greater historical injustice, although they were an integral part of the western fabric. Nothing more clearly demonstrates the contributions of Black women to the western tradition than the biographies of Biddy Bridget Mason, Clara Brown, and Mary Ellen Pleasant.
Biddy Bridget Mason (1815-1891) was born into slavery and given as a wedding gift to a Mormon couple in Mississippi named Robert and Rebecca Smith. In 1847 at age 32, Biddy Mason was forced to walk from Mississippi to Utah tending cattle behind her master’s 300-wagon caravan. After four years in Salt Lake City, Smith took the group to a new Mormon settlement in San Bernardino, California in search of gold. When Biddy Mason discovered that the California State Constitution made slavery illegal, she had Robert Smith brought into court on a writ of habeas corpus, and the court freed all of Smith’s slaves. Now free, Mason and her three daughters (probably fathered by Smith) moved to Los Angeles where they worked and saved enough money to buy a house at 331 Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles.
Knowing what it meant to be oppressed and friendless, Biddy Mason immediately began a philanthropic career by opening her home to the poor, hungry, and homeless. Through hard work, saving, and investing carefully, she was able to purchase large amounts of real estate including a commercial building, which provided her with enough income to help build schools, hospitals, and churches. Her most noted accomplishment was the founding of First African Methodist Episcopal (A. M. E.) Church, now the oldest church in Los Angeles, where she also operated a nursery and food pantry. Moreover, her generosity and compassion included personally bringing home cooked meals to men in state prison. In 1988, Mayor Tom Bradley had a tombstone erected at her unmarked gravesite and November 16, 1989 was declared “Biddy Mason Day”. In addition, the highlights of her life were displayed on a wall of the Spring Center in downtown Los Angeles, an honor befitting Los Angeles’ first Black female property owner and philanthropist.
Clara Brown (1806-1888) is another who dedicated her life to the betterment of others. She was born as a slave in Virginia and then sold at age three to the Brown family in Logan, Kentucky. At age 35, her master died, and her slave husband, son, and daughter were sold at auction to different owners. After 20 additional years in slavery, she was able to buy her freedom and immediately headed west to St. Louis. At age 55, she agreed to serve as cook and laundress in exchange for free transportation in a caravan headed for the gold mines of Colorado. Clara Brown established a laundry in Central City and as her resources expanded, she opened up her home, which served as a hospital, church, and hotel to the town’s less fortunate.
Under her direction, the first Sunday school developed, and moreover, the whole town turned to her during illness because she was such a good nurse. Frequently, she even “grubstaked miners who had no other means of support while they looked for gold in the mountains and was repaid handsomely for her kindness and generosity by those who struck pay dirt.” Far and wide, she was known as “Aunt Clara” and as “the Angel of the Rockies”.
By the end of the Civil War, Clara Brown had accumulated several Colorado properties and over $10,000 in cash. Since slavery was over, she used her fortune to search for relatives in Virginia and Kentucky and returned with 34 of them including her daughter. She continued her philanthropy among the needy for the rest of her life and also spent large sums of money helping other Blacks come west. Upon her death at age 82, the Colorado Pioneers Association buried her with honors, and a plaque was placed in the St. James Methodist Church stating that her house was the first home of the church.
Mary Ellen Pleasant (1814-1903), a former slave, moved to San Francisco in 1849 where she opened a successful boarding house, famous for cards, liquor, and beautiful women. She was also a partner of Thomas Bell, cofounder of the first “Bank of California.” As a businesswoman, she was called mercurial, cunning, cynical, and calculating, but personally she was softhearted and had a passion for helping the less fortunate who called her “the Angel of the West”. She was a leader in California for the protection of abused women and children and helped build and support numerous “safe havens” for them. Mary Ellen Pleasant hated slavery and frequently rode into the rural sections of California to rescue people held in bondage. Because of Pleasant, the entire Black community of San Francisco received a warning from one judge for “the insolent, defiant, and dangerous way that they interfered with those who were arresting slaves.” Mary Ellen Pleasant used most of her fortune to aid fugitive slaves. “She fed them, found occupations for them, and financially backed them in numerous small businesses.” In 1858, she gave $30,000 to John Brown to help finance his raid at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. This White abolitionist had hoped to capture the national armory and distribute the weapons to slaves for a massive insurrection. During the Civil War, Pleasant raised money for the Union cause and continued to fight for civil rights. Her tombstone epitaph read: “Mother of Civil Rights in California” and “Friend of John Brown”.
Brief biographies of Biddy Bridget Mason, Clara Brown, and Mary Ellen Pleasant serve to illustrate the enormous contributions and accomplishments of Black women in the old west. Era Bell Thompson in “American Daughter” clearly states the problem: “Black women were an integral part of the western and American tradition. It both impairs their sense of identity and unbalances the historical record to continue to overlook the role of Black women in the development of the American west.”

BLACK WOMEN OF THE OLD WEST BIBLIOGRAPHY

Billington, M & Hardaway, E. (eds.) (1998) African Ams on the West. Front. Niwot, CO: Univ. Pr. of CO.
Bruyn, K. (1970) Aunt Clara Brown: Story of a Black Pioneer - Boulder, CO: Pruett Publishing Co.
James, E. & James J. (eds.) (1971) Notable American Women. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
Katz, W. (1992) Black People Who Made the Old West, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.
Lerner, G. (1979) The Majority Finds Its Past: Placing Women in History. NY: Oxford University Press.
Myres, S. (1982) Westering Women: The Frontier Experience. 1880-1915. Albuquerque: Univ. of NM Press.
Pelz, R. (1989) Black Heroes of the Wild West. Seattle: Open Hand Publishers.
Ravage, J. (1977) Black Pioneers: Images of the Black Experience….Salt Lake City: Univ. of Utah Press.
Riley, G. (1981) Frontierswomen: The Iowa Experience. Ames: Iowa State University Press.
Savage, W. (1976) Blacks in the West. Westport: Greenwood Press.
Sterling, D. (1984) We Are Your Sisters: Black Women in the 19^th Century. NY: W.W. Norton & Co.
Thompson, E. (1986) American Daughter. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society.

AFRICAN AMERICANS AND THE CIVIL WAR

In a 1928 biography of Ulysses S. Grant, historian W. E. Woodward disavowed any contributions made by Black Americans in the Civil War. He wrote: “The American Negroes are the only people in the history of the world, that ever became free without any effort of their own. The Civil War was not their business.” Woodward dismissed the 200,000 African Americans who served in the war and the 28,000 who died fighting. White historians have always diminished the wartime contributions of African Americans (who have served honorably in every war since this country’s inception), but no period seems more blatantly ignored than the Civil War. Freedom for Blacks was the lasting legacy of the Civil War, yet most history textbooks would have us believe that Black slaves sat around playing banjoes and awaiting Yankee soldiers to set them free. Nothing could be further from the truth!
The Civil War began on April 12, 1861 when the Confederate Army attacked Fort Sumter. The North initially thought they would easily crush the South because of their 23,000,000 able-bodied White males verses only about 6,000,000 White males available to the South. The North was so certain of victory that they absolutely refused to allow any Black people (free or slave) to participate. President Lincoln, however, had considerable difficulty in obtaining volunteers. Poor White men refused to fight in a war which, they believed, would liberate slaves who would take their jobs. They also felt that neither saving the Union nor ending slavery was adequate reason for risking their lives. In July 1862 President Lincoln asked for 300,000 men, but in five weeks less than 30,000 volunteered. On March 1, 1863, Congress passed the nation’s first draft bill, the National Conscription Act, which was so unpopular that anti-draft riots broke out in several northern cities. Primarily, recently immigrated poor White males vented their anger against local defenseless African Americans. The New York Times wrote that people of African descent were “literally hunted down like wild beasts and when caught either stoned to death or hung from trees and lamp posts.”
In addition to a manpower shortage, General Sherman told President Lincoln that “our men are not good soldiers. They brag but they don’t perform.” The New York World newspaper reported that “when the Confederate Calvary charged at Bull Run the Union soldiers ran in panic, leaving artillery, guns, ammunition, wagons, and equipment behind.” Sir William Howard Russell, war correspondent of the London Times wrote: “Such cowardly scandalous behavior on the part of soldiers I should never have considered possible.” The North was decisively defeated in its first three major battles at Bull Run, Wilson Creek, and Balls Bluff. Horace Greeley of the New York Tribute wrote Lincoln that “the larger part of the army is a confused mob, entirely demoralized.” He further added that Lincoln should “make peace with the rebels at once and on their terms.” Conceding victory to the Confederacy, Greeley published that “so short-lived has been the American Union that men who saw its rise may now see its fall.”
In July 1862, Lincoln convinced his Cabinet that all was lost unless he could “win over the slaves of the South and have them fight on his side by offering them freedom.” Lincoln himself wrote the original draft of the Emancipation Proclamation and called a special Cabinet meeting for its presentation. The Cabinet agreed that the proclamation was their last resort, but Secretary of War Seward asked Lincoln if he could wait for some type of Union victory prior to its release. Otherwise, Seward said: “It will be viewed as the last measure of an exhausted government; a cry for help; the government stretching forth its hands to Ethiopia, instead of Ethiopia stretching forth her hands to the government.” The opportunity came with the marginal Federal victory at Antietam Creek in Maryland on September 17, 1862. One week after the Battle of Antietam, Lincoln released the Emancipation Proclamation, which stated that all slaves in the Confederacy (or areas still in rebellion) would be “henceforth and forever free.” In addition, this document also permitted for the first time, the recruitment of Black men into the army. As a result of these actions, large numbers of newly emancipated slaves all over the South began joining Federal forces as soldiers and laborers.
When it became clear to the Confederate forces in 1863 that their armies would be facing Black soldiers in the field, they responded with a threat of death to all African Americans and their White commanding officers. These were not idle threats. At Fort Pillow, Tennessee in April 1864 about 300 Black Federal soldiers were massacred under the direction of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest (who later founded the Ku Klux Klan). The Fort Pillow incident caused Black soldiers to fight more desperately throughout the remainder of the war. They either feared that capture meant certain death, or they intended to exact some revenge for the Fort Pillow atrocities or both.
On June 7, 1863 at Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana, the Ninth and Eleventh Louisiana regiments won the Civil War’s first significant battle secured by African Americans. Assistant Secretary of War Charles Dana reported that “a Confederate force of three thousand attacked the camp and initially forced the Negro troops to give way, but once reminded that those of their number who were captured were killed, they rallied with great fury and routed the enemy.”
Although the Louisiana regiments fought the first major battles by African American soldiers in the Civil War, the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts regiment gained the most widespread and lasting fame of the war during its assault on Confederate Fort Wagner in South Carolina. Most of the men of the Fifty-Fourth regiment were killed while attacking Fort Wagner, yet northern politicians, newspapers, and military leaders hailed the Fifty-Fourth as a symbol of the country’s greatest example of valor in combat. In 1989, Hollywood honored the Fifty-Fourth regiment in a feature film entitled “Glory” which earned an Oscar nomination for best picture.
Black soldiers participated in virtually every major battle once they were allowed to join the military and earned 23 Congressional Metals of Honor. Senior Union commanders including Generals Daniel Ullman and Nathaniel Banks testified that “the brigades of Negroes behaved magnificently and fought splendidly, and they were far superior in discipline to the White troops and just as brave.” On August 15, 1864 in an interview with John T. Mills, Lincoln defended the use of Black troops by stating that if the 200,000 Black soldiers had decided to fight for the Confederacy instead of the Union, he would have been “compelled to abandon the war in three weeks.”
In summary, history textbooks should record that African American soldiers fought gallantly during the Civil War to end over 200 years of bondage. The Thirteenth Amendment (freeing all slaves) was only another testimony to the magnificent accomplishments of the Black soldiers on the Civil War’s battlefields.

THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT

Section 1.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
The Emancipation Proclamation
January 1, 1863
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:
"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.
That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States."
Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:
Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.
And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defense; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.
And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.
And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.
By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State

AFRICAN AMERICANS AND THE CIVIL WAR BIBLIOGRAPHY

Donaldson, G. (1991) The History of African-Americans in the Military. Malabar, FL: Krieger Pub. Co.
Foner, J. (1974) Blacks and the Military in American History. New York: A New Perspective Pub. Co.
Greene, R. (1974) Black Defenders of America: 1775-1973. Chicago: Johnson Publishing.
Langley, H. (1967) Social Reforms in the United States Navy: 1798-1862. Urbana, IL: University of IL Press.
Lanning. M. (1977) African-Am. Soldier from Crispus Attucks to Colin Powell. Secaucus, NJ: Carol Pub.
McConnell, R. (1968) Negro Troops of Antebellum Louisiana:.. Baton Rouge, LA: LA State Univ. Press.
Moebs, T. (1994) Black Soldiers - Black Sailors - Black Ink: Research Guide…….
Mullen, R. (1973) Blacks in America’s Wars. New York: Pathfinder.
Nalty, B. (1986) Strength for the Fight: A History of Black Americans in the Military. NY: Free Press.
Rogers, J. (1989) Africa’s Gift to America. St. Petersburg, FL: Helga Rogers Publishing.
Wilson, J. (1977) Black Phalanx: A History of the Negro Soldier ... 1775-1812, 1861-1865. NY: Arno Press.
Zinn, H. (1980) A People’s History of the United States. New York: HarperCollins Publishers



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