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Posts tagged as “Reconstruction”

National Museum of African American History and Culture Explains the Legacy of Juneteenth

Happy Juneteenth 2020!

Today Good Black News wants to share the excellent online resources the National Museum of African American History and Culture has that explain and explore the legacy of Juneteenth, which is now in its 155th year. Click here for more and read below for an historical overview of Juneteenth:

On “Freedom’s Eve,” or the eve of January 1, 1863, the first Watch Night services took place. On that night, enslaved and free African Americans gathered in churches and private homes all across the country awaiting news that the Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect.

At the stroke of midnight, prayers were answered as all enslaved people in Confederate States were declared legally free. Union soldiers, many of whom were black, marched onto plantations and across cities in the south reading small copies of the Emancipation Proclamation spreading the news of freedom in Confederate States. Only through the Thirteenth Amendment did emancipation end slavery throughout the United States.

But not everyone in Confederate territory would immediately be free. Even though the Emancipation Proclamation was made effective in 1863, it could not be implemented in places still under Confederate control.

As a result, in the westernmost Confederate state of Texas, enslaved people would not be free until much later. Freedom finally came on June 19, 1865, when some 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas. The army announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved black people in the state, were free by executive decree. This day came to be known as “Juneteenth,” by the newly freed people in Texas.

The post-emancipation period known as Reconstruction (1865-1877) marked an era of great hope, uncertainty, and struggle for the nation as a whole. Formerly enslaved people immediately sought to reunify families, establish schools, run for political office, push radical legislation and even sue slaveholders for compensation. Given the 200+ years of enslavement, such changes were nothing short of amazing. Not even a generation out of slavery, African Americans were inspired and empowered to transform their lives and their country.

Juneteenth celebration in 1900 at Eastwoods Park. (Credit: Austin History Center)

Juneteenth marks our country’s second independence day. Although it has long celebrated in the African American community, this monumental event remains largely unknown to most Americans.

The historical legacy of Juneteenth shows the value of never giving up hope in uncertain times. The National Museum of African American History and Culture is a community space where this spirit of hope lives on. A place where historical events like Juneteenth are shared and new stories with equal urgency are told.

To learn more: https://nmaahc.si.edu/sites/default/files/images/juneteenthresources_final.pdf

For Juneteenth online events: https://nmaahc.si.edu/event/juneteenth-celebration-resilience

Hiram Rhoades Revels Sworn in as 1st Black Senator 143 Years Ago Today

rhoades revel

The First Colored Senator and Representatives, in the 41st and 42nd Congress of the US. Top standing left to right: Robert C. De Large, M.C. of S. Carolina; and Jefferson H. Long, M.C. of Georgia. Seated, left to right: U.S. Senator H.R. Revels of Mississippi; Benj. S. Turner, M.C. of Alabama; Josiah T. Walls, M.C. of Florida; Joseph H. Rainy, M.C. of S. Carolina; and R. Brown Elliot, M.C. of S. Carolina. Lithograph by Currier and Ives, 1872.

On February 25, 1870, exactly 143 years ago today, Hiram Rhoades Revels was sworn into the U.S. Senate, making him the first black person to ever sit in Congress.  After the Reconstruction Act of 1867 was passed by a majority-Republican Congress, the South was divided into five military districts and all men, regardless of race were granted voting rights. Revels was elected by the Mississippi legislature, and seven black representatives were later elected for states like Alabama, South Carolina, Florida and Georgia thanks, in large part, to the support of African American voters.
Revels and some 15 other black men served in Congress during Reconstruction, and more than 600 served in state legislatures, while hundreds held local offices.
article via huffingtonpost.com

Congressman Tim Scott to Become First Black Senator from the South Since Reconstruction

TimScottOrangeTieGovernor Nikki Haley of South Carolina announced she will tap Congressman Tim Scott for South Carolina’s vacant Senate seat. Rep. Scott’s appointment will make him the first black senator from the South since the 19th Century.

The Senate seat became vacant after Sen. Jim DeMint announced he was stepping down to take on a leadership role at the Heritage Foundation in January, causing many to wonder who Gov. Haley would pick to fill the vacancy.

After a lot of debate, Gov. Haley ended the speculation today when she announced that she was appointing Rep. Scott.

“It is with great pleasure that I am announcing our next U.S. senator to be Congressman Tim Scott,” Gov. Haley said. “I am strongly convinced that the entire state understands that this is the right U.S. senator for our state and our country.”

Rep. Scott, who was raised in a single-parent household, credited his mother’s guidance for positively affecting his life.

In Rediscovered Letter From 1865, Former Slave Tells Old Master To Shove It (UPDATE)

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In the summer of 1865, a former slave by the name of Jourdan Anderson sent a letter to his former master. And 147 years later, the document reads as richly as it must have back then.  The roughly 800-word letter, which has resurfaced via various blogs, websites, Twitter and Facebook, is a response to a missive from Colonel P.H. Anderson, Jourdan’s former master back in Big Spring, Tennessee. Apparently, Col. Anderson had written Jourdan asking him to come on back to the big house to work.  In a tone that could be described either as “impressively measured” or “the deadest of deadpan comedy,” the former slave, in the most genteel manner, basically tells the old slave master to kiss his rear end. He laments his being shot at by Col. Anderson when he fled slavery, the mistreatment of his children and that there “was never pay-day for the Negroes any more than for the horses and cows.”  Below is Jourdan’s letter in full, as it appears on lettersofnote.com. To take a look at what appears to be a scan of the original letter, which appeared in an August 22, 1865 edition of the New York Daily Tribune, click here. As Letters Of Note points out, the newspaper account makes clear that the letter was dictated.
UPDATE:
After reading the letter attributed to Jourdon Anderson, Michael Johnson, a professor of history at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, did a bit of digging into old slave and census records. He says he has discovered evidence that the people involved in this correspondence are real, and that the letter is probably authentic.  According to Johnson, the 1860 federal slave schedules list a P H Anderson in Wilson County, Tenn., with 32 slaves; several of them credibly the people mentioned in the letter, of the correct genders and ages, Johnson said, though the names of slaves were not listed in the schedules.  “That in itself is not conclusive proof that the letter is real, but the slave owner was real and he had plenty of slaves,” Johnson wrote in an email to The Huffington Post.  Johnson said better evidence that the letter is almost certainly real is that, according to the 1870 federal manuscript census, a Jourdan Anderson, his wife and four school-age children are listed as living in the 8th ward of Dayton, Ohio. Johnson said the records state that Anderson is a hostler, 45, and that he and his family are listed as “black.” Furthermore, according to those records, Anderson, his wife and two older children, ages 19 and 12, were born in Tennessee. Two younger children, ages 5 and 1, were born in Ohio, “which would in turn have him and his family showing up in Ohio at about the right time to have escaped during the Civil War,” Johnson said.  The professor said that Jourdan Anderson could not read or write, according to 1870 manuscript census. But the letter could have been written by his 19-year-old daughter, Jane, who was listed as literate in 1870.  “The letter probably reflected his sentiments,” Johnson said, who added that Anderson lived in a neighborhood surrounded by working-class white neighbors who were literate, according to the census. It is also possible one of them may have written the letter for him, Johnson said.  But the person who most likely wrote the dictated letter is another person listed in Anderson’s letter.  In the letter Anderson refers to a V. Winters. According to Johnson a person by the name of Valentine Winters, a “barrister” in Dayton’s 3rd ward who claimed property worth $697,000, also appears in the 1870 federal census.  “He may well have been the person who actually wrote the letter since he is the person Jourdan Anderson asks his former master to send his wages to,” Johnson said.
Dayton, Ohio,
August 7, 1865
To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee
Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.
I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy,—the folks call her Mrs. Anderson,—and the children—Milly, Jane, and Grundy—go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, “Them colored people were slaves” down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkens would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.
As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor’s visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams’s Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.
In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve—and die, if it come to that—than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.
Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.
From your old servant,
Jourdon Anderson.