Benton Barracks

Transcription

William Seibert: Welcome everyone. I think we’re ready to begin. I’m the chief of archival operations here at the National Archives at St. Louis, and we are so pleased to be able to host this program in observance of the 150th anniversary of the year in which one of the most significant documents held in the National Archives, literally a Charter of Freedom, was created. And that is Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Tonight’s event is one of the series of programs that we organized in support of our Documented Rights Exhibit. Ms. Schuster, where are you? Excuse us. Tonight’s event is one in a series of programs that we’ve organized in support of our Documented Rights Exhibit, which is housed in the gallery over there to my left. This exhibit features facsimiles of documents and photographs from the holdings in 14 National Archives repositories around the country, including the National Archives of St. Louis as well as the Library of Congress and other participating institutions. Documents that illustrate the struggles of various groups of Americans to establish or to enforce rights guaranteed under the Constitution or by treaty. The exhibit will be here through May and is open to the public for viewing Monday through Friday from 11a.m. to 6p.m. We hope you’ll take the opportunity to visit. If you’d like to bring a tour group, you can contact us and we will make the necessary arrangements. I should point out that the National Archives here in St. Louis is the repository for the official service records of many individuals who were active participants in the historic events highlighted in this exhibit. Many of these records are now open to the public and may be accessed in our research room. We encourage anyone who is interested in learning more about the experiences of these individuals serving the United States, either in the civilian or military capacity, to contact our research room and schedule a visit. It is my privilege now to introduce the first of the distinguished speakers on this evening’s program, Mrs. Lynne M. Jackson. Mrs. Jackson is the great-great-granddaughter of Dred and Harriet Scott, and founder and leading light of the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation. Lynne Jackson: Good evening everyone. It’s quite a pleasure to be here again. I say again because I had the privilege of being here for the dedication of this lovely building, and I’ve been to three programs since. So I do encourage you to come, because it’s excellent. You’re going to have a wonderful program tonight, I guarantee that. And I thank the staff for having us here this evening. Of course I understand that a lot of you know what the Dred Scott case was about, and you know who I am. And I see some friends out in the audience, and people who have worked with us and supported us as friends of the Dred Scot Heritage Foundation. So thank you all for being here. With the advent of the 150th anniversary of the Dred Scott decision, we have started a season of commemorative events and anniversaries that is going to go on for several years. I find it very exciting to know that when we kicked this off in 2007, I personally had no idea that it was going to snowball into all the wonderful things that have happened since then. As you know, we’re working strongly to get a statue of Dred and Harriett Scott, because there isn’t one anywhere. And we’re getting really close to that goal, and I hope we see it this year. And that will just be another thing that happens that helps us to remember our history and to remember where we came from. This event tonight where we commemorate the 150th of the Emancipation Proclamation is a very important night. I’m sure we’re going to have varying opinions from our speakers. But I think this revered document is not only revered, but it’s also sometimes misunderstood. I personally think Lincoln had a strategy, and I’m sure it shifted from time to time. But I’m interested to hear tonight what our speakers have to say about that. Because it’s very important for us to understand the importance of this document in our history. Also I just wanted to share with you the fact that we have had over 60 organizations in the St. Louis area alone who have come to us as friends of Dred Scott. I’m talking about places like Washington University and the National Park Service, the Black World History Wax Museum with Louis Conley, and it just goes on from there. And we hope that one day soon that the National Archives and Records Administration will be added to that list, because we believe in what you’re doing here and we appreciate what you’re doing here. So I would not want to – I’m not going to give a speech tonight. I’m going to be speaking at the old courthouse on the 25th of February. But while I mention that, I’d like to just – if you’ll give me a moment to say this – one of our very, very dear friends and beloved board members, David Uhler, passed away last Friday. And that’s just a terrible blow to us. And I feel like he would be right here in the front row tonight, because he cared so much about these documents and about justice and equality. So I just wanted to recognize him for all that he’s done for us. And he left us quickly and unexpectedly, but he was a friend. In fact I often think that if he were back in the 1800’s or this man was in our time, he would be our modern day William Lloyd Garrison. And if you don’t know who he is, I invite you to look him up. He was an important abolitionist who at one time – when he was fined for running the underground railroad, actually fined $8,000 dollars – said that he would gladly pay it as his fee to continue to do what he did. To help slaves to freedom. So there are many people in our city who are supportive of understanding our history, understanding what we’ve been through, what we are, and where we’re going. And our foundation is about education, commemoration, and reconciliation. And to that end I am grateful to be here tonight to join this panel and hear what they have to say about our revered documents. Thank you so much. William Seibert: Thank you, Lynne. Before you sit down, there’s a presentation we’d like to make. And to that end I will call on my colleague Mrs. Marta O’Neil, who is the preservation officer here at the National Archives at St. Louis. Marta. Marta O’Neil: Thank you Bill. The goal of the preservation labs here at St. Louis is to preserve and protect the permanent records of the National Archives – especially those that were affected by the 1973 fire. Those of you who are from St. Louis or are familiar with NPRC history know that in 1973 we had a tremendous fire – our great conflagration. During that fire approximately 18 million servicemen and women’s records were burned. Those represent servicemen and women who were discharged from the army between November 1st, 1912 and January 1st, 1960 for the army. And for the Air Force, those between September 25th, 1947 and January 1st, 1964. NPRC was able, however, to recover approximately 6.5 million files, and they are now being treated at the preservation lab every day. When someone requests a record impacted by the fire, we never know what its condition is until the record is pulled and we have a chance to look at it. And that was the situation when Mrs. Lynne Jackson requested the personnel file of her father, John Alexander Madison, who is the great grandson of Dred and Harriet Scott. It’s especially rewarding when we can locate from this unique collection a record whose primary information is intact. And in this particular record, the edges were burned predominantly but not the information itself. More than 50 pages of his army personnel files have survived. So on behalf of the National Archives of St. Louis and the preservation lab, I’m both proud and honored to be able to present to you a copy of your dad’s personnel files. Lynne Jackson: I appreciate that, thank you. Marta O’Neil: Thank you. It’s moments like this that make the work that we do so worthwhile. William Seibert: Next I’d like to introduce the Reverend Dr. Charles Robert Scott, pastor of the Central Baptist Church of St. Louis where Harriet Scott was a member and where she and her husband attended services. Dr. Scott. Dr. Charles Robert Scott: Thank you, Mr. Seibert, and to our moderator tonight, and to the panelists Ms. Lynne Jackson, who continues to be a wonderful advocate for her illustrious ancestors, who paved the way for freedom and justice, as far as slaves of African descent in this country are concerned. It was W.E.B. Du Bois who maintained that the problem of the United States for the 20th century would be the problem of the color line. I personally contend that it is also the issue for the 21st century as well. Until the United States realizes and comes to grips with the problems, pains, perplexities, and plights that slavery hath wrought upon its citizens of African descent, we will never maximize our potential to be the land of the free and the home of the brave. This insidious black eye that is cast upon our country has been the issue of slavery that many would rather forget instead of engaging in somber reflection and sincere remembrance that will force us to finally grow up. The problem with slavery is that this watershed event in African-American history and thinking has created for the slave a reshaping of time, human destiny, life, death, immortality, and eschatology – which in theology is the doctrine of last things or last days. In Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, she demonstrates the attempts of black slaves to maneuver through the horrors and hell of slavery so that hope can be refreshed, renewed, reignited, reshaped, reframed, realigned, recast, rejuvenated, reenergized, and reinvigorated. It is this concept of hope that serves as a catalyst to the faith of the black Christian. In fact, one would make a tragic mistake if you thought that hope was just some appendage or addendum to the context of faith and our Christian reality. Nevertheless, hope cannot be separated from history without dire consequences. This is because history is anchored by hope. When you have hope disconnected from history you have unbridled optimism and idealism with the potential to make objects out of that which the divine has declared sacred. This is what brings us to commemorate the Emancipation Proclamation. However, the prelude to the Emancipation Proclamation is the famous Dred Scott decision. In 1847, the Missouri legislature passed a law stating that no negroes could be taught letters. In other words, no black man or woman could be taught how to read and write. Well in Central Baptist Church, which was then known as H Street Baptist Church, they were doing some teaching they should not have done. It was under Reverend Anderson’s leadership, who was the second pastor of that church that the Second African Baptist Church, which became H Street Baptist Church, marched from a hall adjoining the Old Liberty Engine House to the congregation’s first house of worship on 8th and Queen, which is now Lucas Avenue. That probably cost about $3,000 to establish, and that church had at that time about 300 members. So the Second African Baptist Church then became the H Street Baptist Church. And it was during this period that they used to baptize in the Shoto Pond. And Harriet Scott, wife of Dred Scott, was a member of that congregation. For those that might be unaware, Dred Scott I believe was Catholic, but he would come to church to get that Baptist feel. Mr. Dred Scott, who was married to Harriet Scott, who was a member of what is now known as Central Baptist Church, had the hope to believe that when he crossed the Mississippi River into Illinois that he was a free man. But when Chief Justice Taney declared that blacks, slave and free, could not become citizens of the United States, god started turning the divine wheels of justice to right the wrongs that had been done to Dred Scott. Wherever Mr. Taney is today in eternity, I want to shout to him that we as black people do count in this country, and we’re more than property and chattel. This was the gospel message that Mrs. Harriet Scott and Mr. Dred Scott heard when they attended Second African Baptist Church. When John Anderson mounted the sacred rostral, he would share with them the weapon with which you shall prosper. That the lord is my light and my salvation whom shall I fear. That the lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He provided words that inspired hope and faith to Harriet and Dred Scott that gave them the impetus to fight for freedom and for justice. And so as we look at the Emancipation Proclamation, which becomes the seminal instrument as we continue to fight against discrimination and re-segregation, we must understand that the battle still continues. The struggle is not over. We have battles that must continue to be fought. It is my prayer that one day we will be able to realize the legacy of all that Harriet and Dred Scott did during their time here on earth that ultimately will lead to what that prophet among us said, that we will be able to allow for justice to roll down like waters and righteousness to flood us like the mighty stream. These are my remarks. Thank you. William Seibert: Thank you, Dr. Scott. And now it’s my honor to introduce tonight’s panel moderator Bonita Cornute. She is one of St. Louis’ most distinguished broadcast journalists. Currently FOX 2’s contact to consumer affairs reporter, this award-winning journalist has spent more than 20 years bringing the news to our St. Louis community. Ms. Cornute received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Prior to joining FOX 2, for many years she worked as a producer for KATC TV, the PBS affiliate here in St. Louis, where she co-produced and co-hosted several public affairs programs. In 2011 last year she was one of six St. Louis professionals honored by the St. Louis Chapter of 100 Black Women for her outstanding contributions in this region as a journalist and community advocate. She is the recipient of four local Emmy Awards, of the Quest Reward from the National Press Federation, of the National Association of Women Legislators’ excellence in journalism award, of the NAACP’s Crisis Magazine Role Model of the Year Award, of the Greater St. Louis association of St. Louis’ Excellence in Journalism Award, and numerous other recognitions from over a dozen different area organizations. Please join me in welcoming Ms. Bonita Cornute. Bonita Cornute: Thank you, Mr. Seibert for your warm introduction and good evening to all of you. It’s a pleasure to see so many people here tonight. I’m impressed with the turnout and pleased that you navigated through the roadways to get here. I wasn’t quite sure myself where I was going. I’ve seen this building from the highway, but then there’s always the question of how do I get there. Well I found my way, as did all of you, and I believe that we are in for a very special evening tonight. If you haven’t had a chance to view the exhibit please do so. It’s amazing to see. I picked up some information just walking through there this evening. It’s amazing to see some of the original documents from so many historical events. The exhibit title, Documented Rights, is special. But we have to agree that one of the most important documents related to human rights is the Emancipation Proclamation. And tonight we commemorate the 150th anniversary of the draft of that document. It’s my understanding – and I’m sure I should leave it to the experts to talk about that – but my understanding is in July of 1862 President Abraham Lincoln started toying with and presented the idea of this proclamation. And then by September of 1862 he pretty much felt that it was a done deal and introduced it to the cabinet. And then by January of 1863 we were ready to sign the document and present it to the nation. Tonight we want to allow each of these very distinguished speakers to tell you a little bit about the experiences of African-Americans as it relates to the Emancipation Proclamation. They will each speak to you for approximately 15 minutes. Now if anyone gets a little long-winded, I’ve got a little piece of paper here with “5 minutes” and I will show you this very discretely to wrap you up so that we’re not here until 11 o’clock tonight. So I think the folks at this facility would be willing to accommodate us, but we would like to get home before midnight tonight. So we’re going to keep everyone to 15 minutes. They will make their presentation. After all four of them have presented we will open the floor to questions from any of you who has something very special or unique to ask about. It gives me great pleasure now to introduce our panel. The first gentleman, seated immediately to my left, is Dr. Louis Saxton Gerteis, a professor of history at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, where he specializes in 19th century United States history with a specific focus on slavery, emancipation, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. Tonight Gerteis will examine Missouri’s role as a border state and events leading up to the emancipation proclamation. His most recent publications include Civil War St. Louis and “An Outrage on Humanity: Martial Law and Military Prisons in St. Louis During the Civil War." His other works include “From contraband to freedman: federal policy toward Southern Blacks, 1861-1865” and “Mortality and Utility in American Antislavery Reforms”. He is well published. He is also the author of numerous journal articles and book chapters. Dr. Gerteis is director of the Virtual City Project, a website containing 3-dimensional interactive models of St. Louis from each decade spanning from 1850 to 1950. Over his career he has been the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships. He earned his Master of Arts and PhD in history from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. You’re a badger! I’m a badger! We walked the same halls, probably! Different time frame, but we certainly were there at the same time. Welcome to you, Dr. Gerteis. Seated next to him, Mr. James Vincent Sr. is cofounder of the St. Louis African-American History and Genealogy Society. He currently chairs the Genealogy Society’s State Committees for Missouri, Kansas, and Illinois. Tonight Vincent will discuss responses to the Emancipation Proclamation’s issuance in 1863. As a lecturer Vincent blends his legal training and research skills in the areas of African-American history and genealogy. He focuses his research on 19th century to early 20th century U.S. history with an emphasis on the African-American experience. Vincent also works as a consultant to authors, African-American museums, and other national institutions. In 1991 he was invited to testify before the United States Congress as an expert on the National Underground Railroad to Freedom Act of 1992. Vincent earned his Bachelor of Arts in history and foreign affairs from Webster University, a Masters Degree in marketing from Washington University, and a Juris Doctorate from St. Louis University School of Law. Seated next to Mr. Vincent is Dr. Priscilla Dowden-White, an associate professor of history at the University of Missouri – St. Louis where she currently serves as undergraduate advisor and teaches a variety of courses on African-American history, United States history since 1865, and St. Louis history. Tonight Dr. Dowden-White will present a paper titled “Educating Missouri’s Black Citizenry: From Emancipation to Brown.” Dr. Dowden-White has been a featured scholar in several historical documentaries including Sing It, Tell It, a documentary exploring the African-American musical heritage of Missouri created by Public Interest Films of Berkley, California. Decades, a series on the history of St. Louis since the 1904 World’s Fair, Made in the U.S.A. – East St. Louis, and the Jewish-American experience. Her scholarly interests include social welfare and civic activism among African-Americans during the interwar period of World War I and World War II. Dr. Dowden-White is the author of the recently published book Groping Toward Democracy: African American Social Welfare Reform in St. Louis, 1910-1949. She is currently editing the unpublished memoir of Urban League Executive Secretary John Clark and has recently begun research for a biography of the late civil rights attorney and former national NAACP chairperson Margaret Bush Wilson. And seated next to Dr. Dowden-White is Dr. Gerald Early. He is the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters in the department of English and director of the Center for the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis. He also has appointments in the African and African-American studies and American Culture Studies Program at Washington University. Tonight Dr. Early will discuss baseball legend Jackie Robinson’s military court-martial. He is currently promoting his most recent book, A Level Playing Field: African American Athletes and the Republic of Sports, which examines African-American athletes. Early is a noted essayist and American culture critic. His collections of essays include “Tuxedo Junction: Essays on American Culture” and “The Culture of Bruising: Essays on Prizefighting, Literature, and Modern American Culture.” This won the 1994 National Book Critic’s Circle Award for criticism. Early is also a prolific anthologist. His most recent anthologies are “Best African American Essays 2010” with guest editor Randall Kennedy and “Best African American Fiction 2010” with guest editor Nikki Giovanni. His other anthologies include “The Sammy Davis, Jr. Reader,” 2001, “Miles Davis and American Culture,” 2001, and “The Muhammad Ali Reader,” 1998. He has served as a consultant on several Ken Burns documentary films: Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson and The War. He is a member of the board of trustees of the National Humanities Center where he enjoyed an appointment as the John Hope Franklin Fellow. That was 2001-2002. Now for the next few minutes we’re going to ask that you direct your attention to this dynamic group of scholars. And again we’d like to present to you first Dr. Louis Saxton Gerteis. Dr. Louis Gerteis: The image we have behind me is a famous etching of the first reading of the Emancipation Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln, and I just wanted to say a little bit about the symbolism of it before we get into my presentation proper. It was done in the tradition of history paintings, and so there’s light coming in from the window to the left-hand side of the image. Seated all the way from the left is Edwin Stanton, who was Secretary of War. Standing next to him is Salmon Portland Chase, who was Secretary of the Treasury. Chase was probably the most – well he was the most radical anti-slavery member of Lincoln’s cabinet. They both supported the Emancipation Proclamation. Seated next to him, of course, is Lincoln. Next to him on his left is Gideon Welles, who was Secretary of the Navy. And seated across from Welles, the bearded man, is William H. Seward, the Secretary of State. They too supported the Emancipation Proclamation. All of them are lighted by the window that we don’t see. In the background, looking somewhat grim and in shadows, is Caleb Blood Smith, who was Secretary of the Interior. Next to him is Montgomery Blair, who was Postmaster-General and who had very important ties – had been in St. Louis until he went to Washington and later was one of those who represented Dred Scott. And seated at the far right is the St. Louis lawyer Edward Bates, who was Lincoln’s Attorney General. All three of those men opposed the Emancipation Proclamation. So there’s attention in this image that we should be aware of at the beginning. Now at the war’s beginning, loyal slave-holders in the Border States enjoyed all of the protection that the federal government could give them. In the midst of the war, though, as Lincoln fashioned the Emancipation Proclamation, slaveholders in the Border States including Missouri were left to devise their own plans regarding slavery. Lincoln secured from Congress a law for gradual, compensated emancipation for loyal slave holders. And all of these states explored systems of apprenticeship that were intended to extend the control over the labor power of their servants for another generation or more. And I’ll give an example of that in Missouri in a minute. In the final years of the war the federal government actively enlisted black men as soldiers. That came in the wake of the Emancipation Proclamation, and the character of the struggle then shifted from discussions about the mode of transition from slavery to freedom to open conflicts over the terms and conditions of African-American citizenship. I’m inclined to think – the question is why did Lincoln leave the Border States alone? Why did he exempt them from the Emancipation Proclamation? I’m inclined to think that Lincoln looked to the Border States – he was a Border State person himself – to try to fathom the post-war outcomes of emancipation. To try and see how things would shake out. By exempting the Border States from the terms of the Emancipation Proclamation, he continued to extend to them some of the autonomy that they had enjoyed during the first years of the war. Civil governments continued to function in Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and in what became the new state of West Virginia. But Lincoln also authorized the imposition of martial law in these states. Lincoln consistently defended this middle course and rejected repeated pleas from both sides either to resolve the tensions in the Border States by placing them under federal military control or by deferring entirely to the authority of their civil governments. But Lincoln held to that middle course, and helped to ensure in the process that the Civil War in the Border States earned its name. A war in these states raged at the most intimate levels of civil society, as we’ll see in a minute. Whatever the president’s purposes might have been, the unresolved tensions in the Border States provide us, as we look back at the process of emancipation, with an opportunity to examine emancipation in Missouri and other Border States where the constraints of direct military control didn’t exist and federal reconstruction didn’t take place. When Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in its final form on January 1st, 1863, he exempted from its terms all of the Border States, which are indicated here in lighter color. From Delaware and Maryland to the east, the western counties of Virginia that become a separate state, Kentucky, and Missouri. All of those areas are exempted, along with some occupied counties on the eastern shore of Virginia and some of the occupied parishes in lower Louisiana. So a lot of areas were exempted from the Emancipation Proclamation. The persistence of slavery in the Border States clashed with congressionally-mandated emancipation in the District of Columbia that had come in 1862 and with the implementation of the Emancipation Proclamation in those areas of the Confederacy that were coming under federal control. The persistence of civil governments in the Border States aided the efforts of loyal slave holders to resist the advance of emancipation, and Missouri offered a particularly clear picture of what masters had in mind when they discussed and rejected Lincoln’s compensated emancipation plan. Missouri’s provisional governor, Hamilton Gamble, proposed to begin a gradual plan of emancipation in 1870. Lincoln wrote him and said, “Couldn’t you move it up a bit more?” In that year, according to Gamble’s plan, slaves that were aged between 12-40 would become servants "subject to the authority of their late masters” until 1876. Slaves under 12 in 1870 would remain servants until they reached the age of 23. Under Gamble’s plan, a slave child born in December of 1869 remained a servant until December 1892. Slaves older than 40 in 1870 would remain slaves for life. Well Missouri did not enact this plan because emancipationists defeated conservative unionists at the polls in 1864. Missouri by that time had imposed a stern loyalty oath that contributed to a sharp decline in voters. There were some 52,000 fewer citizens eligible to vote in 1864 compared with 1860. Missouri at that point quickly adopted a new constitution that abolished slavery without compensation and without Gamble’s gradualist features. Throughout the Border States, owners continued to resist recruitment which black troops – excuse me, let me go back. When Lincoln agreed to the enlistment of African-Americans as Union soldiers, the climate in the Border States changed very quickly. The intensity of the conflicts between federal forces and conservative unionists increased significantly. By the summer of 1863 enlistment of black troops began in the Free States and in the occupied portions of the Confederacy. In October the War Department ordered recruitment to begin in Delaware, Maryland, and Missouri. Kentucky was spared, ostensibly because so many black men in the state worked as military laborers. But in January of 1864 recruitment began in the area of Kentucky west of the Tennessee River, which was part of a different military department, with recruitment centers in Paducah and the federally-controlled town of Columbus. Throughout the Border States, owners resisted recruitment with every means at their disposal. And Lincoln continued through this period of time to appease loyal slave holders. Enlistment provided the surest path to freedom for Border State slaves and their families. And in fact, Kentucky and Missouri had the highest percentage rate of black men joining the Union Army of any place in the Slave States. The Militia Act of 1862 freed families of black men employed by the military. At that time such employment was limited to slaves of disloyal owners. As federal enlistment expanded to include all able-bodied black men, soldiers and Union officers began to claim freedom for their soldiers’ families. It wasn’t until March 1865, a month before the end of the war, that Congress specifically provided for the freedom of soldiers’ families despite the loyalty of their masters. In Missouri, trying to get to one of the recruitment centers was difficult. Guerrillas as well as slave holders worked to disrupt the recruitment of black troops. One man who succeeded in getting to Jefferson City from an outlying plantation reported that he had hidden during the day and travelled at night to avoid bushwhackers. He had seen three men killed by bushwhackers on his way to being recruited. When black men succeeded in enlisting, they often left behind families that were vulnerable to abuse by angry masters. Richard Glover, a slave near Mexico, Missouri, successfully enlisted in December 1863. When he wrote to his wife Martha from the federal Benton Barracks post in St. Louis, he received a prompt but distraught reply. “I have had nothing but trouble since you left,” she lamented. “You recollect what I told you how they would do after you was gone.” Her fears proved to be well-founded. Her master threatened not to feed her children. He had beaten her scandalously, as she put it. She concluded by begging her soldier husband to return. “You ought not to have left me in the fix I am in and all these little helpless children to take care of.” Well understandably, black soldiers were angered by these conditions and they began to threaten retaliation. Sam Bowman, also stationed at Benton Barracks in the hospital, wrote to his wife near Tipton, Missouri in May of 1864 promising to protect her. At the same time he warned his wife’s master of dire consequences if he mistreated her. He told his wife that he had orders from his commanding general to bring her to St. Louis if she wished to come. “So it lays with your own choice to stay or come,” he wrote. “If you don’t want to stay, tell Mr. Wilson in a decent manner that you do not.” He then addressed his comments to his wife’s owner. “General Pile” – who was William Pile, commander of black troops in St. Louis – “says that if you, Mr. Wilson, is as good a Union man as Sam Hammock recommends you to be, you will let her come on good terms and give her a piece of writing to show that you are what you profess to be.” He then warned Wilson what the consequences of any mistreatment would be. “If you do not,” – this is to the slave master – “we will show you what we intend to do. We are not expecting that this will insult a Union man. You know that a soldier’s wife is free. Read this letter to her and let her return her own answer. I will find out whether this has been read to her at a full understanding with her or not, and if I should find out that she has never heard of its deliverance I will undoubtedly punish you. You see I have power. I write you with this determination: that by the 20th day of May this matter must and will be closed. So you can rest till then or do it sooner, as it will be better for you. I want you to understand that we have labored in the field to subdue slavery, and now we mean to protect them.” Private Spotswood Rice wrote similarly from Benton Barracks Hospital to his daughter and to their owner in Glasgow, Missouri in September 1864. “Dear children, be assured that I will have you if it costs me my life. Your Miss Katie said that I tried to steal you,” he contended, “but I’ll let her know that god never intended for a man to steal his own flesh and blood.” To his daughter Mary’s owner Kitty Digs, Private Rice had this to say: “I want you to remember this one thing. That the longer you keep my child from me, the longer you will have to burn in hell and the quicker you will get there. For we are now making up 1,000 black troops to come up through Glasgow, and when we come woe be to the Copperhead rebels and the slaveholding rebels. I want you to understand, Kitty Digs, that wherever you and I meet we are enemies to each other. I have no fear of getting Mary out of your hands, for this whole government gives me cheer and you cannot help yourself.” Finally on January 11th, 1865, members of the Missouri Constitutional Convention quickly amended the state constitution to abolish slavery. And there was great celebration in St. Louis for that event. Kentucky and Delaware, by the way, never abolished slavery on their own and didn’t ratify the 13th Amendment. Celebrations of emancipation continued for many years, but on different dates. D.C. had its celebration on a different date than St. Louis, which continued to celebrate emancipation at least until 1872 on January 11th, when slavery had been ended. The memory of what it meant to be a soldier also survived in the African-American community. Spotswood Rice succeeded in freeing his family from slavery and making St. Louis his post-war home. His daughter Mary had been 12 years old when he wrote to her mistress in 1864. 72 years later, in 1936, Mary was 85 years old and told her family story to an interviewer from the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Writers Project. She recalled that her owner had been an old maid named Kitty Digs. Most of all, though, she remembers that her father fled from a cruel master. “I told you that my father’s name was Spot,” she said in her interview, “but that was his nickname in slavery.” She then emphasized the dignity of army men. “His full name was Spotswood Rice. My son’s full name is William A. Bell. He’s enlisted in the army in the Philippine Islands. I love army men. My father, brother, husband, and son were all army men. I love a man who will fight for his rights and any person that wants to be something.” Thank you. Bonita Cornute: Thank you, Dr. Gerteis. The quotes and the actual verbiage and dialog from slaves and the men who joined the Union army – it’s impressive and it also helps you have a true feel for what was going on at the time. I will tell a personal story at another point. I’d like to allow each of our panelists to present. But I have ancestors who fought in the Civil War, and I just discovered that. It’s been a truly rewarding experience. I’m going to introduce now Mr. James Vincent Senior, cofounder of the St. Louis African-American History and Genealogy Society to present his remarks tonight. Mr. Vincent. James Vincent: Thank you. I want to pick up right where Dr. – Gerteis? Mary Bell talked about her relative who was in the Philippines. That same relative was also in the army and was one of three African-Americans who was captured in the Philippines at the beginning of World War II in a Japanese concentration camp where he died. I met his great-grandson recently who was still in the army. He was a chaplain in the army and was on his way to Iran. It’s a small world. My talk tonight will be about the African-American reaction to Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and what they did afterwards. I hope I can get through this. Being the kind of person that I am, 15 minutes – brevity is not my strong suit. So keep me honest. Let us turn the calendar back here to August 1862. Congress had abolished slavery in Washington, D.C. So why were African-Americans rejoicing at the prospect of Emancipation Proclamation on January 1st, 1863? There are two possible reasons. First, most African-Americans realized that their extended family were still in slavery. Number two, the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act had been reinforced by 1850. The original act read: “No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another state, shall in consequence of laws or regulations therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on the claim of the party to whom such labor may be due.” The new law of 1850 required all marshals and law enforcement personnel to capture and return all slaves back to their owners. So you can see that any African-American that was living at that time was in danger of being forced into slavery. And many of them were. On December 31st, 1862, New York, Shiloh Presbyterian Baptist Church, the afternoon that whites and African-Americans – free and those still technically enslaved crowded the church. To relieve the tension and anxiety, Reverend Henry Highland Garnet quieted the anxiety by recounting the events that led up to that day. It was at 11:55pm. The church fell silent. Feet shuffled, the clock ticked, the crowd in the church waited in the cold. At midnight on January 1st, 1863, the choir broke into “Blow ye trumpet, the year of jubilee has come” and they continued singing hymn after hymn into the night. Even that night Garnet could not say, “We are free from slavery,” but he could assure them that it had lost its power. He said that the monster dies very hard. We are now engaged in its burial. On the same night in Washington, D.C. at the Israel Bethel Church, Reverend Henry McNeal Turner went out to secure a copy of the Washington Evening Star. It carried a text of the proclamation. At the church Turner waved the newspaper from the pulpit and began to read the document. Pandemonium broke out. One contemporary newspaper reporter said that men were squealing, women fainting, dogs barking, and white and black well-wishers shaking hands. The celebration continued into the night. Days later as the celebration subsided, the New York Tribune said that the preliminary proclamation was as important as the constitution. However, a southern newspaper, the Richmond Examiner, contemplating an America with freed slaves, called the proclamation “the inauguration of hell upon earth.” The proclamation was not quite what was expected. After reading the text, Frederick Douglass was perplexed. He wondered whether Lincoln had missed the chance to seize the moment to free all slaves all at once. Douglass understood the political environment. He knew that Lincoln’s political enemies frequently called him a tyrant. They said that he was despotic. Some even accused him of being a usurper. But nobody ever said that Lincoln was not an astute politician. For months after the Civil War began, anti-slavery voices like Frederick Douglass, Horace Greeley, William Lloyd Garrison, and others repeatedly tried to persuade Lincoln to view the war as an opportunity to end slavery as well as preserve the Union. Douglass argued that slaves were the source of the south’s strength. To remove the source would be a fatal blow to the Confederacy. He pointed out that if Lincoln recruited into the army ex-slaves that the Emancipation Proclamation would have freed, it would be of benefit to the war effort. Lincoln persistently refused to recruit black troops. He also rejected the notion of abruptly ending slavery. This, he thought, might cause the Border States to leave the Union. As was pointed out earlier the Border States were Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri. Despite Lincoln’s apparent stubbornness on this matter, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that he was already laying the groundwork to use black troops. But first he needed to reset his own 19th century belief system. The prevailing view at the time was that African-Americans were inferior beings. Hence they lacked the capacity to master complex drills, and they could not learn to use the modern weapons of the day. Early in the war Union generals had not impressed Lincoln. The number of casualties did not correlate with the Union’s successes. By the time Lincoln began thinking about the Emancipation Proclamation, he had sensed a future need to use black troops. But could black troops be competent soldiers? Could they fight? Would they fight? Or would they flee in the face of the enemy as the experts had predicted? Though Lincoln wanted an objective answer to these questions, he wanted to find an answer discretely while at the same time maintaining the public stance of resisting the pressure to recruit black soldiers. He may have found his answer in Kansas. For much of the 1800’s, Kansas had been engaged in border wars with Missouri. James H. Lane, the senator from Kansas, who some people considered emotionally unstable, had been a staunch supporter of the president. When the war began he rushed his men to Washington, D.C. to surround the White House and protect the president. A few months later in 1862, the president named Lane recruiting commissioner for Kansas and authorized him to raise a regiment in that state. Lincoln sent an uncustomary vaguely-worded letter to Lane confirming the commission. Lane interpreted the letter as allowing him to recruit blacks. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton learned of Lane’s recruiting and he sent Lane a letter gently advising him that he was not to recruit black troops. But it was too late. By August 1862, the 1st Kansas Volunteer Infantry had been formed. They were already the first black troops to successfully engage the rebels in Missouri. Question: Why did Lincoln commission a supposedly unstable senator to raise a regiment in Kansas? After all, on August 31st, 1861, when John C. Frémont declared martial law in Missouri and issued an order freeing slaves in Missouri, Lincoln demanded that he modify the order. Frémont refused and Lincoln fired him. On May 16th, 1862 General David Hunter, commander of the forces in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida attempted to free slaves within that jurisdiction, Lincoln quickly rescinded that order. Yet even though Lane had begun recruiting African-Americans in spite of the president’s policy of refusing to allow it, Lincoln took no specific action to stop him. Let me suggest an answer. Since Lane was recruiting in Kansas, for Kansas, and technically without presidential approval, Lincoln as insulated by plausible denial. If a question was brought to him by the Border States he could say, “I didn’t have anything to do with it.” Now Lincoln was a master of words. He wrote his speeches with flowing, poetic phrases. As a matter of fact, his inaugural address was set in placatory language intended to appease the southern states. He would say, “We are not your enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave” – He ended the quote with a flourish – “to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” All poetry. Now even though in the Second Confiscation Act of July 17th, 1862, Congress had authorized the president to use African-Americans in any way he saw fit in the war effort, he continued to resist recruiting black troops. On September 22nd, 1862, Lincoln issued his preliminary proclamation. It included the matter of colonizing free blacks in some land outside of the United States. He made no mention of recruiting black troops. In the final January proclamation, however, he pointedly mentioned recruiting African-Americans in the military and he left out any mention of colonization. The preliminary document also used the words “thence forward.” The words suggest that the emancipation could occur at some point. The language was a veiled offer to the Confederacy for compromise. In the final draft, Lincoln changed “thence forward” to “hence forward,” a subtle change conveying that the emancipation was complete and it was at this point a matter of enforcing it. The document was intended to persuade Confederate leaders to react and to encourage slaves to act. The final Emancipation Proclamation on January 1st, 1863 was couched in stilted 19th century legalese. Limited in its impact, it did not actually free any slaves. Yet black people saw the document for what it was. As Winston Churchill had said on D-Day during World War II, “it was not the end; it was the beginning of the end.” Historian John Hope Franklin would say that the Emancipation Proclamation transformed the war into a crusade against slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation was in essence a call for African-Americans to commit to play a role in the drama of the 19th century, and they responded with unparalleled enthusiasm. 180,000 African-Americans participated in the United States Colored Troops. 19,000 served in the U.S. navy. 40,000 African-Americans died over the course of the war. 30,000 died of infectious diseases. 181 African-American women worked in military hospitals with and without pay. They served as cooks, launders, spies, scouts, and provided respectable entertainment to the troops. In St. Louis and other cities, the Colored Ladies Union Society – sort of the forerunner of the USO – provided for destitute black women and their families and cared for wounded soldiers. Free men and slaves seized and/or destroyed enemy ships, supplies, and weapons. African-Americans sabotaged rebel military constructions, gun emplacements, and some stayed behind the lines as spies to gather intelligence that they passed on to the federal forces which became known as the Black Dispatches. Now I’ll skip ahead here because I want to wind us up. To give a sense of how African-Americans were feeling, an old lady named Hannah Johnson wrote a letter to Abraham Lincoln. I’ll truncate the letter. On July 31st, 1863, Hannah Johnson from Buffalo, New York wrote a letter to Lincoln. In it she told about her son who was in the 54th Massachusetts and who assaulted Fort Wagner but survived. Mrs. Johnson expressed her concern to the president about the army’s treatment of black soldiers, the difference in their pay, and his silence on the mistreatment of black prisoners of war at the hands of the rebels. Much like a mother giving a son life lessons, Mrs. Johnson chided the president. She urged him to do better. Then she pointed out one last concern. She said, “I hear that you might someday take back the proclamation.” She sharply added, “Don’t do it! When you’re dead and in heaven in 1,000 years, that action you made will make the angels sing your praises.” Then she said, “We the poor, oppressed must appeal to your fair play. Yours for god’s sake, Hannah Johnson.” Thank you so much. Lynne Jackson: Spoken only as a mother could, correct? Thank you, Mr. Vincent. So many times we wonder what they were really feeling and what they really thought. To hear it spoken in that way – to even take the time to say to the president, “Don’t change what you’ve already done,” that’s impressive. Up next we bring to you Dr. Priscilla Dowden-White. Again Dr. White is an associate professor of history at the University of Missouri – St. Louis. Dr. White. Thank you. I was born into the Baptist church, but since 2004 I have been a member of the African Methodist Episcopal denomination. I cannot be accused of not being a good AME. I learned a new word when I joined the AME church: protocol. And I’m not going to do any AME protocol because it would take 20 minutes to do AME protocol. But I’d be remiss if I did not thank all of those who were involved in putting together this wonderful event and for asking my participation to be a part of it. And I’d also just like to say how honored I am to be a participant on such a distinguished panel of participants. When I was thinking about the title for my presentation I came up with the title that has been given to you, “Educating Missouri’s African-American Citizenry: From Emancipation to Brown”. But a couple of days ago as I really began to seriously consider what I would share with you today in these few minutes that we have together, I thought about an alternative title that I could have used. And I could have used the title I came up with, the original title, as the subtitle. I’d like to read to you a statement that was made in 1934 before the St. Louis board of education. Reverend George E. Stevens, who was then pastor of Central Baptist Church and also the spokesman for the Committee of Colored Citizens, spoke before the board of education. And I hope I will have enough time later on in my comments to tell you why he was speaking before the board. But I just want to give you a sample of something that he said before the board. He said, “It is marvelous what doors open to the knock of a skilled, dependable hand, even though the hand be black. In our case it must always be efficiency first. Then comes the opportunity. It is at this point of equal efficiency for all that we assume that the board will sacred and impartial obligation to the city’s negro youth.” I could have titled this presentation “Efficiency First, then Comes the Opportunity: Educating Missouri’s African-American Citizenry from Emancipation to Brown.” We’ve heard some excellent and interesting discussion about the Emancipation Proclamation itself and some of the issues around it. And now I’d like to focus our attention on the education of black Missourians beginning at emancipation and coming up through the Brown decision in 1954. Obviously there is not a lot of in-depth discussion that I can say about this, but what I’d like to do – how I would like to present this is to focus on some particular educational institutions, some aspects of their development, and some of the movements that took place around some of these institutions in order to give us some sense of what the nature of African-American education in Missouri has been since emancipation. A tremendous push for education – public schooling in particular – accompanied the burgeoning post-emancipation community of African-Americans in St. Louis. Helen Keller, in her remarks describing the World’s Fair in 1904 in St. Louis stated, “The value of everything here is educational.” And this statement took on special significance for the African-American citizens of St. Louis. In fact, education turned out to be the most salient factor serving to shape the social paths taken by African-Americans as they plotted a course in the northern city with southern exposure. St. Louis was at the forefront of the movement in public education. Several factors, including many innovators in the field, contributed to the city’s role as a leader in urban education. Superintendent of the St. Louis public schools from 1868-1880, William Torrey Harris, became one of the most influential 19th century educators along with his successor superintendents as well as Susan Blow, an architect of the public school kindergarten and Calvin Woodward, a founder of the manual training and comprehensive high school movements. Harris contributed to the St. Louis school system’s ability to attract national interest and provide a model for other urban school systems. The educational system of a vastly growing and increasingly cosmopolitan population of 19th century St. Louis was enhanced by the city’s economic development. Before the Civil War, most northern city school districts in the country had either ignored African-Americans or relegated them to separate schools. Adhering to its heritage as a city within a slave state, St. Louis barred African-Americans from formal education. Although the city’s charter of 1843 which established the school system did not explicitly ban African-American education, it specified that only free white males could be officers or members of the school corporation. The school board in turn used this to bar African-American entry into the public schools. There were several clandestine efforts to educate black students during the Civil War period. I’m sure you probably are aware of some of those efforts. Classes and schools were held in basements of churches, among them Central Baptist Church, Chamber Street Baptist Church, St. Paul AME, First African Baptist Church. There was a school for black Catholic girls conducted by the Sisters of St. Joseph. The state law in the middle of the 1840’s responded by formally prohibiting the education of African-Americans, stipulating that, “No person shall keep or teach any school for the instruction of negroes or mulattos,” and attaching a penalty fine of $500 or a sentence of 6 months imprisonment or both. The vast migration of African-Americans to St. Louis during and after the Civil War created a situation in which the educational concerns of African-Americans could no longer be ignored or suppressed. By now, although the city schools were strictly segregated, the educational laws of the state were modeled after those of the more progressive eastern states. The newly revised Missouri state constitution of 1865 provided for the establishment and maintenance of free public schools for the instruction of all persons in the state between the ages of 5-21. The constitution further stipulated that all funds for the support of the public schools be appropriated in proportion to the number of children without regard to color. The following year, the city superintendent Ira Divoll in St. Louis established three schools for African-American children. In 1868 there were 5 African-American schools in the city with 12 teachers and a total population of 924 students. The laws that would determine much of the form of African-American educational opportunities in Missouri for years to come were easily evaded, however, when the officials of a community were hostile to them. Even the relatively progressive St. Louis school board attempted to escape its legal obligation to teach African-American students; to create a high school for the African-American population in 1875. That year there were 12 negro schools in the city. The legislature then passed a bill that permitted the city to establish a negro high school with a normal department in the old Washington School building located in the city’s downtown area at 11th and Spruce Streets. This school, which constituted the oldest high school with a comprehensive curriculum for African-Americans west of the Mississippi, was named for the U.S. senator from Massachusetts Charles Sumner. In 1861 he became the first prominent politician to urge for full emancipation. All of the schools designated for African-Americans during this early period, including Sumner, housed students from age 6-21 years of age. Students attended school during 40 weeks of the year and spent 5 ¼ hours daily at school. The curriculum consisted of reading, penmanship, arithmetic, geography, grammar, history, drawing, and natural science. The high school would eventually become a cultural and educational vortex within the community. It began in what had been the vacant rooms of a colored elementary school, but then closed after a month. In an appeal for separate and equal facilities, black community members gave the school board a choice: Either reinstate the classes or admit black students to traditionally white schools. Robert Bromberg, the school board’s attorney, brought to the superintendent’s attention that although the state’s constitution forbade race mixture it likewise obligated the board to “provide for and maintain a high school for colored children in this city” and that “a total discontinuance of such a school was not within the legal power of the board.” Faced with the pressure from the African-American community and this legal opinion, the board agreed to reopen Sumner. By 1880, only 76 of the school’s 411 students were actually doing high school work. On average, three times as much funding was spent on white as on African-American high school students, and in the end all the board had really done was to change the classification of the school. It had not genuinely responded to African-0Americans’ demands or the requirements of the law. Now Sumner’s first location was downtown at 11th and Spruce, and its second location was in a neighboring area at 15th and Walnut. And this was in close proximity to the city’s sporting district; the red light district. And if we look at these initial locations of Sumner, we should not be surprised by these locations because this is where the majority of African-Americans – southern migrants – lived. First in the far downtown reaches of the city, and then they moved westward to the midtown area of the city. The city’s nightlife and its sporting districts in particular tended to nurture a culture of fights which by the turn of the century was so pervasive that the line between legal and illegal behavior was almost non-existent. Sumner’s third and final location where Sumner still exists – they moved there in 1910 – is at Pendleton and Cottage in the heart of the Eldersfield community. Sumner’s third location was the result of a movement by African-Americans to locate the school away from the saloons and pool rooms near its second location. Sumner’s final location in 1910 proved critical to the development of a stable, working middle class community of African-Americans that grew up around it. The Sumner that Emmett Scott, the former secretary to Booker T. Washington, would visit in 1917 he remarked, “was probably the best housed, best equipped, and best administered colored high school in the land.” Sumner had not only grown institutionally – and the number of pupils had grown – but it had also developed in terms of its curriculum. A few years earlier in 1911, the board superintendent had observed the school’s impact. He said, “The awakened interests of the colored people in the education of their children in high school is shown by the increasing enrollment of this year, which is 549 as against 447 last year. An increase of nearly 23%. Their pride in the school and their appreciation of its place and its influence promise for the future their active cooperation in making it the very center of social and civic improvement for the race it is intended to serve.” I’d like to spend the last five minutes that I have with you telling you a little bit about a couple of movements that took place during the interwar period of World War I to World War II which give us some insight into the nature of the social struggles that developed around public schooling for African-Americans during this era. And these movements, like the earlier movements that resulted in the creation of Sumner high school, grew out of the African-American community; but now even more so than in the 19th century. By the time we get to the 1920’s and the 1930’s and the social movements that I’m going to touch upon, we see a very dynamic level of community organizing taking place in the African-American community as it pertains to many of their social welfare issues. And education is one of them. One of the interesting movements that developed had to do with vocational training. By the late 1920’s vocational training was a hot issue nationwide, and not just for African-Americans but for all American populations throughout the country. In the late 1920’s, representatives of the African-American community petitioned the board of education. Actually in 1930 they began petitioning the board of education. Right after the superintendent had closed the Franklin school, which had been a school for whites. In the surrounding Franklin neighborhood the demographics had changed as African-Americans had moved into this area. Not able to justify keeping the school open any longer, the superintendent decided to close the school. And this is not an issue that we are not familiar with in our modern times. It was under-populated. And when he decided to close it, the African-Americans that had moved into the area and their representatives petitioned the board and the superintendent and asked if it could be reopened as a colored school. Which made sense to the superintendent. Little did he know there would be a backlash. And I don’t have time to tell you about this entire movement, but one of the interesting things that occurred in this backlash which was led by the Franklin Neighborhood Association – one of their slogans became “We don’t want to take, we just want to keep.” So if you just kind of think about that for a few moments. Another movement that took place during this era was in the late 30’s around the Vashon High School when the board of education had decided to establish an elementary school on the high school grounds of Vashon. And this issue received city-wide attention because now the separate but equal principle – African-Americans had forced the hand of the segregationists. So they had to deal with separate but equal not simply in the black community, but looking at how this would affect the white community and white schools. I don’t have time to tell you about that. I’d like to close and wrap up with another statement, this time from the litigation – the hearing that took place in 1996 when our desegregation case was being reviewed. At 12 o’clock midnight October 1997, the descendent of a former slave from Starkville, Mississippi who now lived in St. Louis and along with other had brought a suit against the board of education in 1972. These were the words that she said in 1997. “All we have been asking for these last 25 years is for equality – integrated education for all our children from the Duke to the Ville. Everyone wants to know whether integration works. Well I can tell you what didn’t work. Segregated education didn’t work. It didn’t work for me and it didn’t work for a lot of kids. There’s only one moral cause: to provide all of our children equality. Integrated education. Any way you slice it, it is what America is about. We can make no compromise today.” Thank you.