Recap of Black History Month 2021

If you happen to be on Facebook and if you happen to follow the BDC's Facebook page, then you know that posts related to local African American history, people, places, and events are made frequently every month of the year. 

In fact, every Wednesday that the Library is open, I make at least one "Black History Note" (BHN) post. During February 2021, my Wednesday Black History Notes featured materials that the BDC shares about the role of religion in African American life and culture.

Here's a recap of the BHNs I made on Facebook this month: 

3 February 2021 - Religion is a powerful force within most African-American communities. In May 1940, Zora Neale Hurston recorded a 15 minute documentary film of religious services taking place at Commandment Keeper Church in Beaufort South Carolina. In 2005, her film was selected for the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being 'culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant'. 

 

You can see Commandment Keeper Church on the Pioneers of African-American Cinema disc 5. The BDC has one that can only be watched inside our Research Room but Beaufort Branch has a copy of the DVD that cardholders can check out and watch at home. We also have a vertical file about the film and a vertical file for Hurston here in the Research Room. 

 

If you'd like to learn more about this amazing African-American author, playwright, and dynamically outspoken woman, watch "Literature to Life: Zora!, ~ 20 minutes adaption of the theatrical biography of her life by Laurence Holder. 

 

10 February 2021 -  It would be hard to overestimate the power of the church in the African American experience in the United States. ETV's star, Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., explores the 400-year-old story of the black church in America, the changing nature of worship spaces, and the men and women who shepherded them from the pulpit, the choir loft, and church pews. You can watch "The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song" four-hour, two-part series on SCETV on February 16 and February 23 at 9 pm. [You can check out the book upon which the series is based.]

 

17 February 2021 - Continuing on the theme of Black Churches, Slave Missions and the Black Church in the Antebellum South by Janet Duitsman Cornelius (1999) concentrates on the fruitful period in the 1840s and 1850s when evangelization efforts among the enslaved allowed Black people to recreate Western Christianity in such a way that African ritual and practices, European rites, Holy Scripture, and musical forms became distinctly the foundation of the Black Church that endures to this day. Among the Beaufort District area churches mentioned in the narrative are Robertville's Black Swamp Baptist Church, Tabernacle Baptist Church, Grace AME Church, and Brick Church.

 

24 February 2021 - Sometimes PhD dissertations end up as published books. Such was the case for The Abundant Life Prevails by Michael Charles Wolfe. 

 

The BDC has a printed and bound copy of his approved dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in May 1997 and the book of the same title published by Baylor University Press in 2000. 

Rev. Wolfe is an ordained Methodist minister who examined the collision on St. Helena Island of the religious style adapted by the enslaved with roots in Southern evangelicalism and African traditions with the religious styles of Reconstruction era Protestant Northern missionaries like Laura Towne, William Channing Gannett, Ellen Murray and Harriet Ware. Because this book is based on religious traditions of St. Helena Island, we have a reference copy in the BDC as well as in the Local History sections at the Branch Libraries for you to borrow.

 

The Materials Monday posts in February also featured African-American letters in the BDC. 

 

1 February 2021 - Corp. James Henry Gooding, a 26 year old member of Company C, 54th Massachusetts Volunteers, United States Colored Troops, wrote of his arrival at Port Royal on June 3, 1863:

Messrs. Editors:

-- After a long passage of seven days, we have arrived at Port Royal. We are still on board the vessel, and I write my first letter on the top of my knapsack, with one of the loudest noises around me ever heard, and heat enough to make a fellow contemplate the place prepared for the ungodly. There is nothing interesting to write as yet, for the very good reason that we have none of us been ashore. I write this letter to let the friends of the men know that we are all safe, except one, who jumped overboard the first night out from Boston. I think that he must have been cracked or drunk, more likely the latter. The men are all in good health and spirits, not one man in the whole regiment being now on the sick list. After we are quartered on shore, and have an opportunity to look around, you may expect better letters. -- J.H.G.

And indeed, Gooding wrote about 50 weekly letters to his local newspaper, becoming "a truthful and
intelligent correspondent" (in the words of its Editors) for the staunchly abolitionist New Bedford (MA) Mercury newspaper. Eminent Civil War historian, James McPherson, describes Gooding as "observant, well informed,a fluent writer, passionately committed to the cause of Union, liberty, and black rights. He also possessed a sense of humor that makes these letters a delight as well as an education to read." The letters are one of the few known collections of materials by a United States Colored Troops soldier about USCT military actions and conditions. His eloquence helped persuade the Congress to provide equal pay for Black soldiers in 1864.

 

Gooding enlisted in the Union Army (though he had sea-experience from working on whaling vessels) on Valentine's Day 1863, seeing action in South Carolina including the assault on Fort Wagner, in Georgia, and in Florida where he was wounded in the thigh and captured in the Battle of Olustee. He died in Andersonville Prison on July 19, 1864.

 

The only copy of this title within SCLENDS is in the Research Room. 

 

8 February 2021 - [Today's post] features a letter of congratulations on July 27, 2014 from Bishop Richard Franklin Norris to the Grace Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church congregation.

The letter begins the church's "145th Year Commemorative Journal." Bishop Norris and Mary Ann Norris wrote: 

"This critically important gather of your history is an important undertaking for your church and for our Zion as we continually remember the sacrifices and the contributions made by Richard Allen and other leaders in establishing our church. This is an incredible milestone, and one that the church can reflect back on thankfulness and gratefulness to God who has steered us over the years....You offer a strong witness for the African Methodist Episcopal Church far and near."

The Research Room has almost 100 vertical files about Beaufort District's "Churches", including one about Grace Chapel. We'll be happy to show any - or even all 2500+ of the BDC vertical files to you - by appointment.

 

The Library was closed for Presidents Day on February 15th. 

 

22 February 2021 -One of the major sources for African American military service records are pension records. Securing one for yourself or by your survivors can entail a great deal of paperwork - and documentary evidence. 

 

Thanks to the Heritage Library, we have copies of They Served: Stories of United States Colored Troops from Hilton Head Island, South Carolina compiled and edited by Nancy Burke, Patricia Burke, and Susie Marquis (2017). It includes transcriptions of pension files of Black soldiers who served during the Civil War. 

Among the men who sought pensions was Renty Miller. Miller had been a Black soldier who served in Company G, 21st Regiment, USCT from August 23, 1864 to April 25, 1866. Miller could read and write (albeit with some phonetic spelling like many others in the late 19th and early 20th centuries). He set up a side business as a scribe to other former soldiers on the island. He would write the Pension Commission Office on their behalf. However, in the letter dated August 16, 1916 shown in the image, Renty Miller asks about his own pension payment. 

 

Dear Pension Commission Sir

I have Rote this few line for to ask you when my increse will commence. I have see all of the boys that is belong to the Same Regmeant have reseaved their increase and I having get mine same I have Rote to you for to find out sumthing about it. Please to oblig me to give me answer. Yours truly, Renty Miller, Co. G 21 Regt.

 

The Pension Commission Office registered receipt of Miller's letter three days later. His pension was increased to $21.50 a few days after that on August 23, 1916. At the time of his death, his USCT pension was $50.00 per month. 

 

We have copies of They Served in the Research Room and more that can be checked out from the Local History sections at the Branch Libraries.

 

Other African-American related posts made on Facebook in honor of Black History Month 2021 were about Dr. Brent Morris's lecture on Reconstruction; an online webinar with Amy Murrell Taylor, author of Embattled Freedom, a recently donated religious revival flyer from 1963, Robert Smalls, Missionary Teachers to the Freedmen, other African-American related posts here in Connections, and Turner's seminal work on the Gullah language.  

 

I trust that you will agree that the BDC honored some of the many significant contributions of African Americans to Beaufort District's long and storied history this month. 

Reconstruction Era in the BDC Display Case

Those who have watched Dr. Morris' talk about "The Birth and Death of Reconstruction in South Carolina, 1861 - 1877" may have noticed that the BDC Display Case is part of the Research Room-as-recording-studio's set. Since the display case is in the Research Room and since access to the Research Room has been limited due to COVID-19 concerns, I am going to tell you more about the items in the case and why I selected these particular items to represent the many holdings that the BDC has about the people and events related to the history of the Reconstruction Era. 

On the top shelf is the official National Park Service's handbook to the Reconstruction Era, an image often used as an illustration when Reconstruction is discussed, an archaeology-related book, and one of Dr. Morris' monographs. 

I like the description given in the Library's catalog for the National Park Service's handbook: "The Reconstruction Era (1865-1877) is one of the most complicated, poorly understood, and yet most significant periods in American history. The federal government faced the enormous question of how to usher the states of the former Confederacy back into the United States of America. It was a pivotal period in Southern history in which four million African Americans, newly freed from bondage, sought to establish schools and communities and in which white Southerners faced the challenge of both wartime defeat and slavery's abolition."

Continuing on "Reconstruction's big questions--about democracy, race, war, and religion--give it lasting resonance in our own time. This book contains insightful essays written by noted scholars and historians." 

Because it sets up the theme of the display case so well, The Reconstruction Era is on the top shelf in the far left position. It helps that the cover catches one's attention. The handbook was posted online and free to access when the National Monument was first established, so I only acquired a printed copy for the permanent collection, i.e., the BDC. Looks like now that the online title has been removed, I shall have to consider purchasing copies for the Local History sections that can be checked out by Library customers.

The illustration pinned to the back wall above the first shelf of the display case has become something of a logo for the Reconstruction Era. The sketch was made by Alfred R. Waud for the Harper's Weekly newspaper July 25, 1868 issue that included an article about the Freedmen's Bureau. The tension between the white planters on the left side and the formerly enslaved Black people on the right side is palpable. In between the two hostile groups stalwartly stands a Freedmen's Bureau agent, representing the authority of the United States government. The Freedmen's Bureau was established in 1865 after Gen. W.T. Sherman issued Field Order No. 15 and became a foundation of the Reconstruction Era. The Library of Congress has a digital version of the original newspaper and allows anyone to download the image at no cost.  Our original sheet of the image is cataloged as SC PRINT 66.

Materiality of Freedom covers both the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras from the archaeological perspective of 22 scholars: "What can the objects uncovered during investigations on African-American sites tell us about the struggles for racial equality?" As it turns out, quite a lot. The BDC has the only copy of this title within the SCLENDS consortium so one would have to make a research appointment (843-255-6468 or bdc@bcgov.net) to enjoy this book. 

For display purposes, the visual presentation of the materials are a serious consideration. Among the many book credits of Dr. Morris is Yes, Lord, I Know the Road that covers almost 500 years' worth of African-American documentary history in the Palmetto State.  In this case, highlighting at least one of the presenter's many qualifications to speak as an authority on the topic of the day is bolstered by the graphics of the photograph chosen for the cover.  

Shelf 2 gets all sorts of "help" trying to capture the viewer's interest because I needed to include the ground-breaking but bland covered Reconstruction Era in Beaufort County Local Initiative for National Designation. I maintain that the movement to get Beaufort County named as the best place for the study and appreciation of the significance of the Reconstruction Era began with Dr. Page Putnam Miller's History 712 class and the Sea Islands Reconstruction Heritage Partnership's public forum funded in part by a SC Humanities Council grant at the University of South Carolina Beaufort in 2003. Dr. Miller's class and the USCB Forum occurred fourteen years before the declaration by President Obama of the Reconstruction Era National Monument in 2017. The red-white-and blue scarf is meant to draw the eye and enhance a microfilm box (boring) and complement the covers of the other two books on the shelf. 

On the back wall of shelf two is a printout of the landing page for the digital version of the New South newspaper (which we have on microfilm) and a sample front page of the Beaufort Republican, a weekly African-American newspaper published in the early 1870s. We have the microfilm and will keep the microfilm even though the Library of Congress includes this particular newspaper in its Chronicling America website. If you're interested in knowing about the local newspapers that we have on microfilm or that are online in whole or in part, contact us at 843-255-6468 or bdc@bcgov.net. I will be happy to provide you with details and links (when available).

South Carolina Scalawags concentrates on the 15% of white South Carolina residents who self-identified as Republicans during the Reconstruction Era. Historian Hyman Rubin III explores who they were, and their aspirations, disappointments, failings and successes during their time at the helm running the state's government from 1868 to 1876.  There are plenty of copies within the SCLENDS consortium for you to borrow. 

Capitol Men leads off with a chapter about Beaufort's own Robert Smalls. The goal of this short-listed Pulitzer Prize in History book by Philip Dray was to view Reconstruction from the perspective of the first Black Congressmen. And he does. There are plenty of copies in the local history sections at the Branch Libraries for you to borrow. 

Looking at the image I took of the whole case and of shelf 3 in particular, I think that I should have switched the location of Robert Smalls' quote and the microfilm boxes for better flow from shelf 2 to shelf 3.

Shelf 3 highlights Robert Smalls' critical role in fostering Reconstruction and his attempts to ameliorate the Redemptionists. Schooling the Freed People book and the three reels of Penn School Papers microfilm indicate his deep interest in education for all children. The Library has lots of copies of the 2005 documentary fim by Adrena Ifill and Sean Patrick Thomas about Congressman Robert Smalls : A Patriot's Journey from Slavery to Capitol Hill to share.

My race needs no special defense, for the past history of them in this country proves them to be the equal of any people anywhere. All they need is an equal chance in the battle of life.  -- Robert Smalls, November 1, 1895

After attending the "Reimagining Access : Inclusive Technology for Archives & Special Collections" webinar last night, I now know that I should have angled the quote with a support for easier reading too. 

I included the Great South Carolina Ku Klux Klan Trials, 1871-1873 by Lou Faulkner Williams as a solid contribution to the history and understanding of the Reconstruction Era in this state. Although the trials were held upstate for crimes committed upstate, the outcome reverberated throughout the lowcountry as the Fourth Federal Circuit Court became a forum for constitutional interpretation of the 14th Amendment and the Enforcement Acts. 

My other option to represent the KKK was the trial transcript. Unfortunately, the book cover offers very little visual appeal in a display case. The book cover is a dull brown with a title only on the book spine.The BDC holds the only printed copy of the Proceedings in the Ku Klux Trials at Columbia, S.C., in the United States Circuit Court, November term, 1871.  If you like to read trial proceedings, then by all means contact the BDC to set up an appointment.  

I try to put the fewest number of items on the bottom shelf since one has to lean down to "see" them. Disputes over the conduct and outcomes of elections seemed particularly timely in the last quarter of 2020 and early 2021 and we have some documents in the BDC  that address that topic during the Reconstruction Era. I chose to make surrogates of the first pages of two documents placed on red backgrounds on shelf 4 for that reason. The documents shown relate to disputes over the congressional election results in Beaufort County between Robert Smalls and William Elliott for the 50th Congress, 2nd Session and the Arrest and Imprisonment of Robert Smalls on debatable grounds a decade earlier. The BDC is the only SCLENDS library that holds copies of these congressional documents. 

The blue banner on the surrogates is the URL to the BDCBCL: Links, Lists, and Finding Aids blog on WordPress.There are at the time of this writing more than 20 lists and finding aids related to the Reconstruction Era on that blog. I will send you the list and active links to the people, places and events related to the Reconstruction Era as it unfolded here if you just ask bdc@bcgov.net or 843-255-6468. 

Last but not least is a copy of Forever Free : The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction by the dean of Reconstruction studies, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, Eric Foner. As the New York Times Review of Books wrote: "Foner traces the lines of race and politics that run from Reconstruction to the age of segregation to the civil rights movement to our own time.” The SCLENDS consortium has plenty of copies of this to share. 

Even if you choose not to come to make an appointment to review these items inside the Research Room, we do hope that you take one or more of the following actions to expand your awareness and understanding of this critical era of American history. 

1. Watch Dr. Morris' lecture brought to you by the BDC and the Beaufort County Historical Society before we take it down from the Library's YouTube Channel on February 25, 2021.

2. Borrow some of the items that one can check out from the Beaufort County Library or SCLENDS consortium.

3. Read a Hoopla Reconstruction Era related title as an e-book or audio-book.

4. Explore the BDC's WordPress blog for additional online information about how Reconstruction played out in this local area.

5. Explore other Reconstruction related posts in this Connections blog.

6. Visit the St. Helena Branch Library's Reconstruction Era reference collection to learn more about this critical era of American history. 

7. Walk by the National Park Service's headquarters next door to the Beaufort Branch Library and read the markers on that property.   

8. Explore the Reconstruction Era National Historical Park's website.

"Presidents" in the Research Room Obituary Files

One of the main tasks my assistants handle is routine requests for published obituaries from the local newspapers of the past. To give my new assistant, Lori, some experience with the quirks of searching the contents of the Online Obituary Index file (OOI) and since the Presidents Day holiday is coming up soon, I asked her to see how many people in our OOI happened to have the names of former Presidents of the United States (POTUSes). I figured that since the United States has had 46 Presidencies so far, and some had fairly common surnames, surely some "Presidents" would show up in OOI ... and they did!

Our obituary files happen to contain no less than  6 people with the first and middle names "George Washington" and 5 others with the first name George followed by the surname Washington. The OOI also has 2 men named "John Adams", a "Thomas Jefferson", a "William Henry Harrison", an "Andrew Jackson Johnson", a "Benjamin Harrison", a "William McKinley", 3 men named "George Bush" and one "Franklin D. Roosevelt." 

George Washington POTUS #1 was such a popular figure that many male children have since been named in his honor. Three of the George Washingtons in the OOI met untimely deaths. One was murdered (Palmetto Post, November 16, 1882); one was smothered (Palmetto Post, January 17, 1895); and one died in a car crash.  

A George Washington was murdered by Jordan Snelling in Early Branch in Hampton County in 1882. The George Washington who was smothered was an African American deacon of Pilgrim Baptist Church who died in a cave-in at Weir's Pond despite the efforts of Drs. Stuart and Ellis to save him on Saturday, January 12, 1895. George Washington, Jr. was killed in a two-car accident on Highway 21 in July 1967. The cause of death for George Norris Washington in 1963 is not given in his obituary. George Washington, Sr. [but not apparently the father of the George Washington, Jr. killed in the car crash just mentioned] died of natural causes. That George Washington, Sr. was a Navy veteran, was on the USS Enterprise when Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese, had served as chief steward to Admiral Bull Halsey during World War II, was a boxing Pacific Fleet All Navies champion and served during the Korean Conflict. When he returned home to Walterboro, he took up farming and was known to lay a brick or two when called upon to help his neighbors.

POTUS #2 was John Adams. Capt. John Adams formerly in charge of the tug Bristol was "a whole-souled man" who relocated from Brooklyn, NY to pursue successful business interests in the lowcountry. His son, Howard J. Adams was a "popular tobacco drummer, who is so well known here." (Palmetto Post, February 16, 1905).

John F. Adams, aged 61, became "Another Old Soldier Gone" in 1903. His Palmetto Post obituary waxes poetic and mythic about Confederate soldiers "whose life blood stained the soil of their beloved Southland, and yielded up their lives in the extremity of human agony, torn by grape and canister or slashed by the sabre of a powerful and relentless foe. How many such heroes found a nameless grave far from home and kindred?" so in one way Adams was lucky. His body was laid to rest in the consecrated grounds of the Parish Church of St. Helena. 

POTUS #3 was Thomas Jefferson. The Thomas Jefferson in our obituary files seems to have been brought back home to be buried among his forebears. This Thomas Jefferson lived in East Jacksonville, Florida but his funeral services were held at Second Celestial Baptist Church in Dale and his remains were laid to rest in Mt. Carmel Cemetery.

I think that we're on pretty solid ground that Capt. William Henry Harrison was not named for POTUS #9. Our Capt. Harrison was born in 1825 in England well before President Harrison became the shortest-serving President with a tenure of only 31 days in 1841. Captain Harrison was "highly respected...[as] a hard-working and industrious man, and accumulated a handsome property, but, from an accident some years ago, he was invalided, and some four years ago had a stroke of paralysis, from which he never recovered, but was affectionately cared for by a loving daughter and other relatives where he removed." His body lies in the Historic Church of St. Peter's cemetery on Carteret Street. 

One of the "presidents" mentioned in our obituary files actually does double duty: "Andrew Jackson Johnson" could be named after "Andrew Jackson" POTUS #7  and/or "Andrew Johnson" POTUS #17 or neither. It just might be that Andrew and Jackson were chosen by his parents at random or he could have been named after other relatives or neighbors. There is no way to tell based on the content of his obituary. At the time of his death in 1975, former Beaufort resident and salesman A.J. Johnson was living in Waycross, GA. His funeral and burial were also held in Waycross. None of his survivors were listed as residing in Beaufort. 

POTUS #23 was Benjamin Harrison. He was a grandson of POTUS #9 and great-grandson of the Benjamin Harrison who signed the Declaration of Independence for the colony of Virginia. We have an obituary card for Benjamin Pinner Harrison, Bluffton Town Councilman and Bluffton Methodist Church steward, who died February 6, 1951. Whether or not he was named for the former President cannot be determined. 

There is a rather curious obituary for "The body of a man variously identified as William McKinley [POTUS #25], William Taylor and McKinley Taylor." The corpse "was found yesterday (Thursday) morning in a ditch behind Bishop's Store near Frogmore. Coroner Roger Pinckney said that he investigated, upon learning of the incident, and found the body still warm but that his efforts at artificial respiration were in vain. The man was said to have been about 40 years of age and to have been suffering with several chronic physical ailments."  His obituary was published in the Beaufort Gazette on December 28, 1951. 

The only real POTUS represented in our Online Obituary Index files turned out to be Franklin Delano Roosevelt, POTUS #32. 

The Beaufort Times described how "Beaufort Joins World in Mourning Roosevelt" on April 19, 1945 while the next day the Beaufort Gazette recounted how "Beaufort Mourns Roosevelt's Loss." The Gazette carried the text of Beaufort Mayor J.E. Gill's a proclamation: "As a mark of respect to the late President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, all stores, business places and establishments of every kind are requested to close at four o'clock p.m., on Saturday, April 14, 1945, and remain closed until five o'clock p.m., while funeral services [at Hyde Park, NY, at FDR's family estate] are being held." Both newspapers mentioned flags at half-mast, business closures and the church services though the Times coverage was less specific. The Gazette noted that special memorial services were held in the Beaufort city schools on Friday and the Episcopal, Methodist and Baptist Churches held brief memorial services on Saturday at which "Prayers were offered for the future security of the country."

POTUS #41 was George Herbert Walker Bush and his son, George W. Bush was POTUS #43. When Lori searched on "George Bush" she got 8 hits in the Online Obituary Index but some of the notices turned out to be for the same individual. The text of the obituaries showed me that the George Bush whose death notice was published in the Beaufort Gazette and Island Packet issues of January 7, 2007 was the same man as the George Bush, IV known about Bluffton as "Georgie Boy". The Beaufort Gazette and Island Packet issues of January 9, 2007 gave more biographical information and funeral arrangements for GB IV who worked with Graves Construction Company for 40 years and "spent all of his life in Bluffton." It is not uncommon in the 1980 - 2010 period for there to be a death notice in the immediate days after the decedent's passing and a longer published obituary to appear in later issues of the newspaper within a week or two. This pattern is quite often observed, particularly in the Black community.

I wanted to write something about the various POTUSes and about the breath and scope of the BDC's obituaries files that would be fun for me to compose and entertaining but informative for you to read. Lori says that she got plenty of practice searching the OOI; I know that I had fun putting this post together. All that remains is some feedback from you, Dear Reader. Please let me know if you enjoyed reading this and in the process happened to learn something about the depth and scope of this unique resource created by the good services of the late Virginia Adams, Jan Johnson, Merle Hoagland, Laura Lewis, and Nelson Brown. A new volunteer, Kathy Mitchell, is in training to continue building on the work that these former BDC volunteers have done in compiling the 25,000+ names in this index.  

Heads up: All units of the Beaufort County Library will be closed on Monday, February 15, 2021 for Presidents Day. Regular hours resume Tuesday, February 16.

To make sure that you can get a Research appointment the week of February 16 - February 19, please make those arrangements with me gracec@bcgov.net or 843-255-6446 no later than Noon on Friday, February 12, 2021.  

Patriotic Top hat is courtesy of Pixy.org. The other images belong to the Beaufort County Library.

Related Posts: If you'd like to know more about the Presidents who have visited Beaufort District, Beaufort County, Hampton County or Jasper County since 1789, I wrote about several of them for a Presidents Day post in Connections last year. More recently, I went into detail about former President U.S. Grant's visit to Beaufort in 1880.