felt as if I were right there with Mr. Weldon Young in his bid to become the first black engineer at Vashon High School during the Depression years. I wonder what happened to the Oblate Sisters of Normandy, a black order of nuns that Olivia Calloway talked about. I found out from Lorraine Gasaway the history of a church I pass regularly on DeBalivere. At the turn of the century, when black people could not worship at Catholic Churches on the Hill, they worshipped in a tent. Ms. Gasaway’s grandfather and other folks pooled their money to buy a small house that became the Pattison Avenue Baptist Church until Highway 44 came along.
Can you believe Kinloch, MO was a resort area for whites? So said Sylvester Smith, who grew up in Kinloch and became superintendent for the Kinloch school district. He was the first black school superintendent in Missouri and the first to register in 1944 at Saint Louis University. Check out the reserved and dignified Elizabeth Garlington! She lost a job and her Republican husband when she joined the Marcus Garvey Movement during the Depression.
Reading John Ware’s trek as a Pullman Porter, I discovered that Theodore McNeal was the local field organizer for the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Everett Agnew, promoter extraordinaire, talked about his work as a teenager at Forest Park’s lily white Triple A Golf Club. Wayman Smith, Sr. challenged in court the use of a public park as a private club - and won. I bet black folks swinging clubs over there now don’t even know that.
We would do well to use these poignant stories as living history lessons. Most of the people in Lift Every Voice lived through segregation. For many, they did the best they could with what they had. For others, they struggled to make sure those of us who came after them had more than they did. In the wise words of Clifford Frazier, “we must pass those stories on to our children.” Our children would learn about work ethic, sacrifice, pride, family, community, and the struggle for human rights. It is the determination, strength and dignity of one generation that propels the next.
In 2008, the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation was established
in St. Louis by Scotts’ descendants to preserve the important
history of their legal battle for freedom.
Three Fifths and Counting
January, 2004
I always find it interesting that a number of civil rights events are held at the Old Courthouse. Many local people, and sadly - far too many black folks, don’t know that this courthouse is where the infamous Dred Scott decision was made. The Old Courthouse is supposed to represent the history of days gone by. However, there are times when I hear the words of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney coming out of the mouths of modern day racists, or bear witness to the unequal and unfair treatment of African Americans in St. Louis as if we were in the era of pre-Emancipation.
In 1846, Dred Scott had the audacity to sue for the freedom of his wife, Harriett, and himself. The litigation lasted over ten years and ultimately went to both the Missouri and U.S. Supreme Courts. Initially, a local jury ruled the Scotts free but that decision was overturned. Scott then appealed to the highest court in the land that rendered a stinging ruling. Led by Justice Taney, the high court stated that Scott was a black slave and therefore could never be free. Further, he had no business bringing suit in federal court or engaging in any other acts as if he were a full-fledged citizen. Taney spoke for the court’s majority when he said that Dred Scott “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” The landmark decision made it quite clear that slaves existing for the “benefit” and “profit’ of white men. The Scott family was then purchased by the original family that owned them, and who eventually granted the Scotts their freedom. The irony is that Dred Scott enjoyed being a free black man for only nine months before his death in 1858.
Hundreds will gather at the Old Courthouse this month for the commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. The traditional march begins there after a ceremony featuring song and the spoken word honoring the King. We need to look around at those hallowed halls and get some inspiration from an illiterate slave who dared to stand tall and challenge the status quo before not one court, but three. As descendants of Africans like Scott, who dared to defy the very tenets of slavery, we need to exercise our still limited freedoms, lest those few get outlawed.
Dr. King would be troubled by the St. Louis of 2004. The high levels of economic injustice and low levels of political power would incite Dr. King to act. We insult his legacy by just singing about a dream or marching. Dr. King fought real struggles for real people - those who were most oppressed and disenfranchised. Dr. King honored the legacies of Dred Scott and many others who fought the good fight by continuing the movement for a peaceful and just world. In 2004, celebrations of St. Louis’ past are being planned. If Dr. King were here, he would definitely target those celebrations to raise the obvious hypocrisies.
He would express his outrage to the school board for their annihilation of a school district. He’d take issue with the decisions (or lack thereof) by the Board of Alderpersons and he would definitely be calling the Mayor out. He would be sickened by the warmongers. But mainly, I think he would be disappointed at the freedom lovers and justice seekers who find excuses for standing idly on the sidelines as injustices swirl around them. These folks act like 3/5 of a person instead of a whole one. On this King Holiday, let us vow to keep the likes of Justice Taney from turning back the clock of progress, by acting like empowered and caring people.
Black Like Coal
April, 2010
There have been a few books that detail the courageous but violent struggles of black coal miners in this country, like Black Coal Miners in America by Ronald L. Lewis and Coal, Class and Color: Blacks in Southern West Virginia by Joe William Trotter Jr. What I know about the life, culture and history of coal miners comes from my dear friend, Jane English. Her father started mining in West Virginia at the ripe age of nine years, along with his brother who was 11 years old. Jane was a union organizer at some point for the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), which synthesized her personal knowledge of the mines with the history of the union. These history books chronicle the 250 years of blacks in the coal mining industry and their struggles with the mining bosses, scabs and sometimes even white union members. Before the union, coal companies used slaves and, like the cotton barons, were able to accelerate their profits on the backs of blacks and poor whites. Most times, white and black union brothers were in lock step against the vicious anti-union tactics of the companies. Some of these were actually armed confrontations, such as the strikes at the turn of the 20th century of 11,000 Alabama miners, 75 percent of whom were black. The strikes were led by black union leaders J. F. Sorsby, William Prentice and George H. Edmunds. The brothers carried out some bold tactics, including blowing up a Southern railcar carrying scab coal, before the effort was crushed by the National Guard.
The biggest armed confrontation in U.S. labor history is embedded in the coal mining wars of 1921. One hot summer August day, 8,000 armed black and white miners marched on Logan County and entered into a deadly exchange with the company-paid sheriff and his thugs. The miners were kicking butt until President Warren Harding sent in soldiers to quash the efforts that would have established a union in Logan Country.
From Jane, I learned one origin of the term, “redneck.” During the strikes, union miners distinguished themselves from the scabs by wearing red handkerchiefs around their necks. She told me that the United Mine Workers were known to pay the poll taxes of black workers so they could vote. UMWA was the first union to include opposition to racial discrimination in its founding documents. Women are the keepers of the stories about mining life and in mining towns, where coal is the only game in town; this is an important role for families who are
