American Epistles

The Tape Family, The Morning Call (San Francisco, CA), November 23, 1892. (Library of Congress) “You have expended a lot of the Public money foolishly, all because of a one poor little Child. Her playmates is all Caucasians, ever since she could toddle around. If she is good enough to play with them! Then is she not good enough to be in the same room and studie with them? You had better come and see for yourselves. See if the Tape’s is not same as other Caucasians, except in features. It seems no matter how a Chinese may live and dress so long as you know they Chinese. Then they are hated as one. There is not any right or justice for them.”–Mary Tape Among the many young girls who arrived in San Francisco in 1868, was one 11-year-old from Shanghai.  After five months in Chinatown, she was taken in by Ladies’ Protection and Relief Society on Franklin Street, where she was given the name Mary. The following year, Chew Diep arrived from Taishan.  In 1875, he met Mary while he delivered milk for the Sterling family.  They married on November 16, and before long, Chew Diep changed his name to Joe Tape.  The Tapes’ daughter Mamie was born the following summer.  The Tapes would have three more children:  Frank, Emily, and Gertrude.   The Tapes lived in the Black Point neighborhood, now called Cow Hollow, which was predominantly white.  Teen neighbor Florence Eveleth taught little Mamie and Frank reading and math.  But neither the Tapes’ affluence nor assimilation could protect them from discrimination. Additional Resources: “The 8-Year-Old Chinese-American Girl Who Helped Desegregate Schools” (History Channel) “Before Brown v. Board of Education, There was Tape v. Hurley” (Library of Congress) “In Pursuit of Equality: Separate is Not Equal” (Smithsonian Museum of Natural History) The Lucky Ones: One Family and the Extraordinary Invention of Chinese America by Mae Ngai “The Tapes of Russell Street” (Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association) Unbound Voices: Chinese Women in San Francisco by Judy Yung “We Have Always Lived as Americans” (The New York Historical Society) “What a Chinese Girl Did,” The Morning Call, November 23, 1892, Page 12

*This episode discusses child abuse, human trafficking, and prostitution. A Mui Tsai in San Francisco (image credit: Stanford Special Collections / California State Library) “I was nineteen when this man came to my mother and said that in America there was a great deal of gold.  Even if I just peeled potatoes there, he told my mother, I would earn seven or eight dollars a day, and if I was willing to do any work at all I would earn lots of money.  He was a laundryman, but said he earned plenty of money.  He was very nice to me, and my mother liked him, so my mother was glad to have me go with him as his wife.  I thought I was his wife, and was very grateful that he was taking me to such a grand, free country, where everyone was rich and happy.”–Wong Ah So While Chinese men flocked to “Gold Mountain,” many families in the “Celestial Empire” struggled for survival, and girls were the least valuable members.   Sometimes they were sold away, and ended up in the United States as prostitutes. But they found refuge in organizations like the Women’s Occidental Board of Missions, led by Donaldina Cameron. Eventually, Chinese men were able to bring their wives, and San Francisco’s Chinatown became a community of families. The demands of home life kept working-class wives very busy. But middle-class Chinese women formed societies that gave them the opportunity to not only socialize, but develop leadership skills, and advocate for issues that were important to them, including suffrage. Emma Leung and Clara Lee were the first Chinese women to register to vote in the US. (Also pictured, Tom Leung, Dr. Charles Lee, and Deputy County Clerk W.B. Smith) (image credit: Oakland Tribune November 8, 1911) Additional Reading: Tye Leung and Charles Schulze, an Untold Angel Island Love Story The White Devil’s Daughters: The Women Who Fought Slavery in San Francisco’s Daughters by Julia Siler Unbound Voices: A Documentary History of Chinese Women in San Francisco, Judy Yung Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco

Chinese Workers, 1800sImage credit:  Modesto Art Museum I ate wind and tasted waves for more than twenty days. Fortunately, I arrived safely on the American continent. I thought I could land in a few days. How was I to know I would become a prisoner suffering in the wooden building? The barbarians’ abuse is really difficult to take. When my family’s circumstances stir my emotions, a double stream of tears flows. I only wish I can land in San Francisco soon, Thus sparing me this additional sorrow here.”–Poem inscribed in Angel Island barracks wall The story of large-scale Chinese immigration to the United States begins in the 1850s. Most came from Guangdong Province, wracked for decades by civil and economic unrest. Gam Saan, or “Gold Mountain,” held the promise of wealth that could enrich an entire village. When the Gold Rush subsided, Chinese men found work on the Transcontinental Railroad. They would build 90% of the Central Pacific Railroad, laying track in record time. However, while the Chinese were initially heralded for their industry and efficiency, they would become targets of harassment and violence. In 1882, when Chinese immigrants were 0.21% of the population, Congress passed the Exclusion Act. From 1910 to 1940, the Angel Island Immigration Station played an important role in the enforcement of the law. Poems inscribed into the barracks walls give us a glimpse into life for those waiting to learn their fates. Additional Reading and Listening: Angel Island Immigration Station (website) Angel Island Poems read in Toishanese (YouTube) Building the Transcontinental Railroad by Linda Thompson (for school-age readers) The Chinese and the Iron Road: Building the Transcontinental Railroad by Gordon Chang History that Doesn’t Suck Podcast Episode 85 Text of the Chinese Exclusion Act

Mormon pioneers at South Pass, Wyoming, about 1859image credit:  Charles Roscoe Savage, Courtesy BYU … when it became necessary for him to discard a wife it was a pretty hard question for him because a little child was coming to the second wife and he had nothing to provide for her with except what his first wife’s money paid for. The first wife said she would consent to him starting the second, if she filed on land and paid her back a small sum every year until it was all paid back. So he took the poor “second,” after formally renouncing her, and helped her to file on the land she now lives on. He built her a small cabin, and so she started her career as a “second.” I suppose the “first” thought she would be rid of the second, who had never really been welcome, although the Bishop could never have married a “second” without her consent. At long last, we have reached the end of the Elinore Trail. It certainly has been educational! In this final episode, Elinore gets an education in the Mormon practice of polygamy in the early 1900s. She also recounts her successes growing and raising food on her homestead. She definitely paints a rosy picture, rosier than the one we saw during the Women Homesteader’s episode. Was that Elinore having a positive attitude, applying a positive spin, or something else? Maybe we can just say, Elinore being Elinore. Farewell Elinore!

Image credit: James Owen on Unsplash I crossed a ravine with equal frequency, and all looked alike. It is not surprising that soon I could not guess where I was. We could turn back and retrace our tracks, but actual danger lay there; so it seemed wiser to push on, as there was, perhaps, no greater danger than discomfort ahead. The sun hung like a big red ball ready to drop into the hazy distance when we came clear of the buttes and down on to a broad plateau, on which grass grew plentifully. That encouraged me because the horses need not suffer, and if I could make the scanty remnant of our lunch do for the children’s supper and breakfast, we could camp in comfort, for we had blankets. In today’s letter, Elinore sets out to hire some help, and ends up being a big help herself. She also educates Mrs. Coney about the proper cookware for a camp-fire breakfast. Rupert’s letters are in the public domain.

Sally Hemings’s Quarters (image credit: monticello.org) Someone On The Internet said, “Studying history will sometimes make you feel extremely angry. If studying history always makes you feel proud and happy, you probably aren’t studying history.” I must be doing it right! I had forgotten that Elinore was born and raised in the antebellum South, but she reminded me with her Christmas letter and racist party “game.”   As I was trying to figure out a way out of recording it,  I remembered why the American Revolution became more interesting to me.  It was because I learned more about the Founding Fathers in their full humanity, and not as demigods in bronze and marble.  You’ll be glad to know that there are no demigods in this episode.  Only fallible human beings. Additional Reading on the Founders, slavery, and the African Americans mentioned in the episode: The Founding Fathers on Slavery (battlefields.org) James Madison and Slavery (including Billey) (princeton.edu) Thomas Jefferson and Slavery (monticello.org) Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings (monticello.org) James Hemings (chef) (monticello.org) Benjamin Banneker (whitehousehistory.gov) Letter from Benjamin Banneker to Thomas Jefferson (archives.gov) Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Banneker (archives.gov) Phillis Wheatley (poetryfoundation.org) Phillis Wheatley and George Washington (gilderlherman.org)  Letter from George Washington to Phillis Wheatley (loc.gov)

It is true, I want a great many things I haven’t got, but I don’t want them enough to be discontented and not enjoy the many blessings that are mine. I have my home among the blue mountains, my healthy, well-formed children, my clean, honest husband, my kind, gentle milk cows, my garden which I make myself. I have loads and loads of flowers which I tend myself. There are lots of chickens, turkeys, and pigs which are my own special care. I have some slow old gentle horses and an old wagon. I can load up the kiddies and go where I please any time. I have the best, kindest neighbors and I have my dear absent friends. Do you wonder I am so happy? Elinore shares some of the personal joys and sorrows that she has experienced since moving to Wyoming. I appreciate Elinore’s attitude about it all. Even in the midst of heartbreak, there are always things for which we can be grateful. Rupert’s letters are in the Public Domain.

Pupils at Carlisle Indian Industrial School, Pennsylvania, c. 1900 (public domain) There were eight in our party of bronzed children who were going East with the missionaries. Among us were three young braves, two tall girls, and we three little ones, Judéwin, Thowin, and I. We had been very impatient to start on our journey to the Red Apple Country, which, we were told, lay a little beyond the great circular horizon of the Western prairie. Under a sky of rosy apples we dreamt of roaming as freely and happily as we had chased the cloud shadows on the Dakota plains. We had anticipated much pleasure from a ride on the iron horse, but the throngs of staring palefaces disturbed and troubled us … children who were no larger than I hung themselves upon the backs of their seats, with their bold white faces toward me. Sometimes they took their forefingers out of their mouths and pointed at my moccasined feet. Their mothers, instead of reproving such rude curiosity, looked closely at me, and attracted their children’s further notice to my blanket. This embarrassed me, and kept me constantly on the verge of tears.“The School Days of an Indian Girl” by Zitkála-Šá For decades, before they were forced onto reservations, Native Americans had friendly and even intimate contact with non-natives.  But as settlements increased, so did the violence, and death.  Eventually, the US government calculated that it was cheaper to kill the Indian way of life than to kill Indians. Music: “Allah-u-abha” by Roman Orona “Prayers” by Darren Thompson Further reading and listening: Carlisle Indian School Research Podcast Carlisle Indian Industrial School: Indigenous Histories, Memories, and Reclamations (Jacqueline Fear-Segal, Susan D. Rose) “Indigenous People in Wyoming and the West” (wyohistory.org) Letter from Abraham Lincoln to Henry H. Sibley listing the Dakota who were to be hanged, December 6, 1862 Letter by Captain Silas Soule to Major Edward W. Wynkoop describing Sand Creek atrocities (Scroll down the page for the letter.) Life of George Bent: written from His Letters Personal Stories from the US Dakota War of 1862 Stuff You Missed in History Class Podcast (Jim Thorpe) Zitkála-Šá: Trailblazing American Indian Composer | Unladylike2020 | American Masters | PBS

Image credit:  Adam Jahiel Photography Elinore continues her awe-inspiring descriptions of the Wyoming frontier.  Her signature humor is also alive and well.  This time, Elinore gets a little taste of cowboy living, and of cackle-berries.   And though she doesn’t mention the race of the cowboys she meets, it is worth mentioning that at least one in five cowboys was African American.   Two of the most famous were Nat Love and Bass Reeves, but there were hundreds of other black men who made their living wrangling cattle on the American plains. 5 African American Cowboys Who Shaped the American West African American Cowboys on the Western Frontier (Library of Congress) Black Cowboys (Texas State Historical Association) The True Story of the Black Cowboys of Philadelphia Depicted in Concrete Cowboy (Time Magazine) Rupert’s letters are in the Public Domain.

“Miss Mary Longfellow holding down a claim west of Broken Bow, Nebraska” (image credit: nps.gov) “In about a week we had a cabin ready to move into. It had a dirt floor and dirt roof, but I tacked muslin overhead and put down lots of hay and spread a rag carpet on the floor. I put the tool chest, the trunks, the goods box made into a cupboard, and the beds all around the wall to hold down the carpet, as there was nothing to tack it to. The beds had curtains and there was a curtained alcove between the beds that made a good dressing room. So we were real cozy and comfortable.”–Emma Hill Under the Homestead Act of 1862 and its revisions, over 1 million applicants received a plot of land from the Federal government.  Thousands of the homesteaders were women.   They were black and they were white.  Some were recent immigrants from Europe.   Some were looking for husbands, others had left husbands, or lost them to death, divorce, or desertion.  Quite a few had no interest at all in a husband.  But they all worked hard to “prove up” their homesteads. And most of them realized that the land they were claiming had been home to Native people for centuries. Further Listening and Reading: Pre-Columbian Cultures and Civilizations, The History of North America Podcast Women of the Frontier : 16 Tales of Trailblazing Homesteaders, Entrepreneurs, And Rabble-Rousers by Brandon Marie Miller Before Wyoming: American Indian Geography and Trails African American Homesteaders in the Great Plains Journals, Diaries, and Letters Written by Women on the Oregon Trail 1836-1865 Land of The Burnt Thigh: A Lively Story of Women Homesteaders on the South Dakota Frontier by Edith E. Kohl The Journals of Lewis and Clark Mark Soldier Wolf: Northern Arapaho Past and Present

image credit:  goodreads Leatherstocking Tales, James Fenimore Cooper February, 1912 Dear Mrs. Coney,—…Soon we started again, and if not quite so jolly as we were before, at least we looked forward to our supper with a keen relish and the horses were urged faster than they otherwise would have been. The beautiful snow is rather depressing, however, when there is snow everywhere. The afternoon passed swiftly and the horses were becoming jaded. At four o’clock it was almost dark. We had been going up a deep cañon and came upon an appalling sight. There had been a snow-slide and the cañon was half-filled with snow, rock, and broken trees. The whole way was blocked, and what to do we didn’t know, for the horses could hardly be gotten along and we could not pass the snow-slide…” Today, Elinore gives us a peek inside her humble abode, and then tells us about a literature-inspired dinner.  Once again, there’s snow involved. The letters of Elinore Rupert are in the Public Domain.

Rock Springs, Wyoming Railroad Depot Train Station (image credit: hippostcard.com) October 6, 1911Dear Mrs. Coney,… Aggie was angry all through. She vowed she was being robbed. After she had berated me soundly for submitting so tamely, she flounced back to her own room, declaring she would get even with the robbers. I had to hurry like everything that night to get myself and Jerrine ready for the train, so I could spare no time for Aggie. She was not at the depot, and Jerrine and I had to go on to Rock Springs without her. It is only a couple of hours from Green River to Rock Springs, so I had a good nap and a late breakfast. I did my shopping and was back at Green River at two that afternoon. The first person I saw was Aggie. …” In this episode, the Edmonsons and their sweet Cora Belle make another appearance. Some new characters–big and small–also join the group. The letters of Elinore Rupert are in the Public Domain.

image credit: homesteader.org September 1, 1910Dear Mrs. Coney,—It was just a few days after the birthday party and Mrs. O’Shaughnessy was with me again. We were down at the barn looking at some new pigs, when we heard the big corral gates swing shut, so we hastened out to see who it could be so late in the day. It was Zebbie. He had come on the stage to Burnt Fork and the driver had brought him on here…. There was so much to tell, and he whispered he had something to tell me privately, but that he was too tired then; so after supper I hustled him off to bed…. Zebulon Pike Parker shares his story from home, then a frightening storm is followed by a beautiful sunrise. The letters of Elinore Rupert are in the Public Domain.

image credit: homesteader.org August 15, 1910.Dear Mrs. Coney,—… Grandma Edmonson’s birthday is the 30th of May, and Mrs. O’Shaughnessy suggested that we give her a party. I had never seen Grandma, but because of something that happened in her family years ago which a few narrow-heads whom it didn’t concern in the least cannot forgive or forget, I had heard much of her. The family consists of Grandma, Grandpa, and little Cora Belle, who is the sweetest little bud that ever bloomed upon the twigs of folly … The Elinore Rupert series continues with a family tragedy, a young girl’s industry, and a sewing bee. The letters of Elinore Rupert are in the Public Domain.

image credit: homesteader.org “June 16, 1910My Dear Friend,Your card just to hand. I wrote you some time ago telling you I had a confession to make and have had no letter since, so thought perhaps you were scared I had done something too bad to forgive. I am suffering just now from eye-strain and can’t see to write long at a time, but I reckon I had better confess and get it done with.” In this fourth episode in a multi-part series, Elinore shares big news with Mrs. Coney, her former employer in Denver. The letters of Elinore Rupert are in the Public Domain.

Image credit: homestead.org November 22, 1909My dear Friend,—I was dreadfully afraid that my last letter was too much for you and now I feel plumb guilty. I really don’t know how to write you, for I have to write so much to say so little, and now that my last letter made you sick I almost wish so many things didn’t happen to me, for I always want to tell you. Many things have happened since I last wrote, and Zebulon Pike is not done for by any means, but I guess I will tell you my newest experience … In this third episode of a multi-part series, Elinore Rupert meets a pair of twins with interesting names, and helps arrange a family reunion. The letters of Elinore Rupert are in the Public Domain.

Image Credit: N.C. Wyeth, Letters from a Homesteader September 28, 1909Dear Mrs. Coney,—… it was still snowing, great, heavy flakes; they looked as large as dollars. I didn’t want to start “Jeems” until the snow stopped because I wanted him to leave a clear trail. I had sixteen loads for my gun and I reasoned that I could likely kill enough food to last twice that many days by being careful what I shot at. It just kept snowing, so at last I decided to take a little hunt and provide for the day. I left Jerrine happy with the towel rolled into a baby, and went along the brow of the mountain for almost a mile, but the snow fell so thickly that I couldn’t see far ….Sincerely yours,Elinore Rupert In this second episode of a multi-part series about Elinore Rupert, the author and her daughter Jerrine venture out into the great wilds of Wyoming.  When their explorations take a scary turn, a new friend helps them find their way. The letters of Elinore Rupert are in the Public Domain.

Image Credit: Sweetwater County Historical Museum Burnt Fork, WyomingApril 18, 1909Dear Mrs. Coney,…There is a saddle horse especially for me and a little shotgun with which I am to kill sage chickens. We are between two trout streams, so you can think of me as being happy when the snow is through melting and the water gets clear. We have the finest flock of Plymouth Rocks and get so many nice eggs. It sure seems fine to have all the cream I want after my town experiences. Jerrine is making good use of all the good things we are having. She rides the pony to water every day.I have not filed on my land yet because the snow is fifteen feet deep on it, and I think I would rather see what I am getting, so will wait until summer. They have just three seasons here, winter and July and August. We are to plant our garden the last of May. When it is so I can get around, I will see about land and find out all I can and tell you.…Sincerely yours,Elinore Rupert In March 1909, Elinore Rupert moved from Denver, Colorado to Burnt Fork, Wyoming to be a housekeeper for widowed homesteader Clyde Stewart. The Homestead Act of 1862 gave tracts of land to male citizens, widows, single women, and immigrants who pledged to become citizens; Rupert hoped to have a homestead of her own someday. After moving, Rupert began a years-long correspondence with her former employer, Mrs. Juliet Coney, a widowed schoolteacher. The letters would eventually be published in the Atlantic Monthly, and then in a book. Over several episodes, we’ll hear Rupert’s own words about her adventures in Wyoming. Rupert’s letters are in the Public Domain.

Lick Creek Camp Dwellers, 1922 (Image credit: Library of Congress) “You know our rights under the Constitution, that no man should be condemned or jailed until we have had a free and impartial trial. We claim to be citizens of the United States and we ask for the rights of citizenship ; we claim to be loyal to our country, and we are loyal to our country, and all we ask is that we shall have our rights. We claim that we are citizens of the United States of America, according to the amendment to the Constitution. You know that that guarantees us free and equal rights and that is all we ask.” –Testimony of George Echols, miner and UMWA organizer The West Virginia Mine Wars were a series of armed conflicts between coal mine operators and employees in the Mountain State.  The first episode in this three-part series was about the conditions in the West Virginia coal fields in the years leading up to the Mine Wars.  The second episode discussed Paint Creek and Cabin Creek strikes that ended in 1913. For several months, the nation’s attention was focused on the war raging across the Atlantic. West Virginia was the second largest producer of the coal needed to fuel steel mills and Navy ships. The higher demand for coal, along with the labor shortage, lead to an increase in miners’ wages.  But the increases were not permanent, and many of the issues that had sparked the Paint Creek and Cabin Creek strikes remained. And the violence returned. It culminated in the Battle of Blair Mountain, which was the largest armed insurrection in United States since the Civil War. I referred to several sources, including the following– The Devil Is Here in These Hills: West Virginia’s Coal Miners and Their Battle for Freedom, by James Green “A union man: the life of C. Frank Keeney” by Charles Belmont Keeney III Struggle in the Coal Fields: The Autobiography of Fred Mooney West Virginia Archives and History West Virginia Coal Fields, Hearings Before the Committee on Education and Labor U.S. Senate, 67th. Congress, First Session Pursuant to S. Res. 80 Written in Blood: Courage and Corruption in the Appalachian War of Extraction, edited by Wess Harris

Mother Jones addressing miners in Montgomery, WV Arms confiscated by National Guard on Paint Creek and Cabin Creek “Mother Jones was then about 80 years of age.  Her hair was snow white, but she was yet full of fight.  With that brand of oratorical fire that is only found in those who originate from Erin, she could permeate a group of strikers with more fight than any living human being.  She fired them with enthusiasm, she burned them with criticism, then cried with them because of their abuses.  The miners loved, worshipped, and adored her. ” — Autobiography of Fred Mooney The problems that had been brewing in West Virginia coal fields came to a violent boil during the Mine Wars. For years, WV mine operators had employed guards from the Baldwin-Felts detective agency. The guards were often “clothed with some semblance of the authority of the law, either by being sworn in as railroad detectives, as constables or deputy sheriffs.”* They were accused of harassing, beating, and even killing miners with impunity. Like workers all over the country during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, WV miners railed against long hours, low pay, and what some called un-American living conditions. And like many laborers during this tumultuous period, they found comfort and courage in the fiery words of Mary Harris Jones, aka Mother Jones. This second episode in a three-part series focuses on the Paint Creek and Cabin Creek Strikes, during which martial law was declared three separate times. At least 20 people were killed. I referred to several sources, including the following– Autobiography of Mother Jones Conditions in the Paint Creek District, West Virginia Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Education and Labor, U.S. Senate

Trapper Boy, Turkey Knob Mine, Macdonald, W. Va.Image credit: Library of Congress “My first work in the mines was at Borderland, WV, and I was 13 years old.  Back then, people think now, when you say you were 13 years old and start in the mines, they think something funny about it. Back then, there was no such thing as a social security card.  All you had to do was be big enough to do a days work.  I went to helping my Daddy on the track and I was kind of thin and  he told me to put on extra pair of pants and on an extra shirt to look big and we worked on the outside the first day I started to work.  I got hot and started shedding the pants and shirt.” — Frank Brooks, Retired Coal Miner at age 71, 1973 The West Virginia Mine Wars were violent conflicts between mine workers and mine owners, that took place between 1912 and 1922. In all there were five armed battles over that 10-year period: Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike Battle of Matewan Battle of Tug Miners’ March on Logan Battle of Blair Mountain One violent exchange took place on February 7, 1913, during the Paint Creek battle. Coal operator Quin Morton and Kanawha County Sherriff Bonner Hill rode an armored train through a miner’s tent colony at Paint Creek. Guards opened fire from the train and killed Cesco Estep, one of the miners on strike. Later, miners attacked an encampment of mine guards. In the ensuing battle at least 16 people, mostly mine guards, were killed. This first episode in a three-part series focuses on the history of the mining industry, and the conditions that led up to the Mine Wars. I referred to several sources, including the following– Black Coal Miners in America: Race, Class, and Community Conflict, 1780-1980, by Ronald L. Lewis The Devil Is Here in These Hills: West Virginia’s Coal Miners and Their Battle for Freedom, by James Green Oral History Interview:  Frank Brooks West Virginia Archives and History Written in Blood: Courage and Corruption in the Appalachian War of Extraction, edited by Wess Harris

Image Credit:  The Guardian John Robert Lewis was born on February 21, 1940, in Pike County, Alabama. As he learned during a filming of Finding Your Roots, his great-great-grandfather, Tobias Carter, registered to voted in 1867, 2 years after the abolition of slavery.  But almost 100 years later, Lewis, his sharecropper parents, and thousands of other descendants of enslaved people were prevented from voting. Inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Montgomery bus boycott, Lewis organized non-violent protests such as sit-ins, and joined the 1961 Freedom Rides. He assumed leadership of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1963.  In ’64, SNCC and other civil rights groups led an effort to educate African Americans in Mississippi, and register them to vote.  Reflecting on it in 1985, Lewis wrote, “The Mississippi Freedom Summer was an attempt to bring the nation to Mississippi, to open up the state and the South and bring the dirt of racism and violence from under the rug so all of America could see and deal with it … During the summer many churches were bombed and burned, particularly black churches in small towns and rural communities that had been headquarters for Freedom Schools and for voter registration rallies. There was shooting at homes; we lived with constant fear. We felt that we were part of a nonviolent army, and in the group you had a sense of solidarity, and you knew you had to move on in spite of your fear.” Lewis’s advocacy for the disenfranchised, marginalized, and oppressed continued beyond Freedom Summer into the rest of his life.  He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives (GA-5) in November, 1986.  His numerous awards include the Medal of Freedom, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Non-Violent Peace Prize, and the John F. Kennedy “Profile in Courage Award” for Lifetime Achievement.  Congressman Lewis died Friday, July 17, 2020. This episode was originally posted on September 7, 2019. Many letters and narratives in this series were read with permission from the Wisconsin Historical Society and the University of Southern Mississippi.  The letters of Cephas Hughes are accessible via the Miami University Libraries Walter Havighurst Special Collections and University Archives. The following sources were also used: Finding Your Roots:  John Lewis and Cory Booker Freedom Summer, Mississippi 1964, snccdigital.org Freedom Summer:  The 1964 Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi, Susan Goldman Rubin Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC Letters from Mississippi, Elizabeth Sutherland Martinez Mississippi Freedom Summer–20 Years Later, Dissent Magazine Mississippi Freedom Summer Events, Civil Rights Movement Veterans Freedom Summer, Bruce Watson

“The Migrants Arrived in Great Numbers,” Jacob LawrenceImage credit:  Museum of Modern Art “…the slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery.” — W.E.B. duBois The Civil War was supposed to mean the end of slavery and the beginning of freedom, franchise, and full citizenship for African Americans. And in the decades after the war, many blacks did make legislative, educational, and financial gains.  But as we learned in the first episode of American Epistles, many more formerly enslaved people and their children faced limited economic opportunity and the constant threat of violence. With the outbreak of World War I, immigration to the United States decreased and production demands increased.   Low unemployment in the North meant that African Americans had a new opportunity to escape life in the South. Men and women, the young and the older, regardless of education level, wrote letters to the Chicago Defender newspaper, the Chicago Urban League, and other organizations.  The following letter was one of many that expressed their desperation: Macon, GA April 1, 1917 Dear Sir: I am writing you for information. I want to come north east, but I have not sufficient funds, and I am writing you to see if there is any way that you can help me by giving me the names of some of the firms that will send me a transportation, as we are down here where we have to be shot down here like rabbits for every little [offense], as I seen an [occurrence] [happen] down here this after noon when three [deputies] from the [sheriff’s] office [and] one Negro spotter come out and found some of our [race men] in a crap game. And it makes me want to leave the south worse than I ever did when such things hapen right at my door, hopeing to have a reply soon and will in close a stamp from the same. This was the first episode of a three-part series on the Great Migration. Recommended Reading— The Warmth of Other Suns:  Isabel Wilkerson took 15 years to write this book, and it shows. The book is THOROUGH. Think of it as Everything That You Didn’t Know That You Didn’t Know About the Great Migration. The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow:  Richard Wormser covers a lot of ground in a relative few pages.  It opens with Reconstruction and ends at 1954. I referred to several sources, but used the following most heavily– “Black Workers and the Great Migration North,” Carole Marks “Blowing the Trumpet: The ‘Chicago Defender’ and Black Migration during World War I,” James R. Grossman “The Civil War:  The Senate’s History” The Great Black Migration:  A Historical Encyclopedia of the American Mosaic, Steven A. Reich “Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration,” James R. Grossman “The Other Black Wall Streets” Race, Class, and Power in the Alabama Coalfields, Brian Kelly “Separate is Not Equal:  Brown v. Board of Education” Slavery by Another Name, Douglas Blackmon

James Armistead Lafayette (image credit:  Virginia Historical Society) “This is to certify that the bearer by the name of James has done essential services to me while I had the honor to command in this state. His intelligence from the enemy’s camp were industriously collected and most faithfully delivered. He perfectly acquitted himself with some important commissions I gave him and appears to me entitled to every reward his situation can admit of.” — Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, 1784 In the spring of 1781, General George Washington sent the French general, the Marquis de Lafayette, to Virginia to thwart the advancing British army.   An enslaved man by the name of James Armistead responded to the marquis’s call for spies.  Serving at the table of British General Charles Cornwallis, Armistead overheard valuable information that helped the Americans win the Revolutionary War.  Armistead was eventually granted his freedom for his service.  Once a free man, he added “Lafayette” to his name. This episode is dedicated to Belmont Station Elementary’s fourth grade classes, who studied Virginia history this year.  You are STARS! Recommended Reading Young listeners to today’s episode might enjoy Black Heroes of the American Revolution.

William Grimes authored the first book-form slave narrative printed in the United States.  (Image credit:  New Georgia Encyclopedia) “It was my great desire to read easily this book. I thought it was written by the Almighty himself. I loved this book, and prayed over it and labored until I could read it. I used to go to the church to hear the white preacher. When I heard him read his text, I would read mine when I got home. This is the way, my readers, I learned to read the Word of God when I was a slave. Thus did I labor eleven years under the impression that I was called to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, the ever-blessed God.” — Rev. Peter Randolph, 1855 For enslaved Americans, literacy was a path to freedom. Those who could write forged the “tickets” that both enslaved and free blacks needed to move about.  Some of these tickets took enslaved people all the way to free states, and even to Canada. Literacy provided spiritual freedom.  It enabled people in bondage to read the whole Bible, and not just the sections that enslavers quoted.  The Bible represented liberation, both on earth and in eternity.  Enslaved Christians identified with the Israelites, whom Moses led out of Egypt and into the Promised Land. And in sharing their stories, people who had escaped slavery hoped to awaken sympathy in their fellow Americans and achieve freedom for all enslaved people. This is the final episode in a three-part series on enslaved Americans’ pursuit of literacy. I have relied on several sources, but used the following most heavily– Bly, Antonio T. “Slave Literacy and Education in Virginia.” Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, 24 Jun. 2019. Cornelius, Janet. “‘We Slipped and Learned to Read:’ Slave Accounts of the Literacy Process, 1830-1865.” Phylon (1960-), vol. 44, no. 3, 1983, pp. 171–186. JSTOR. Monaghan, E. Jennifer, “Reading for the Enslaved, Writing for the Free: Reflections on Liberty and Literacy,” American Antiquarian Society, 2000. Williams, Heather Andrea. “Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom,” University of North Carolina Press, 2009 Additional Sources: Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936 to 1938 University of North Carolina’s North American Slave Narratives Collection

Noah Webster’s Blue-Backed Speller Image credits:  worthpoint.com and historyisfun.org Very early in life I took up the idea that I wanted to learn to read and write. I was convinced that there would be something for me to do in the future, that I could not accomplish by remaining in ignorance. I had heard so much about freedom, and of the colored people running off and going to Canada, that my mind was busy with this subject even in my young days. I sought the aid of the white boys, who did all they could in teaching me. They did not know that it was dangerous for a slave to read and write.” — Rev. Elijiah P. Marrs, 1885 Throughout the South, it was illegal for white people to teach black people–enslaved and sometimes free–how to read.  Some whites taught blacks anyway: at times motivated by kindness, other times by self-interest.  But even without the assistance of white people, enslaved Americans learned to read and to write.  Facing the threat of whippings and worse, they learned under cover of night, and in “pit schools” in the woods.  They hid books in their dresses and under their hats so they would be ready for a lesson at any moment. Today I am continuing a series on enslaved Americans’ pursuit of literacy. I have relied on several sources, but used the following most heavily– Bly, Antonio T. “Slave Literacy and Education in Virginia.” Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, 24 Jun. 2019. Cornelius, Janet. “‘We Slipped and Learned to Read:’ Slave Accounts of the Literacy Process, 1830-1865.” Phylon (1960-), vol. 44, no. 3, 1983, pp. 171–186. JSTOR. Monaghan, E. Jennifer, “Reading for the Enslaved, Writing for the Free: Reflections on Liberty and Literacy,” American Antiquarian Society, 2000. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself Williams, Heather Andrea. “Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom,” University of North Carolina Press, 2009 Additional Sources: Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936 to 1938 University of North Carolina’s North American Slave Narratives Collection

Bethany Veney; image credit:  Public Domain The next thing I recall as being of any particular importance to me was the death of my mother, and, soon after, that of Master Fletcher. I must have been about nine years old at that time. Master’s children consisted of five daughters and two sons. As usual in such cases, an inventory was taken of his property (all of which nearly was in slaves), and, being apportioned in shares, lots were drawn, and, as might chance, we fell to our several masters and mistresses. In 1740, the colony of South Carolina passed a law making it illegal to “teach or cause any slave or slaves to be taught to write,” punishable by a fine of “one hundred pounds, current money.” Within 100 years, at least twelve states would pass statutes proscribing the literacy or education of enslaved or free blacks. Nevertheless, untold numbers of enslaved Americans did learn to read and write. At times, they had the support and sanction of the white people closest to them. That was case with poet Phillis Wheatley, the first African American to publish a volume of poetry. Sometimes, they learned from other enslaved or free people of color. And others had to scheme and strategize their way to literacy. Perhaps the most famous person to do this was the internationally acclaimed orator and abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, whose memoir became a bestseller. Bethany Veney’s memoir is much less famous, but still an important contribution to our understanding of slavery.  She is featured in today’s episode, the first in a series on enslaved Americans’ pursuit of literacy. Links: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself by Harriet Jacobs on Apple Podcasts The Narrative of Bethany Veney: A Slave Woman Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself University of North Carolina’s North American Slave Narratives collection

Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner; Image credit:  CBS News July 16, 1964 Dear Mr. Nelson, As you probably already know, there have been many arrests in Greenwood … Tomorrow I expect to be there to picket the jail house. This means almost certain arrest. Yours in freedom, Cephas During the summer of 1964, thousands of young people from across the United States enlisted in the battle for democracy in Mississippi.  The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and other organizations had already been fighting for the civil rights of African Americans in the Magnolia State.   However, most of the rest of the country was unaware that black people were literally losing their lives for trying to vote.  The organizers of the Freedom Project hoped that the involvement of young–and predominantly white volunteers–would draw national attention and lead to Federal intervention.  In the very first days of the program, three volunteers–two of them white–disappeared.  It made national headlines. Fannie Lou Hamer; Image credit:  AP America’s lesson in Mississippi politics continued until the Democratic National Convention in August. Before national news cameras, Fannie Lou Hamer testified of losing her home and being beaten for trying to exercise her civil rights. Sympathetic calls flooded the White House. And President Lyndon Johnson feared for his re-election chances. Many letters and narratives in this series were read with permission from the Wisconsin Historical Society and the University of Southern Mississippi.  The letters of Cephas Hughes are accessible via the Miami University Libraries Walter Havighurst Special Collections and University Archives. The following sources were also used: Freedom Summer, Mississippi 1964, snccdigital.org Freedom Summer:  The 1964 Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi, Susan Goldman Rubin Letters from Mississippi, Elizabeth Sutherland Martinez Freedom Summer, Bruce Watson Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC Mississippi Freedom Summer Events, Civil Rights Movement Veterans

Freedom Summer Volunteers; Image Credit:  Civil Rights Movement Veterans The Freedom Carrier Greenwood, MS July 16, 1964 It is felt that the state of Mississippi has the worst educational system in the entire United States. As degraded as the white education is, the Negro has the worst half of the worst. A need to try to fill the gap was felt. Therefore COFO initiated the idea of Freedom Schools as an attempt to supplement the present system of education. The first Freedom School to be established was open on July 6. The school will operate on a six weeks basis with a break after the first three weeks. Emphasis is being placed on Negro history and citizenship. English, Sciences, foreign languages, and creative writing are also being offered, as special subjects. Students are able to take two special subjects. In the afternoon, typing, art, drama, and journalism are offered to those interested. The Freedom Carrier is put out by the students in the journalism class. The students are responsible for the makeup of the entire paper. Students are also being taught how to lay out leaflets and how to run office machinery. Students also participate in folk singing workshops and work with voter registration in the distribution of leaflets throughout the community. For more information on the Freedom Schools you may call the office. The organizers of the Mississippi Summer Project aimed to bring national attention to the violent suppression of African Americans’ civil rights in the Magnolia State. Later called Freedom Summer, the project had four major components: (1) Freedom Schools, where volunteers taught black Mississippians reading, writing, science, and math, as well as history, including black history, and their rights as American citizens (2) Community centers, known as Freedom Houses, where residents could study subjects such as art and dance (3) Helping black Mississippians to register to vote (4) Collecting signatures in an effort to seat a delegation at the Democratic National Convention, which would be held in August. The summer of ’64 did not mark the beginning of civil rights work in Mississippi. But it was a turning point for the state, and for the nation. Many letters and narratives in this series were read with permission from the Wisconsin Historical Society and the University of Southern Mississippi.  The following sources were also used: Freedom Summer, Mississippi 1964, snccdigital.org Freedom Summer:  The 1964 Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi, Susan Goldman Rubin Letters from Mississippi, Elizabeth Sutherland Martinez Freedom Summer, Bruce Watson Mississippi Freedom Summer Events, Civil Rights Movement Veterans

Women of the Army Signal Corps at First Army Headquarters Image credit: National Archives [/audio] “Every order for an infantry advance, a barrage preparatory to the taking of a new objective and, in fact, for every troop movement, came of these ‘fighting lines,’ as we called them.  These wires connected to the front, up with the generals and made it possible for the latter to know exactly what was going on at any moment and to direct operations accordingly.” –Berthe Hunt, Women’s Telephone Unit of the Army Signal Corps Just a few decades after the invention of the telephone, this technology proved vital to the execution of World War I. Troop movements, and orders to fire, cease-fire, advance, or retreat were communicated by telephone, with the help of switchboard operators. But when the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) arrived in France, they were faced with phone lines that had been battered by three years of war. There was also the language barrier to overcome. Bell Telephone helped solve the first problem; the “Hello Girls” solved the second. Recommended Reading— Into the Breach, American Women Overseas in World War I, Dorothy and Carl Schneider “Overlooked No More: Grace Banker, Whose ‘Hello Girls’ Decoded Calls in World War I,” Kasia Pilat, New York Times Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 95th Congress, First Session “Women On the Frontlines of WWI Came to Operate Telephones,” Lorraine Boissoneault, Smithsonian.com “Women Telephone Operators in WWI France,” Jill Frahm

A.F.F.W. Drivers. Chauffeurs of the American Fund for French Wounded.  Image credit:  Library of Congress document.createElement('audio'); http://media.blubrry.com/american_epistles/content.blubrry.com/american_epistles/Women_in_WWI_Part_3.mp3 [/audio] November 4, 1918 The chauffeurs have been most tremendously busy these last two weeks on account of moving. My life seems to hinge around choked carbureters, broken springs, long hours on the road, food snatched when you can get it, and sleep. Nothing else has mattered to me and I feel like a regular camion driver, dirty, but so accustomed to the job that it is no longer tiring. … The country over which I have been motoring is tremendously interesting, but most gloomy; unless there are soldiers about there is not a living thing, nothing but waste and destruction. If you saw a whole house you would stop and look at it as a phenomenon. One evening I tried to take a shortcut home with a doctor and we got most hopelessly involved in bad roads which finally led us to an impassable bridge. We had to retrace our steps completely and start all over again … Never again will I be so foolish as to try short cuts home through ” No Man’s Land,” even if it is French property now. –Letter from Nora Saltonstall The fighting stopped on 11/11 at 11 a.m. But the needs continued. In the aftermath of World War I, among the rubble and ruin, American women continued to serve. Significant relief was provided by the American Fund for French Wounded (AFFW) and the Comité Américain pour les Régions Dévastées de France (CARD). Women like Anne Tracy Morgan used their wealth and social status to help the French rebuild their homes and villages long after the Treaty of Versailles was signed. Recommended Reading: America’s Women:  400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines, Gail Collins Into the Breach, American Women Overseas in World War I, Dorothy and Carl Schneider Credits for Primary Sources: Letters of Laura Birkhead, read with permission from the State Historical Society of Missouri Letters of Marian Bartol, managed by the Morgan Library and Museum The overseas war record of the Winsor school, 1914-1919, (Elizabeth Beal, Amy Bradley, Isabel Coolidge, Nora Saltonstall)

Salvation Army Worker Serving Donuts to the AEF; Image credit:  Smithsonian Magazine “August 10, 1917 I get my appointment and go loco w joy. It seems to me my reason for existence is explained. All my training and experience seem to have fitted me for just this. Bradford Knapp talks and I get two ideas. Unless one gives all one is not giving enough, and if one can go one should. The other thing was that to our generation has come this great chance for sacrifice. There is a joy in my heart that this has come. Everyone is awfully good about my going away. I did not know how much my work meant to me.” –Diary of Mary Paxton Keeley On April 6, 1917, Congress voted for a declaration of war on Germany. War had already been raging for three years. And for the whole of those three years, American women had been involved in the care and comfort of European soldiers and civilians. Now that American men would be fighting, American women took on service as a patriotic duty.  But not all women were given an equal opportunity to serve, nor did all American soldiers receive equal access to the welfare services. Recommended Reading: America’s Women:  400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines, Gail Collins The Women Who Fried Donuts and Dodged Bombs on the Front Lines of WWI, Smithsonian Magazine Credits for Primary Sources: Diary of Mary Paxton Keeley, read with permission from the State Historical Society of Missouri Letters of Emma Young Dickson, read with permission from the Kautz Family YMCA Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries The overseas war record of the Winsor school, 1914-1919, (Constance Cunningham’s letter) Canteening Overseas, 1917-1919, (Memoir of Marian Baldwin) Into the Breach, American Women Overseas in World War I, Dorothy and Carl Schneider

Surgical Dressings Committee Volunteers in the Zander Ward of the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital; Image Credit:  Center for the History of Medicine at Countway Library https://americanepistles.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/women-in-wwi-part-1.mp3 “Their house had been destroyed and they had lost all their farm possessions but one cow. They were living in one side of a dirt-floored barn that belonged to some friend, and someone else had given them a bed. But why this family was living at all, I do not know. They had rushed away ahead of the Germans with one hundred and eighty Belgian soldiers at the time of the retreat toward Antwerp, and of the one hundred and eighty soldiers only twenty got out alive. Yet this family had come out intact, and survived typhoid fever after that. There were tears in the eyes of that mother — almost the only weeping we saw in Belgium.” –Dr. Caroline Hedger, Chicago Women’s Club Thousands of American women crossed the Atlantic Ocean to be of service to the soldiers and civilians suffering through World War I. Countless more served from their kitchens and communities in the United States. In this first episode of a three-part series on women’s relief work, we will learn about some of the great contributions made by Americans–especially women–before the US declared war on Germany. Recommended Reading: America’s Women:  400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines, Gail Collins Credits for Primary Sources: Diary of Mary Paxton Keeley, read with permission from the State Historical Society of Missouri War bread; a Personal Narrative of the War and relief in Belgium, Edward Eyre Hunt The overseas war record of the Winsor school, 1914-1919 Into the Breach, American Women Overseas in World War I, Dorothy and Carl Schneider

African American Soldiers Arriving in France, Image Credit: National Archives September 3, 1918 My Dear Mr Brimley, … I am glad to know that my people are doing their bit to win the war, they sure make good soldiers and seem to take delight in sticking Fritz with a bayonet or clubbing him with the butt end of a rifle, but their main weapon is the hand grenade… I am writing to the new commander today asking for special duty as patrol officer and I hope I can get it as it affords a fellow a better chance for promotion and excitement all his own and then I have a score to pay Fritz for leaving a scar on my face, and I want to get him where I can fix him to my own taste. My best regards to Mrs Brimley … and all my friends, and write when you have the time to. Yours very respectfully, James W Alston While the majority of black soldiers serving in World War I were assigned to non-combat jobs such as loading and unloading cargo ships, and burying the dead, soldiers in the 93rdDivision did see combat. This division included Alston’s, as well as the 369th Infantry Regiment, also known as the Harlem Hellfighters.  Henry Johnson and Needham Roberts of that regiment were the first Americans of any race to receive France’s Croix de Guerre.  The Stuff You Missed in History podcast has a very informative episode about the Harlem Hellfighters. Alston’s letters, as well as other primary sources pertaining to African American soldiers in WWI, are at the Digital Public Library of America. Other Sources “World War I:  African-American Soldiers Battle More than Enemy Forces,” Library of Congress “One Hundred Years Ago, the Harlem Hellfighters Bravely Led the US into WWI,” Smithsonian Magazine “African-American WWI ‘Harlem Hell Fighters’ Proved their mettle, Patriotism in Combat,” U.S. Army Official History of the American Negro in the World War, W. Allison Sweeney

Suffrage Poster, November 6, 1917Image credit: New York State Library. Topeka Feb 11, 1887 To Gov Martin Dear Sir: Ten thousand Women who have enough rights without voting and also plenty to do, to attend to their own affairs without meddling with men’s business, ask you to Veto this Suffrage bill.  We don’t want to vote, and go to the polls with n****rs — and all kinds of woman. Mrs G. Monroe and thousands of others We’ve all heard of Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass, but there were millions of women and men who spoke for, and against, women’s suffrage.  Today’s mini-episode shares a few of those voices. Other podcasts about women’s suffrage: History Chicks Stuff You Missed in History Class Credits for Primary Sources: The letters of Effie B. Frostand Mrs. G. Monroe, as well as the Woman Suffrage Pamphlet by Rev. Stephen Estey, are read with permission from the Kanas State Historical Society. The petition by Mrs. Kate T. F. Cornell is in the public domain and available at docsteach.org. Anti-Suffrage Essays by Massachusetts Women is in the public domain and available at gutenberg.org. Sources: The Frederick Douglass Encyclopedia, James L. Conyers Jr., Nancy J. Dawson, Lee E. Thompson, Mary Joan Thompson “The Great Schism,” Ta-nehisi Coates for The Atlantic

Provost Guard of the 107th Colored Infantry, Fort Corcoran, Washington, D.C., 1863Image credit: pbs.org Carlisle, PA November 21, 1864 Mr Abraham Lincoln,   I want to know, Sir, if you please, whether I can have my son released from the army.   He is all the support I have now.   His father is dead and his brother; that was all the help that I had … Today’s episode is a miniature one!  The Civil War is a familiar topic to most of us, and there are several podcasts on the topic.  Less familiar is the effect of the war on black women, who faced unique challenges while their loved ones were fighting.  Families in the North worried that their sons and husbands would be enslaved if captured by the Confederate Army.  Some whites who were angry about black fighting for the Union took it out on the family members that the soldiers left behind.   Today we hear a small piece of those families’ stories. Credits: The letters were read with permission from the Freedmen and Southern Society Project at the University of Maryland. Other podcasts about the Civil War: Key Battles of the Civil War “The Massachusetts 54th Regiment,” Stuff You Missed in History Class Sources: “Missouri’s African American Troops,” Missouri State Archives “8th Regiment Infantry United States Colored Troops,” National Park Service “United States Colored Troops,” Missouri State Archives

“In the North the African American had more educational opportunities.” Jacob LawrenceImage credit: The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC “South State Street was in its glory then, a teeming Negro street with crowded theatres, restaurants and cabarets.  And excitement from noon to noon.  Midnight was like day.  The street was full of workers and gamblers, prostitutes and pimps, church folks and sinners.” — Langston Hughes In many ways, the North delivered on its promise.  The migrants enjoyed higher wages, better education for their children, and the opportunity to participate in the political process.  Perhaps most refreshingly, they no longer had to behave in a subservient manner to white people. Letters from migrants to their Southern friends and families, drew more and more blacks out of the South.  Dear Sir: I take this method of thanking you for your early responding and the glorious effect of the treatment. Oh. I do feel so fine. Dr., the treatment reach[ed] me almost ready to move. I am now housekeeping again. I like it so much better than rooming. Well, Dr., with the aid of God I am making very good. I make $75 per month. I am carrying enough insurance to pay me $20 per week if I am not able to be on duty. I don’t have to work hard, don’t have to mister every little white boy comes along. I haven’t heard a white man call a colored a n*****r you know now–since I been in the state of PA. I can ride in the electric street and steam cars anywhere I get a seat. I don’t care to mix with white. What I mean–I am not crazy about being with white folks, but if I have to pay the same fare, I have learn[ed] to want the same accommodation. And if you are first in a place here shopping, you don’t have to wait until the white folks get through trading. Yet amid all this, I shall ever love the good old South and I am praying that God may give every well wisher a chance to be a man regardless of his color, and if my going to the front would bring about such conditions, I am ready any day.  Well, Dr., I don’t want to worry you but read between lines; and maybe you can see a little sense in my weak statement. The kids are in school every day. I have only two, and I guess that [is] all. Dr., when you find time, I would be delighted to have a word from the good old home state. Wife join[s] me in sending love you and yours.  I am your friend and patient. However, while wages were higher than the migrants had earned before, the pay was often low relative to the higher cost of living.  Many migrants were forced to live in overcrowded and dilapidated neighborhoods.  In Chicago, the newcomers clashed culturally with the Old Settlers–blacks who had lived in the city much longer.  And, they clashed violently with whites, in Chicago and throughout the North. I referred to several sources, but used the following most heavily– “The Forgotten March That Started the National Civil Rights Movement Took Place 100 Years Ago” “Blowing the Trumpet: The ‘Chicago Defender’ and Black Migration during World War I,” James R. Grossman Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration, James R. Grossman “In Motion: The African-American Experience (The Great Migration) “The Origins and Diffusion of Racial Restrictive Covenants,”Michael Jones-Correa The Journal of Negro History, Volume IV, 1919 The Journal of Negro History, Volume VI, 1921 “‘If You Can’t Push, Pull, If You Can’t Pull, Please Get Out of the Way’: The Phyllis Wheatley Club and Home in Chicago, 1896 to 1920,”Anne Meis Knupfer The Defender: How a Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America, Ethan Michaeli The Great Black Migration:  A Historical Encyclopedia of the American Mosaic, Steven A. Reich “Negro Migration During the War,” Emmett J. Scott

“The migration spread,” Jacob Lawrence Image credit: The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC http://media.blubrry.com/american_epistles/content.blubrry.com/american_epistles/Great_Migration_Part_2.mp3 “We must have the Negro in the South … It is the only labor we have; it is the best we have—if we lost it, we [would] go bankrupt.” –Macon (Georgia) Telegraph, 1916 Prior to World War I, African Americans had plenty of reasons to want to leave the South.  But they had little reason to believe that life would be better in the North.  But the “War to End All Wars” created unprecedented labor opportunities for southern blacks.  Labor agents enticed many migrants with free transportation, but it was The Chicago Defender newspaper that probably did the most to encourage African Americans to move.  Its portrayal of a comfortable Black Chicago, and advertisements of a “Great Northern Drive,” led many southerners to write letters like this one: Dear Sir: Please Sir, will you kindly tell me what is meant by the Great Northern Drive to take place May the 15th on Tuesday? It is a rumor all over town to be ready for the 15th of May to go in the drive. The Defender first spoke of the drive the 10th of February. My husband is in the North already preparing for our family, but hearing that the excursion will be $6.00 from here north on the 15th, and having a large family, I could profit by it if it is really true. Do please write me at once and say is there an excursion to leave the South. Nearly the whole of the South is getting ready for the drive or excursion as it is termed. Please write at once. We are sick to get out of the solid South. Southern whites expressed alarm and anger that their valuable Negro labor was fleeing. Black leaders also questioned whether migration was the best course.  But there was little they could do to stop it. Recommended Reading— The Warmth of Other Suns:  Isabel Wilkerson took 15 years to write this book, and it shows. The book is THOROUGH. Think of it as Everything That You Didn’t Know That You Didn’t Know About the Great Migration. The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow:  Richard Wormser covers a lot of ground in a relative few pages.  It opens with Reconstruction and ends at 1954. Sources– I referred to several sources, but used the following most heavily– “Benjamin ‘Pap’ Singleton,” Kansas State Historical Society The Journal of Negro History, Volume IV, 1919 The Journal of Negro History, Volume VI, 1921 “Blowing the Trumpet: The ‘Chicago Defender’ and Black Migration during World War I,” James R. Grossman “Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration,” James R. Grossman “Black Workers and the Great Migration North,” Carole Marks The Defender: How a Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America, Ethan Michaeli Race, Class, and Power in the Alabama Coalfields, Brian Kelly The Great Black Migration:  A Historical Encyclopedia of the American Mosaic, Steven A. Reich “Negro Migration During the War,” Emmett J. Scott

“…the slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery.” W.E.B. du Bois Initiated before the end of the Civil War, Reconstruction held the promise of freedom, full citizenship, and (for men) the franchise for African Americans. But even before the Federal troops that were enforcing Reconstruction withdrew from the former Confederate States, Southern communities and legislatures set about to return the freed men and women to their former condition. Despite the guarantees of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, blacks were denied their new rights through legal and extra-legal means. In the decades after the war, many blacks did make legislative, educational, and financial gains.  However, many more faced limited economic opportunity and the constant threat of violence. Seeking information about opportunities in the North, men and women, the young and the older, regardless of education level, wrote letters to the Chicago Defender newspaper, the Chicago Urban League, and other organizations.  The following letter was written by a 17-year-old girl from Selma, Alabama: Dear Sir: I am a reader of the Chicago Defender I think it is one of the Most Wonderful Papers of our race printed. Sirs I am writeing to see if You all will please get me a job. And Sir I can wash dishes, wash, iron, nursing, work in groceries and dry good stores. Just any of these I can do. Sir, whosoever you get the job from, please tell them to send me a ticket and I will pay them when I get their, as I have not got enough money to pay my way. I am a girl of 17 years old and in the 8 grade at Knox Academy School. But on account of not having money enough I had to stop school. Sir I will thank you all with all my heart. May God Bless you all. Please answer in return mail. In this first episode of a three-part series on the Great Migration, we will see what changed–and what didn’t change–for African Americans in the South after the Civil War. Recommended Reading—The Warmth of Other Suns:  Isabel Wilkerson took 15 years to write this book, and it shows. The book is THOROUGH. Think of it as Everything That You Didn’t Know That You Didn’t Know About the Great Migration. The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow:  Richard Wormser covers a lot of ground in a relative few pages.  It opens with Reconstruction and ends at 1954. I referred to several sources, but used the following most heavily– Slavery by Another Name, Douglas Blackmon “Black Workers and the Great Migration North,” Carole Marks “Blowing the Trumpet: The ‘Chicago Defender’ and Black Migration during World War I,” James R. Grossman “Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration,” James R. Grossman “Separate is Not Equal:  Brown v. Board of Education“ “The Civil War:  The Senate’s History“

Image credit:  Public Doman Where does “history” come from? How do we know, for example, what words didn’t make it into the Declaration of Independence?  Or what the delegates to the Constitutional Convention argued about before the final document was signed on September 17, 1787? To a great degree, our history textbooks started with the diaries that the Founding Fathers kept, and the letters they wrote to one another. But there is more to history than Founding Fathers and famous generals. There are millions of names that we’ll never know, of soldiers who fought in American wars, and families who waited for their return. People who hoped and waited for change, but may not have lived to enjoy the rights that the law would eventually grant them. People who weren’t trying to make history, but were just living their lives. On American Epistles, we will hear from these “ordinary” people, through their journals, diaries, and personal letters. Each episode will focus on a different time period or event, and feature the words of some Americans who lived through it. Please come back on Saturday, January 5, for the first episode, about the Great Migration. We will hear letters from a few of the millions of African Americans who left the Jim Crow South in search of a better life. Letters like this one: East Chicago, Indiana June 10, 1917 Dear Old Friend: These moments I thought I would write you a few true facts of the present condition of the north. Certainly I am trying to take a close observation–now it is tru the (col) men are making good. Never pay less than $3.00 per day or (10) hours–this is not promise. I do not see how they pay such wages the way they work labors. They do not hurry or drive you. Remember this is the very lowest wages. Piece work men can make from $6 to $8 per day. They receive their pay every two weeks. This city I am living in, the population [is] 30,000 (20) miles from Big Chicago, Ill. Doctor I am some what impress. My family also. They are doing nicely. I have no right to complain what ever … People are coming here every day and are finding employment. Nothing here but money and it is not hard to get. Remember me to your dear Family. Oh, I have children in school every day with the white children. I will write you more next time. How is the lodge? Your friend, New episodes will post the first and third Saturday of every month … hopefully.  Thank you all for your support and see you next year! Credits: The letter from Sgt. Ann Burchard is the property of the State Historical Society of Missouri. Browse their full collection of WWII correspondence. The letter by the migrant to Indiana was originally printed in the Chicago Defender Newspaper, and reprinted in the Journal of Negro History, which is in the public domain and available at Gutenberg.org. Sources cited: Chernow, Ron. Washington: a Life. Penguin Books, 2010