Showing posts with label Black History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Black History. Show all posts

Saturday, February 17, 2024

Lucy Ella Gonzales Parsons: A Force in the Fight for a Better World.

On March 7, 1942, fire engulfed the simple home of 91-year-old Lucy Gonzales Parsons at 3130 North Troy Street. It ended a life dedicated to liberating working women and men of the world from capitalism and racial oppression. 
Lucy Parsons, 1886.
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George Markstall, second husband of Lucy Parsons, blind anarchist whose first husband was hanged for his part in the Haymarket riot of 1886, died last night in Belmont Hospital of burns suffered in the same that took Mrs. Parsons' life Saturday. She was burned to death in the flat they occupied at 3130 North Troy Street. Markstall, 72 years old, tried unsuccessfully to save Mrs. Parsons from the burning building. Firemen Found him overcome in a bedroom. Mrs. Parsons, 91 years old, was found dead in the kitchen.
                                                            Source:  Chicago Tribune, Monday, March 09, 1942, pg 16.

A dynamic, militant, self-educated public speaker and writer, she became the first American negro woman to carry her crusade for socialism across the country and overseas. Lucy Ella Gonzales was born in Texas in 1851 (the year is questionable) of African-American, Mexican and Native-American ancestry and was born into slavery. The path she chose after emancipation led to conflict with the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), hard work, painful personal losses, and many nights in jail. 
Albert Parsons
In Albert Parsons, a white man whose Waco Spectator fought the KKK and demanded social and political equality for Negroes, she found a handsome, committed soul mate. The white supremacy forces in Texas considered the couple dangerous and their marriage illegal, and soon drove them from the state.

Arriving In Chicago
Lucy and Albert reached Chicago, where they began a family and threw themselves into two new militant movements, one to build strong industrial unions and the other to agitate for socialism. Lucy concentrated on organizing working women, and Albert became a famous radical organizer and speaker, one of the few important union leaders in Chicago who was not an immigrant.

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The late labor history scholar Bill Adelman wrote what is the definitive story of Haymarket. A paragraph from his description indicates the significance of the event and the horrors that all involved endured:

"The next day, martial law was declared in Chicago and throughout the nation. Anti-labor governments around the world used the Chicago incident to crush local union movements. In Chicago, labor leaders were rounded up, houses were entered without search warrants, and union newspapers were closed down. Eventually, eight men, representing a cross-section of the labor movement, were selected to be tried. Among them were (Albert) Parsons and a young carpenter named Louis Lingg, who was accused of throwing the bomb. Lingg had witnesses to prove he was over a mile away at the time. The two-month-long trial ranks as one of the most notorious in American history. The Chicago Tribune even offered to pay money to the jury if it found the eight men guilty."

In 1886, the couple and their two children stepped onto Michigan Avenue to lead 80,000 working people in the world's first May Day parade and a demand for the eight-hour workday. A new international holiday was born as more than 100,000 marched in other U.S. cities. By then, Chicago's wealthy industrial and banking elite had targeted Albert and other radical figures for elimination — to decapitate the growing union movement. A protest rally called by Albert a few days after May Day became known as the Haymarket Riot when seven Chicago policemen died in a bomb blast. No evidence has ever been found pointing to those who made or detonated the bomb, but Parsons and seven immigrant union leaders were arrested. As the corporate media whipped up patriotic and law-and-order fervor, a rigged legal system rushed the eight to convictions and death sentences.

When Lucy led the campaign to win a new trial, one Chicago official called her "more dangerous than a thousand rioters." 

Albert Parsons was framed and tried for the Haymarket bombing, which is generally attributed to a police provocateur. Parsons wasn't even present at Haymarket but cared for the couple's two children while Lucy Parsons was organizing a meeting of garment workers. After the Haymarket legal conspiracy, Lucy led the campaign to free her husband. Parson was one of eight who were convicted and one of four hanged on November 11, 1887. 

When Albert and three other comrades were executed, and four others were sentenced to prison, the movement for industrial unions and the eight-hour day was beheaded. Lucy, far from discouraged, accelerated her actions. Though she had lost Albert — and two years later lost her young daughter to illness — Lucy continued her crusade against capitalism and war and exonerated "the Haymarket Martyrs." She led poor women into affluent neighborhoods "to confront the rich on their doorsteps," challenged politicians at public meetings, marched on picket lines, and continued to address and write political tracts for workers' groups far beyond Chicago.
Lucy Parsons
Though Lucy had justified direct action against those who used violence against workers, in 1905, she suggested a very different strategy. She was one of only two women delegates (the other was Mother Jones) among the 200 men at the founding convention of the militant Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the only woman to speak. First, she advocated a measure close to her heart when she called women "the slaves of slaves" and urged IWW delegates to fight for equality and assess underpaid women's lower union fees.

In a longer speech, she called for nonviolence that would have broad meaning for the world's protest movements. She told delegates workers shouldn't "strike and go out and starve, but to strike and remain in and take possession of the necessary property of production." A year later, Mahatma Gandhi, speaking to fellow Indians at the Johannesburg Empire Theater, advocated nonviolence to fight colonialism. However, he was still 25 years away from leading fellow Indians in nonviolent marches against India's British rulers. 

She led many demonstrations of the unemployed, homeless and hungry, including a memorable 1915 Poor People's March of the Unemployed of over 15,000 people in Chicago on January 17, 1915, where "Solidarity Forever" was sung for the first time. WWI songwriter Ralph Chaplin had finished writing "Solidarity Forever" two days prior. Marchers demanded relief from hunger and high levels of unemployment.

The demonstration also persuaded the American Federation of Labor, the Jane Addams' Hull House, and the Socialist Party to participate in a subsequent massive demonstration on February 12, 1915.

Eventually, Lucy Parsons' principle traveled to the U.S. sit-down strikers of the 1930s, Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the antiwar movements that followed, and finally to today's Arab Spring and the Occupy movements.

Lucy was an unrelenting agitator, leading picket lines and speaking to workers' audiences in the United States before trade union meetings in England. In February 1941, poor and living on a pension for the blind, the Farm Equipment Workers Union asked Lucy Parsons to give an inspirational speech to its workers, and a few months later, she rode as the guest of honor on its May Day parade float. 
Lucy Parsons
For years, Lucy Parsons was harassed by the Chicago Police Department, who often arrested her on phony charges to prevent her from speaking at mass meetings. Following her death in a suspicious fire at her home, the police and FBI confiscated all her personal papers and writings. Federal and local lawmen arrived at the gutted Parsons home to make sure her legacy died with her. They poked through the wreckage, confiscated her vast library and personal writings, and never returned them. 

Lucy Parsons' determined effort to elevate and inspire the oppressed to take command remained alive among those who knew, heard, and loved her. But few today are aware of her insights, courage, and tenacity. Despite her fertile mind, writing and oratorical skills, and striking beauty, Lucy Parsons has not found a place in school texts, social studies curricula, or Hollywood movies. Yet she has earned a prominent place in the long fight for a better life for working people, women, people of color, her country, and her world.

Her fighting spirit and contributions to improving this world will not be forgotten via the exposed history.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Tuesday, June 27, 2023

Al Capone, a big fan of jazz music, gave many now-famous jazz musicians their start in Chicago.

Louis Armstrong


Al Capone supported jazz musicians. Capone was a big fan of jazz music, and he helped to promote and support Negro jazz musicians in Chicago. 

During the Prohibition Era (1920-1933), alcohol was banned in the United States. It's claimed that Al Capone owned, in whole or part, a few hundred speakeasies in Chicago. His love for live jazz music played in speakeasies to attract more patrons. The performances saved jazz musicians from poverty and provided musicians with a steady income and stable living conditions, helping them focus on their music and promoting the development of jazz music. This also explained why the Jazz Age overlapped with the Prohibition Era.

Between 1923 and World War II, Chicago was the jazz capital of the world thanks to the Great Migration, which brought thousands of Negroes from the Deep South to Chicago's South Side. More than 70 nightclubs, ballrooms, and theatre halls lined the Douglas Community's Bronzeville Neighborhood streets, particularly along a stretch of State Street known as "The Stroll" from 31st to 39th Streets.
The Sunset Café315 East 35th Street, Chicago, Illinois.
Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Count Basie, Earl Hines, Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Waller, Billie Holiday, King Oliver and his Creole Jazz Band, and Nat King Cole all came of age in clubs owned and controlled by Al Capone. Sadly, "The Stroll" was demolished after World War II.

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The Sunset Café is highly recognized in the earliest forms of U.S. jazz history.

The Sunset Café held significant value to the infamous Al Capone. Joe Glaser's mother was the original owner of the building until her passing. She leased the building to Edward Fox and Sam Rifas, who were direct employees of Al Capone. After Louis Armstrong and Joe Glaser left for New York, Edward Fox became the sole manager of the Café and the band under the leadership of Earl Hines. Since the Café was located within the Chicago Outfit properties, that connection allowed the Sunset Café to remain open during the Great Depression, unlike many other jazz clubs.

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Joe E. Lewis, comedian, actor and singer, was attacked by Al Capone lieutenant, "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn's men in 1927 after he refused to take his act to the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge, 4802 North Broadway, which Capone partly owned.


Lewis was assaulted in his 10th-floor Commonwealth Hotel room, on November 8, 1927, by three enforcers sent by McGurn. The enforcers, including Sam Giancana and Leonard "Needles" Gianola, mutilated Lewis by cutting his throat and tongue and leaving him for dead. Capone was fond of Lewis and was upset with the assault but would not take action against one of his top lieutenants. Instead, he provided Lewis with $10,000 ($175,000 today) to aid his recovery and eventually resumed his career.

Later renamed the Grand Terrace Café when Al Capone bought a 25% stake, this "black-and-tan" (integrated) jazz club was one of the most essential venues in music history. It's where Earl "Fatha" Hines and Louis Armstrong made a name for themselves playing duets in the mid-20s. A few years later, it's where Cab Calloway and Nat King Cole landed some of their first professional gigs alongside legends like Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Sarah Vaughan, and even Benny Goodman.

When the Grand Terrace Café opened in place of the Sunset Café, pianist Earl Hines took up the mantle of bandleader. Ed Fox managed both Hines and the club. During Hines' time at the Grand Terrace, the band was broadcast nationally every weekend for an hour on WMAQ and another hour on WNEP. 

The Grand Terrace Café closed in 1940, and the building served as the district office of Congressman William L. Dawson for many years. Glaser sold the building to Meyers' father, Henry, in 1962, who then opened Meyers Ace Hardware.

Capone's support helped to make jazz music a mainstream art form.

A Chicago branch of New York City's Cotton Club was run by Al's brother Ralph "Bottles" Capone.

As a result of Capone's support, jazz music flourished during the Prohibition era, making jazz music a mainstream art form.

It is important to note that Capone's support of jazz musicians was not entirely altruistic. He saw jazz music as a way to make money and gain influence. However, his support positively impacted the development of jazz music, and he is credited with helping to make it one of the world's most popular genres of music.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

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June 28, 2023, 10:12 AM CT.

Thank you, Neil, for unequivocally portraying Al Capone the way he was. It is an excellent article. There was a reason that my family was so good to the opposition.
Your Friend,                                             
Deirdre Marie Capone 

Sunday, June 25, 2023

Abraham Lincoln and the Recruitment of Negro Soldiers.


In historical writing and analysis, PRESENTISM introduces present-day ideas and perspectives into depictions or interpretations of the past. Presentism is a form of cultural bias that creates a distorted understanding of the subject matter. Reading modern notions of morality into the past is committing the error of presentism. Historical accounts are written by people and can be slanted, so I try my hardest to present fact-based and well-researched articles.

Facts don't require one's approval or acceptance.

I present [PG-13] articles without regard to race, color, political party, or religious beliefs, including Atheism, national origin, citizenship status, gender, LGBTQ+ status, disability, military status, or educational level. What I present are facts — NOT Alternative Facts — about the subject. You won't find articles or readers' comments that spread rumors, lies, hateful statements, and people instigating arguments or fights.

FOR HISTORICAL CLARITY
When I write about the INDIGENOUS PEOPLE, I follow this historical terminology:
  • The use of old commonly used terms, disrespectful today, i.e., REDMAN or REDMEN, SAVAGES, and HALF-BREED are explained in this article.
Writing about AFRICAN-AMERICAN history, I follow these race terms:
  • "NEGRO" was the term used until the mid-1960s.
  • "BLACK" started being used in the mid-1960s.
  • "AFRICAN-AMERICAN" [Afro-American] began usage in the late 1980s.

— PLEASE PRACTICE HISTORICISM 
THE INTERPRETATION OF THE PAST IN ITS OWN CONTEXT.
 


For all the volumes written about Abraham Lincoln and the eloquent words spoken by Lincoln himself—for all the polls that mark him as a great man, a national, even international, hero—the Civil War President remains something of an enigma. Our continuation of the "Lincoln and" tradition today suggests our preoccupation with his views on significant issues. Given a corollary (proposition) interest in the topic of race in American history, it is not surprising that Lincoln's place in that central theme remains a subject of debate. The revolutionary developments of the post-World War II period in the area of what is broadly termed "civil rights" have led to a reevaluation of Lincoln—from the great emancipator to the reluctant emancipator to the white supremacist, or Lincoln as just another "whitey."
A one-of-a-kind ferrotype (tintype) photograph of President-elect Abraham Lincoln.



Historians, ordinarily a judicious lot, are as involved in the reevaluation as those with more obvious ideological interests. But historians should have a greater appreciation of context. Hence, to wrench Lincoln from context, from the backdrop of his times, from the exigencies of policy, the fortunes of war, and the historical record is not a path calculated for arrival at something approximating historical truth. In our relativistic age, it is too much to expect fidelity to the record; perhaps Lincoln should remain more symbol than historical reality. The record may be discomfiting; it often is.

Abraham Lincoln was born into a political culture that was profoundly racist (to use a somewhat anachronistic term). For centuries, Europeans, whether living on the continent, in the United States, or elsewhere, had deemed the Africans a race apart, one that was in no guise the equal of the Europeans. It was a combination of that racism with economic considerations that made the enslavement of Africans fundamentally different from the slavery of other places and at other times. Practically speaking, nothing in Lincoln's formative years would lead us to expect him to be other than a man of his culture.

The laws of Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois—in common with those of other political jurisdictions within the United States—held the African to be less than a citizen, less than a person.

Yet Lincoln imbibed other influences—the idea of political democracy (however limited), the concept of social mobility (however restricted), and the idea of economic improvement (however problematical). Lincoln believed the words of the Declaration of Independence; he thought that a person should not be constrained by circumstances of birth, and he embraced the Whig notions of economic growth. As an individual, he was, from all reports, singularly free from bigotry—against individuals and groups.

As much as any public man of his day, he advocated the most expansive sharing of the American dream. His re-entry into national politics in the wake of the exacerbated sectional conflict of the 1850s was predicated upon the ideas that slavery was evil and that, in certain instances, racial bigotry was unworthy of a great nation. That his political fortunes, and those of his party, were tied to the geographical restriction of slavery set him and his party apart from his political opponents. He could have been seen as radical in 1858 or 1860 (and 1948 or 1960).

The threat to slavery perceived by Lincoln's election in 1860 precipitated a train of events that culminated in the civil war. That war, whatever else it may have been, or whatever else we may wish it had been, was a titanic military struggle fraught with profound political and social consequences. Lincoln, as he remarked in his Second Inaugural Address, did not anticipate, nor did other Americans anticipate, those consequences any more than they anticipated the full horrors of that terrible conflict. Lincoln expected a relatively short war once the apparently overwhelming resources of the Union could be brought to bear against the Confederacy. Thus, the ancient prejudices of his country might have survived the war intact had the war ended with a Union victory in the first year or so. But that was not the case. Lincoln necessarily had to accept and then defend policies that arose from circumstances that forced a reconsideration of the place of Africans in the United States.

The American political and military establishment decreed in 1861 that white men would fight the war. Lincoln concurred. The Congress enacted in July 1861 that the war would be fought for the Union—not for conquest or the abolition of slavery. Lincoln concurred. When his generals and Cabinet officials moved beyond the President's plan, Lincoln overruled them. When Negro leaders asked that regiments of Negro soldiers be enrolled under the flag of freedom, Lincoln and his advisors refused. In stations high and low, many northerners seemed to fear a rebellion of slaves more than they feared a rebellion of slaveowners. Had northern arms prevailed in 1861 or early 1862, slavery might have remained status quo ante bellum.

The political attack on slavery was embodied in a series of laws termed the Confiscation Acts. Under the provisions of those laws, Lincoln could have enrolled Negro men as laborers and support elements for the armies in the field. Lincoln chose instead not to invoke those aspects of the Acts. A primary reason was his concern for the border states, especially Kentucky. Lincoln believed that wholesale emancipation or the enlistment of Negro soldiers would cause Kentucky, and probably Missouri and Maryland, to become even greater obstacles to the Union cause—to say nothing of antagonism elsewhere in the North. In the case of Kentucky, he was correct. Holding that state in the Union necessitated either overwhelming military force or some deference to the wishes of its white population. Lincoln's policy reflected a combination of both. Eventually, more Negro men entered the Army from Kentucky than from any other state except Louisiana. And the reaction of the white population in Kentucky was as hostile as had been predicted. But by 1863, the adverse reaction in Kentucky was considerably less consequential than in 1861 or 1862. 

For practical political reasons, Lincoln did not openly lead the movement toward the enlistment of Negroes. Before 1863, long before he expressed enthusiasm for the idea, he allowed others to take the first steps; he remained silent, overruled them, or caused them to be overruled. He was always sensitive to political considerations and his office's prerequisites and powers. Timing, the right moment, was critical—and Lincoln always deemed himself a better judge of the moment than those who advised him, formally or informally.

On September 25, 1861, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles allowed the recruitment of Negroes into the Navy, but only with the rank of "boy" and at a compensation of no more than $10.00 per month. The step caused little comment, perhaps because "boys" on ships were not expected to shoot Rebels or to function as part of the military establishment. 

Simon Cameron, Secretary of War, was less subtle. On October 14, 1861, he authorized Brigadier General Thomas W. Sherman to hire Negro fugitives for service in South Carolina, although he disclaimed any intent to arm them as soldiers. Lincoln seemed amenable to the idea of Negroes as "auxiliaries." But the plan failed because General Sherman apparently neither wished to use Negroes nor wanted to offend the sensibilities of white South Carolinians unduly. In December, Cameron took a more direct step. In his annual report, he openly advocated the employment of slaves as soldiers. More importantly, he allowed the report to be copied and distributed before giving it to Lincoln. The President disavowed the offensive portions of the report and ordered them deleted from his annual message to Congress. Because of that misstep and because he was a general embarrassment to the administration, Cameron was removed from the Cabinet and named minister to Russia. 

During the first half of 1862, Congress moved towards bringing Negroes into the Army—March, rendition of slaves by military forbidden; April, abolition of slavery in D.C.; July, Second Confiscation Act and Militia Act. In April and May, the new Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, encouraged (at least implicitly) the arming of Negroes in South Carolina. The situation there caused a great stir because the general in command, David Hunter, proved to be politically inept and hence a political liability. He managed to offend many officers and men in the white regiments and two congressmen of a border state, Kentucky. When those congressmen demanded explanations of what was transpiring in South Carolina, Stanton retreated into his bureaucratic defenses. Still, he did ask General Hunter for a report, which he forwarded to Congress. Hunter's report was entertaining to some Republicans (referring to "fugitive rebels") and to the border state congressmen—insulting.

During the summer of 1862, Lincoln evinced no inclination to support Hunter, to implement the provisions of the Second Confiscation Act liberating the slaves of Rebels, or to employ Negroes other than as laborers. He stated his views to the Cabinet in late July, and on August 6, he told a delegation of "Western gentlemen" that he would not arm Negroes "unless some new and more pressing emergency arises." He said such would turn "50,000 bayonets" in the border states against the Union. Steps short of actually arming Negroes would be continued—upon this, he and his critics did not differ. And in the same context, on August 22, he wrote his famous reply to Horace Greeley's "Prayer of Twenty Million": as President, he would save the Union; all else would be subordinate to that goal.

On August 10, the disheartened (if not chastened) General Hunter reported to Stanton that he was disbanding his regiment of South Carolina volunteers. But as the curtain fell on Hunter, Stanton on August 25, authorized Brigadier General Rufus Saxton at Beaufort, South Carolina, to "arm, uniform, equip, and receive into the service of the United States such number of volunteers of African descent as you may deem expedient, not exceeding 5,000." Why the reversal? Why had Stanton authorized Saxton to do what had been denied, Hunter? A comment by Lieutenant Charles Francis Adams, Jr., may be pertinent.
Regarding Hunter, "Why could not fanatics be silent and let Providence work for a while?" (And if not Providence, at least the President.) In short, had Hunter managed to be more politic concerning his fellow officers and the Congress, had he been able to restrain his rhetorical flourishes, he may not have run afoul of the critics of his policy, to say nothing of the President. The fact was, Negroes were now to be brought into the service, not by a general acting more or less on his own authority, but by order of the War Department— and the President.

In other corners of the conflict, namely Louisiana and Kansas, other generals enlisted Negroes. In New Orleans, for example, Benjamin F. Butler had negated earlier enlisting efforts but now, encouraged by Secretary of the Treasury Chase (and Mrs. Butler), called for free Negroes to enter the service. By mid-fall, three such regiments were formed in Louisiana. On August 5, 1862, the redoubtable abolitionist James H. Lane in Kansas wired Stanton that he was raising black and white units, and was there any objection? Stanton wrote Lane on August 22 and again on September 23 that such action was without the authority of President Lane and never received authorization. Still, he continued enrolling Negro soldiers in the Union. Benjamin Quarles has termed such enrollments "trial balloons," which Lincoln allowed to float when no one of consequence tried to pop. 

Of course, Lincoln discussed another matter with his Cabinet in the summer of 1862—namely, emancipation. In his "preliminary" proclamation of September 22, 1862, Lincoln did not mention Negro soldiers. In October, however, he presumably talked to one Daniel Ullmann of New York, who urged that very course. After hearing Ullmann's argument, Lincoln asked: "Would you be willing to command Negro soldiers?" Although stunned by the question, Ullmann replied in the affirmative. Given the late summer and early fall events in South Carolina, Louisiana, and Kansas, Lincoln seemed to be evolving a plan—perhaps Ullmann would pilot another of those trial balloons.

The Emancipation Proclamation, issued on January 1, 1863, called for the enrollment of Negroes in the Union Army and Navy. It was contained in an almost offhand passage—entirely in keeping with Lincoln's tendency to hint, approach indirectly, and finally, defend the stated policy. Yet the proclamation was fundamental. It was a war message, a political document. The government of the United States, through the Office of the President, was now unequivocally on the side of emancipation and of bringing Negro men into the Army of the Republic.

Over the next several months, the new policy was put into effect. Ullmann appointed a brigadier general of volunteers and was explicitly charged with raising four regiments of volunteers in Louisiana (where he found public opinion far from supportive). Colonel James Montgomery of Kansas was authorized to raise a Negro regiment in South Carolina, and the governors of Massachusetts and Rhode Island were given similar authorization. Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew, in fact, raised most of his Negro troops from the southern states. 

The primary organizing effort was placed in the hands of Lorenzo Thomas, adjutant general of the Army. His order of March 25 from Secretary Stanton was to proceed to the Mississippi Valley to enlist Negro troops and find white officers and enlisted men who would take commissions in Negro regiments. Thomas was an effective recruiter, stressing that he spoke with the full authority of the President, the Secretary of War, and the General-in-Chief. Henry W. Halleck (notorious for his General Order No. 3 in 1861) had fallen in line with administration policy and was now telling other Mississippi Valley officers to do the same. Of particular interest was the reaction of Ulysses S. Grant, who, early in the war, had no more sympathy for emancipation than did many other regulars. Yet Grant was undoubtedly a man to follow orders from Washington. Indeed, he had already made provision for organizing "contrabands" into a workforce. According to John Eaton, Jr., in charge of the contrabands, Grant believed that if the occasion arose, the fugitives could carry rifles instead of hoes, rakes, and shovels.

Halleck's advice to Grant, in a friendly, somewhat patronizing letter, was a compelling statement of administration policy. "From my position here, where I can survey the whole field, perhaps I may be better able to understand the tone of public opinion and the intentions of the Government." Grant then assured Halleck (and later the President) that he would support the policy even to the extent of ordering subordinate officers to actively " remove prejudice" against Negroes. Thomas's mission, after all, went beyond recruiting Negro men into the ranks. As Dudley Cornish has stated: "Rather was his task that of initiating Union policy on a grand scale, of breaking down white opposition to the use of Negro soldiers, of educating Union troops in the valley on this one subject, of starting the work of the organization," and then leaving others to finish the work of recruiting and training. Lincoln approved of Thomas's work, telling Stanton that Thomas was "one of the best (if not the best) instruments for this service." Perhaps Lincoln had been right after all. It was best to bring the general public along, then put the task in the hands of the professional soldiers who, without ideological biases, placed great stock in order, system, and hierarchy. The road to favor with the administration was not in embarrassing the President but inefficiently following his policy once that policy was clearly enunciated.

On Independence Day, 1863, Vicksburg surrendered; the "Father of Waters" again flowed "unvexed to the sea." Thanks were given to not only the Great Northwest but also New England, and the "Sunny South, too, in more colors than one."

In early August, Lincoln wrote to Grant, congratulating him upon his magnificent military achievement but also noting: "Gen. Thomas has gone again to the Mississippi Valley, with the view of raising colored troops. I have no reason to doubt that you are doing what you reasonably can on the same subject. I believe it is a resource that will soon close this contest if vigorously applied now. It works doubly, weakening the enemy and strengthening us. We were not fully ripe for it until the river was opened." On August 26, Lincoln wrote to a political friend in Illinois that some of his field commanders "who have given us our most important successes believe the emancipation policy, and the use of colored troops, constitute the heaviest blow yet dealt to the rebellion; and that, at least one of those important successes, could not have been achieved when it was, but for the aid of Negro soldiers." He could have recited the practical, some might say cynical, reasons given for bringing Negroes into the Army—saving the lives of white soldiers. Yet, said Lincoln, "Negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why should they do anything for us if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive—even the promise of freedom. And the promise being made must be kept." One day peace would come. "And then, there will be some Negro men who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation; while I fear, there will be some white ones, unable to forget that, with malignant heart, and deceitful speech, they have strove to hinder it.

The force of the effort for recruiting Negroes lay in the deep South and in the Northeast. Lincoln still had no wish to press the issue in the border states. And his caution was well founded, although he did authorize (through Stanton) recruiting in Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri.

Kentuckians were particularly resentful. When Ambrose Burnside suggested in June 1863 that the administration disavow any intention to conscript free Negroes in Kentucky, Lincoln concurred that the effort would cost more than it would gain. In January 1864, however, the War Department established a recruiting post in Paducah. Kentucky Governor Thomas E. Bramlette traveled to Washington and protested directly to Lincoln. The President explained that he had come to his policy of emancipation and arming Negroes after prudent delay—early in the war, it was not an "indispensable necessity." He changed his mind when he knew he had to choose between "surrendering the Union, and with it, the Constitution, or laying strong hand upon the colored element." He had not been certain at that time that he had made the right decision, but after a year's experience, he was convinced of it. "We have the men [130,000], and we could not have had them without the measure. And now let any Union man who complains of the measure test himself by writing down in one line that he is for subduing the rebellion by force of arms; and in the next, that he is for taking these hundred and thirty thousand men from the Union side, and placing them where they would be but for the measure he condemns. If he can not face his case so stated, it is only because he can not face the truth." That letter contained Lincoln's memorable line, "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me." Lincoln meant for the letter to be circulated among the white population of Kentucky. Although his correspondents expressed satisfaction with it, Kentuckians, in general, resented recruitment of Negroes more intensely than did people of any other state. But Lincoln knew, and he made the point repeatedly from mid-1863 to the end of the war; without the Negro soldiers, there would be no Union.

Frederick Douglass said so well in 1876:
His great mission was to accomplish two things: first, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin; and second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or the other, or both, he needed the earnest sympathy and the powerful cooperation of his loyal fellow-countrymen. Without those primary and essential conditions to success his efforts would have been utterly fruitless. Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible. From the genuine abolition view, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent, but measuring him by the sentiment of his country—a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult—he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined

The enlistment of Negroes into the Union Army was part of Lincoln's evolving policy on slavery and race, a policy charged with political, social, and psychological overtones. The Negro man as a soldier—with rifle and bayonet—was a different figure from the slave. His presence, while a military necessity, was also a potent blow to the idea of the innate inferiority of the Africans, a view not peculiar to the South. Those who urged the enlistment of Negroes realized its implications. Some political figures saw it as a necessity, calculated to outrage the South. Negro leaders saw it from a different perspective. Not only would the enlistment of Negroes serve a military purpose, but most assuredly, it would also enhance the sense of manhood among Negro men, a sense deliberately blunted by public policy throughout the nation. Thus, while Douglass remarked on the "tardiness" of the President who "loved Rome more than he did Caesar," he insisted that emancipation and manhood, in the most profound sense, were indispensable steps toward participation in American society.

Lincoln acted as he did from necessity. His almost mystical devotion to the Union and his personal compassion for the dispossessed of the world combined into policy. Events moved him in the sense that circumstances determined the time for action. During the Civil War, a fundamental truth emerged: Negro people understood the meaning of the war and contributed to the great goal of freedom. Yet Negroes were also objects; to defeat the white South, the white North needed Negro men. Lincoln was their emancipator, their savior when he spoke as the cautious, prudent political leader and when he eloquently spoke of the magnificent contribution that Negro soldiers made to the Union. The war brought the time, and Lincoln—"preeminently the white man's President"—became the Negro man's hero.

By John T. Hubbell
Edited by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Saturday, March 11, 2023

Elijah Lovejoy, an Abolitionist and Newspaper Publisher, Murdered in Alton, Illinois, on November 7, 1837.


In historical writing and analysis, PRESENTISM introduces present-day ideas and perspectives into depictions or interpretations of the past. Presentism is a form of cultural bias that creates a distorted understanding of the subject matter. Reading modern notions of morality into the past is committing the error of presentism. Historical accounts are written by people and can be slanted, so I try my hardest to present fact-based and well-researched articles.

Facts don't require one's approval or acceptance.

I present [PG-13] articles without regard to race, color, political party, or religious beliefs, including Atheism, national origin, citizenship status, gender, LGBTQ+ status, disability, military status, or educational level. What I present are facts — NOT Alternative Facts — about the subject. You won't find articles or readers' comments that spread rumors, lies, hateful statements, and people instigating arguments or fights.

FOR HISTORICAL CLARITY
When I write about the INDIGENOUS PEOPLE, I follow this historical terminology:
  • The use of old commonly used terms, disrespectful today, i.e., REDMAN or REDMEN, SAVAGES, and HALF-BREED are explained in this article.
Writing about AFRICAN-AMERICAN history, I follow these race terms:
  • "NEGRO" was the term used until the mid-1960s.
  • "BLACK" started being used in the mid-1960s.
  • "AFRICAN-AMERICAN" [Afro-American] began usage in the late 1980s.

— PLEASE PRACTICE HISTORICISM 
THE INTERPRETATION OF THE PAST IN ITS OWN CONTEXT.
 


Silhouette of Elijah P. Lovejoy
Elijah Parish Lovejoy (1802-1837), owner and editor of the Alton Observer Newspaper, accepted the delivery of his third new printing press on November 7, 1837, at 3:00 AM. 

In the 1820s, Elijah Lovejoy was a reform-minded northeastern transplant to the Midwest. Americans uncomfortable with the transformation wrought by the Market Revolution turned to various reform movements in the early 1800s. The temperance movement emerged alongside many others, including mental health reform and Transcendentalism (character, thought, or language). At the same time, other Americans formed utopian communities that challenged mainstream views, like individual property ownership and monogamy. All were trying to come to terms with life in a modern industrial society, and Lovejoy was no different.

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The first attempt to organize a national movement for women's rights occurred in Seneca Falls, New York, in July 1848. Women's suffrage movements began in Illinois as early as the 1860s, although attempts to grant women the right to vote as part of the 1870 Illinois constitution failed. In 1873, a statute was passed giving women the opportunity to run for any school office not created by the Illinois Constitution.

Elijah's father, Rev. Daniel Lovejoy, was a Congregational minister. His mother, Elizabeth Pattee, was the daughter of respectable parents in one of the adjoining Maine counties where Elijah had grown up in Albion, Maine.

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Congregationalism in the United States consists of Protestant churches in the Reformed tradition that have a congregational form of church government and trace their origins mainly to Puritan settlers of colonial New England. Jesus Christ alone is the head of the church.

Lovejoy threw himself into civic life in Alton. Among other activities, he started a lyceum, an institution for popular education providing discussions and lectures for the public regarding important issues. His paper's circulation steadily increased, from fewer than 1,000 subscribers to the first issue to more than 2,000 by early 1837. At the same time, Lovejoy was becoming more actively involved with the organized anti-slavery movement and becoming still more absolute in his views. On February 9, 1837, he sent a letter to Asa Cummings of the Portland, Maine-based "Christian Mirror" newspaper. Lovejoy wrote one of his most potent descriptions of slavery. To be a slave, Elijah wrote:

Is to toil all day … with the bitter certainty always before me, that not one cent of what I earn, is, or can be my own. … My first-son, denied even the poor privilege of bidding his father farewell, is on his way, a chained and manacled victim, to a distant market. … It is to enter my cabin, and see my wife or daughter struggling in the lustful embraces of my master, or some of his white friends, without daring to attempt their rescue.

After five years of running his school, Lovejoy's life changed. 

Lovejoy drew public wrath in St. Louis in 1833 as editor of a Presbyterian newspaper, the St. Louis Observer. His object of vituperation (verbal abuse or castigation) was Catholicism. He soon expanded his list of targets to include "the Irish and pro-slavery Christians." The city's slaveholding leadership wasn't amused. Lovejoy used the paper to preach against slavery and argue for its abolition. He immediately faced death threats from the city's pro-slavery residents. 

The final break came on April 28, 1836, when a mob dragged a free Negro man from the St. Louis jail and burned him to death on a tree near 10th and Market streets. The victim was Francis L. McIntosh, a steamboat cook who had stabbed a sheriff's deputy to death after being arrested in a scuffle on the levee.

Lovejoy's St. Louis Observer described the lynching by fire as an "awful murder and savage barbarity." It published the gruesome details as local leaders sought to bury the story. The Observer attacked Judge Luke E. Lawless (his real last name), an old adversary whose instructions to the grand jury virtually assured no charges would be filed. And there weren't any charges enforced.

Many reform movements were fed or inspired by a new religious enthusiasm sweeping the United States. During this Second Great Awakening, Preachers, also anxious over changes wrought by the Market Revolution, offered hope that individuals could choose between right and wrong and impact the world for good. In the North, much of this religious fervor condemned slavery. Lovejoy was swept up in this religious fervor and left the Midwest to enter the Princeton Theological Seminary. 

On July 21, a pro-slavery mob ransacked Lovejoy's office at 85 Main Street (beneath today's Gateway Arch) and tossed the printing press into the Mississippi River. 

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Although Illinois was a free state, it was hardly a friendly place for abolitionists. Most Illinoisans thought abolitionism was a form of New England extremism. In 1837, the Illinois General Assembly denounced abolitionism. Illinois' Negro Laws.

The Lovejoys moved from slaveholding Missouri to Alton, Illinois' free and supposedly safer streets in 1836.

Lovejoy obtained another printing press and resumed attacks on slavery. After an extra edition announcing his arrival and intentions, the first regular issue of the Alton Observer appeared on September 8, 1836. In it, Lovejoy repeated his declaration that "The system of American Negro Slavery is an awful evil and sin" and that he would never surrender "the rights of conscience, the freedom of opinion, and of the press.From there, his paper became only more anti-slavery.

On August 7, 1837, a mob gathered at the Alton Observer's office and destroyed Lovejoy's printing press. Lovejoy was fortunate to receive immediate support in Alton from two of the wealthiest men in town, a pair of merchants named Benjamin Godfrey and Winthrop S. Gilman. The two men agreed to finance a new printing press to replace the one that had been wrecked. Opponents immediately seized this printing press and dumped it into the Mississippi River.

Lovejoy faced a fierce backlash when he served as chairman of a series of meetings in Alton to form the "Madison County Anti-Slavery Society" in August of 1837.

On August 21, 1837, a mob wrecked his new printing pressThe destruction of Lovejoy's second press occurred at an inopportune time, even for Lovejoy's wealthy backers, as the Panic of 1837 was shaking the financial system of the United States.

Even Winthrop Gilman, one of Lovejoy's most loyal backers, had doubts about the wisdom of Lovejoy continuing and wrote him a personal letter saying that he felt he could provide no more aid to him. Instead, Lovejoy was forced to appeal to the public at a time when many were increasingly turning against him.

Lovejoy wrote a letter to "The Friends of the Redeemer in Alton," offering to resign from the editorship of the Alton Observer if the paper's supporters would agree to assume his debts. In response, fifteen men met and debated two resolutions. They decided that the Alton Observer should continue but were divided on the question of whether Lovejoy should remain as editor.

The last significant event preceding Lovejoy's murder was the turn taken by a planned convention in Alton to establish a statewide anti-slavery society. Among his supporters, Lovejoy could count Edward Beecher, the President of Illinois College and an influential figure within the state. (Beecher was also the brother of Henry Ward Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin). Although he did not favor immediate abolition at the time, Beecher strongly supported the freedom of the press. Beecher believed the growing threats to Lovejoy's rights and livelihood represented a critical juncture, and the time called for a reframing of the issues. He proposed that the upcoming anti-slavery convention in Alton be opened to all who supported the freedom of the press.

The practical effect of this, however, was not as intended. When the convention met, as planned, on October 26, it was essentially hijacked. The Presbyterian Church at Upper Alton was packed that afternoon by well-known opponents of Lovejoy, who, citing the invitation to all "friends of free discussion," claimed a right to be seated. The opposition to Lovejoy was dominated by Usher F. Linder, a rabid anti-abolitionist, a successful lawyer and a status-seeking politician who had recently been the Illinois Attorney General. Over the next two days, with Linder calling most of the shots, the assembled convention passed a series of resolutions declaring sentiments such as one stating that Congress had no power to abolish slavery, and then the convention adjourned.

When the third printing press arrived on November 7, 1837, at 3 o'clock in the morning, Lovejoy was ready to defend it. Besieged but defiant, Lovejoy and his friends guarded the new printing press inside a Mississippi riverfront warehouse. A mob surged toward them, and everybody had weapons.

"Burn 'em out," someone outside shouted. "Shoot every damned abolitionist as he leaves."

When a man with a torch climbed onto the roof, defenders of the printing press opened fire, killing one rioter and scaring some others into retreat. It was eerily quiet. Elijah Lovejoy stepped outside for a look.
The illustration depicts a mob trying to set the warehouse roof on fire as Lovejoy's men shoot at the arsonists.





A woodcut engraving depicts the destruction of the abolitionist printing press of the Alton Observer on November 7, 1837. The press was attacked, and the editor, Elijah Parish Lovejoy, was shot and killed by a drunken mob.


Five shots riddled him. "Oh God, I'm shot," he yelled as he fell. Lovejoy died outside Winthrop Gilman's warehouse at the foot of William Street in Alton. The St. Louis Commercial, a pro-slavery newspaper, lamented accurately that Lovejoy's "martyrdom will be celebrated by every abolitionist in the land." He was buried secretly in Alton. In 1865, his remains were moved to the old Alton City Cemetery. 

Lovejoy, known for righteous and unforgiving prose against slavery, was almost 35 when he was killed. The mob tossed that printing press into the Mississippi River, too. 

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Why wouldn't the pro-slavery  newspaper, or any other newspaper or print shop just kept Lovejoy's brand new printing press, instead of throwing it away? After all, the owner is dead.

That was the fourth printing press that Lovejoy had lost to people who hated his words. He soon became a martyr to the nation's small but rising wave of abolitionism. In Illinois, a young lawyer named Abraham Lincoln decried the mob violence.

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Abraham Lincoln was one of six dissenters to the Illinois House of Representatives resolution.

Lovejoy's murder galvanized the abolitionist community and shocked others. During his Lyceum Address in 1838 that responded to the murder of a Negro man in St. Louis, Abraham Lincoln, no doubt referencing Lovejoy as well, warned the audience:

"Whenever the vicious portion of population shall be permitted to gather in bands of hundreds and thousands, and burn churches, ravage and rob provision stores, throw printing presses into rivers, shoot editors, and hang and burn obnoxious persons at pleasure, and with impunity; depend on it, this Government cannot last."

Elijah Lovejoy, the man who, with nothing to gain but the approval of conscience and everything to lose but honor, stands forth against overwhelming odds in defense of a great and precious principal and finally lays down his life in that defense, surely deserves from his fellow-men, at least, grateful and everlasting remembrance. 

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This 97-foot monument was dedicated to Elijah Lovejoy in 1897. It towers above the Alton Cemetery as a monument to a martyr in the causes of abolition, free speech, and freedom of the press.
A piece of Lovejoy's last printing press from the night he was murdered. It was recovered from the Mississippi River shortly after he was murdered.







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Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Wednesday, February 1, 2023

Celebrating the First Day of Black History Month 2023 — The Obama Kissing Rock, Chicago, Illinois.



Sitting in front of a Subway sandwich franchise at 53rd and South Dorchester in Chicago is a straightforward rock with a metallic plaque installed in it. It may not seem like the most romantic place in the country, but it is where President Barack Obama first planted one on his wife, Michelle. 
East 53rd Street and South Dorchester Avenue, in Chicago's Hyde Park Community.


While today it is a tiny little green space with flowers and a flagpole, the "Obama Kissing Rock" was once the site of a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop. Future-president Barack and future-first-lady Michelle visited the Hyde Park franchise on their first date in the summer of 1989 and shared more than just two scoops on the curb outside the store, namely their first kiss.

The plaque is attached to a 3,000-pound (1.5-ton) boulder installed on the corner of the strip mall in 2012.
I find it disgusting that there can't be a landmark plaque celebrating African Americans without racists defacing it.




It tells the sweetest story straight from Barack's lips:
"On our first date, I treated her to the finest ice cream Baskin-Robbins had to offer, our dinner table doubling as the curb. I kissed her, and it tasted like chocolate." President Barack Obama from an interview in "O," The Oprah Magazine, February 2007.


Most presidential monuments are devoted to wars or politics, but this one celebrates the first couple as people. People who still seem to share an unshakable love to this day.

Before You Visit: The Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream Shop has since been replaced by a Subway restaurant, and is now co-located inside the Dunkin Donuts shop, in the same strip mall.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.