Lincoln Home, social services for Black Americans in early 20th century Pueblo, Colorado

In 1905 The Colored Orphanage and Old Folks Home was known as, "the only home for colored children in an area of seven states." The Lincoln Home was started by the Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs in the city of Pueblo and became the only known Black orphanage in Colorado. Built in 1906, the home moved in 1914 to two small red-brick houses that were built closely together on 2714 North Grand Avenue, where it remained until the city’s segregated orphanage system ended in 1963. In 1997 the Lincoln Home building on North Grand Avenue was listed on the State Register of Historic Properties, and in the early 2000s the building housed the Martin Luther King Jr. Cultural Center. Currently the building serves as a museum which is open to the public and can be toured. Which was a huge honor for Pueblo, Colorado.

Pueblo’s Black community traces its roots to the diverse residents of El Pueblo, the early trading post that was built near the present city in the 1840s. According to the Colorado Encyclopedia, after the Colorado Gold Rush and the Civil War, new Black residents arrived from border states such as Kentucky and Missouri. Between 1870 and 1880 Pueblo County’s Black population grew from 27 to 141. The area’s Black population continued to grow over the next two decades. By the early 1900s, Pueblo’s Black community was developing its own institutions, including the city’s first black newspaper.

Ray Brown and Emily Wilson, Pueblo Heritage Museum Museum Curator and Executive Director, hope to find a home for artifacts from from the Lincoln Home that were collected by Pueblo civil rights icon and Brown’s mentor Ruth Steele. Read the detailed article on their efforts in The Gazette here.

Source: Pueblo Orphanages: Transformation, Pueblo County Historical Society Facebook, The Gazette

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Women pioneers of reparations

I’ve previously posted about Henrietta Wood. Here are some other early women pioneers for reparations.

Belinda Sutton

Belinda (Royal) Sutton was born in 1712 in Ghana. She was abandoned by her enslaver, who had offered emancipation upon his death or her transfer to his daughter. If she chose freedom he provided 30 pounds for three years so she wouldn’t be a public charge. In 1783, at 63 years old, Sutton filed a petition to the Massachusetts General Court requesting a pension from the estate of her former enslaver. In her petition she recalled her life in Africa as a joyful one full of love prior to her captivity and enslavement. Sutton’s testimony describing the happy times with family in Africa contradicted the narrative that the enslaved were happy in their captivity. She won her claim and was awarded 15 pounds and 12 shillings annually. She had to fight continuously for that award to be honored and paid.

Belinda Sutton’s […] petition of 1783 is among the earliest narratives by an African American woman. […] It has been seen by some commentators as the first call for reparations for American slavery [and] opens a rare window onto the life on an enslaved woman in colonial North America.

To read the full text of Belinda Sutton’s first petition, click here. All of her petitions are available through the Antislavery Petitions Massachusetts Dataverse, maintained by Harvard University.

Callie House

Callie House was born enslaved in Rutherford County, Tennessee, in 1861. In 1897, at 36 years old, she founded the National Ex-Slave Mutual Bounty and Pension Association (MB&PA) to seek financial support for former slaves left without resources. With Isiah Dickerson she traveled to former slave states to encourage others to join the organization. The organization was eager to petition Congress for a bill that would grant payments (reparations) and mutual aid for burial expenses. Their grass-roots advocacy grew in membership to hundreds of thousands of formerly enslaved residents all over the country. The government used three agencies to try to stop this movement: the Federal Bureau of Pensions, the Department of Justice and the Post Office Department. On September 1899, the Post Office issued a fraud order, without evidence, against MB&PA, which made it illegal for them to send mail, cash or money orders. House resisted by invoking the 1st, 14th and 15th amendments and hiring an attorney.

Congress rejected the pensions petition, as if it was not to be taken seriously, and postponed it indefinitely.

In 1909, when Dickerson died, House became the leader of the MB&PA. In 1915, under House’s leadership, the class action lawsuit Johnson v McAdoo was filed in U.S. Federal Court requesting reparations for slavery in the amount of $68 million. This amount was cotton tax money collected from 1862 to 1868 and held by the U.S. Treasury Department. A former slave, H. N. Johnson, led the charge as the plaintiff against U.S. Secretary of the Treasury William G. McAdoo. The U.S. Supreme Court denied the claim. This was the first documented litigation for reparations for American chattel slavery in a U.S. federal court.

The following year, House was arrested on charges of fraud from the Post Office, convicted by an all-white, all-male jury and sentenced to a year in jail, deliberately hampering the reparations movement.

Callie House died from cancer in Nashville, Tennessee on June 6, 1928, at the age of 67. Source: Greenbelt News Review, BlackPast.org, RoyallHouse.org

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Restaurateur Thomas Downing, the New York Oyster King

Thomas Downing (1791–1866) was an American restaurateur and abolitionist active in New York City during the Victorian era who was nicknamed the "New York Oyster King". He was one of the wealthiest people in New York City at the time of his death, though he spent his life being prohibited from acquiring U.S. citizenship until the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was passed, the day before he died.

Thomas Downing was born in Chesapeake Bay on Chincoteague Island, Virginia. His parents were enslaved, and eventually freed, by Sea Captain John Downing after learning that owning slaves was not condoned by the Methodist Church. They adopted the name "Downing" as their own and began working as paid caretakers of Captain Downing's Methodist Meeting House. Eventually, they bought some property on the Island and the family began earning extra money by gathering and selling oysters, as well as other seafood, such as clams and fish. Thomas was raised alongside his wealthy neighbors and shared the same tutor as their children. One of his tutors was Henry A. Wise, who went on to become the Governor of Virginia (1861–1865).

Thomas Downing grew up on Virginia’s Chincoteague Island, where his family made their living from the sea by fishing, clamming, and raking oysters. The skills Downing acquired during his childhood carried him to Philadelphia—he’d followed the troops North after the War of 1812—where he spent seven years running an oyster bar.

In the 1820s, most registered oystermen were African American, and opportunity in the industry was abundant, especially for people like Downing, who came from oyster-rich states along the Chesapeake Bay like Virginia. But the world’s oyster capital was New York City, and Downing moved there, spending his days on a schooner harvesting oysters from the beds of the city’s waters and selling them to restaurants or on the streets.

At the end of the War of 1812, Thomas joined the United States Army and followed it to Philadelphia. There he met and married his wife, freeborn Rebecca West, and they had five children: George, Thomas, Henry, Jane, and Peter. Thomas worked as a valet, continued oystering, and, wanting more out of life than oyster digging, he eventually opened his first oyster bar. This allowed him to keep ties with his family's roots while establishing his new career as an esteemed businessman. Thomas used his knowledge of oystering to his advantage and used his connections to the fisherman to sell the best oysters around.

Source: Wikipedia, Fishers Island Oyster Farm, Atlas Obscura

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Black Woman Won Largest Reparations Award at Time From U.S. Courts in 1878

In 1878, Henrietta Wood, a formerly “illegally” enslaved Black woman, was awarded $2,500 in reparations by an all-white jury — the most significant sum of its kind that a U.S. court had granted.

Wood initially sought $20,000 for being kidnapped and illegally enslaved in an 1870 lawsuit, Business Insider reported. But was awarded a smaller amount. While it may not seem like a lot, the $2,500 total would equate to more than $75,000 today, the outlet noted.

Wood used her settlement to move with her son, aiding his education. The outlet noted that he became one of the first Black law graduates from what is now Northwestern University’s School of Law.

Born into slavery between 1818 and 1820 in Kentucky, Wood was sold multiple times before finally gaining freedom in 1848 from her owner’s wife, Jane Cirode, who wanted to avoid debt collectors. According to Business Insider, the wife of William Cirode — a French immigrant who had abandoned his family due to legal reasons — had rented Wood out as a domestic servant.

Wood was illegally recaptured just five years later by a deputy sheriff in Kentucky named Zebulon Ward, whom Cirode’s daughter and son-in-law hired. Following the Civil War, Wood sued Ward for damages and won the most significant reparations case the U.S. courts had awarded.

The battle Wood began sadly continues with reparations still being denied to most African Americans. Now, more than a century later, federal reparations remain a question despite unprecedented Congressional apologies for slavery. In 2008-2009. Rep. Steve Cohen wrote in a resolution that the nation must seek “reconciliation, justice, and harmony.”

While state efforts have emerged, national progress stalls. Rep. Cori Bush said in May 2023: “Black people … cannot wait any longer for our government to … address the harm it has caused,” Business Insider reported.

Source: Black Enterprise, Wikipedia, Library of Congress

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Bryan Stevenson discusses his new endeavor Freedom Monument Sculpture Park

Equal Justice Initiative founder and CEO Bryan Stevenson speaks with NBC News’ Lester Holt about the new sculpture park created on the shores where the slave trade once flourished in Montgomery, Alabama. A new monument honors the lives of 10 million Black people who were enslaved in America. The park joins the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice.

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Freedom Monument Sculpture Park honors lives of enslaved people

For civil rights attorney and renowned social justice activist Bryan Stevenson, it’s not enough to know the history of slavery and the centuries-old struggles of Black people in America. He wants people to see it. Feel it. Touch it.

A new park in Montgomery, Alabama, was conceived to do just that, as visitors of the breathtaking Freedom Monument Sculpture Park will be treated to “an immersive experience” along 17 acres above the Alabama River, which was a primary route to transport enslaved Africans during the slave trade.

The park, opening next week, will be in close proximity to two other creations led by Stevenson: the awe-inspiring Memorial to Peace and Justice, an open-air site that features 800 columns suspended from above, evoking public square lynchings, and the Legacy Museum. A few miles away in downtown Montgomery, that site uses interactive elements to tell the story of the devastation of slavery, Jim Crow, violence and mass incarceration.

Located at 831 Walker Street, the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park will be part of the Equality Justice Institute’s Legacy Sites, which also include The Legacy Museum and The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, both which opened in 2018. A $5 admission includes all three parks and a free shuttle runs between the sites. 

As the center of the Civil Rights Movement, Montgomery is also home to other Black heritage sites, like the Rosa Parks Museum, Civil Rights Memorial Center, Anarcha, Lucy, Betsey Monument, Dexter Avenue King Baptist Memorial Church, Freedom Rides Museum, and Dr. Richard Harris House.

Source: NBC News, Travel + Leisure

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Exhibition honoring Fort Bend County resident Nancy Stephenson Woods

Born in the heart of DeWalt, Texas, in 1933, Nancy Stephenson Woods' journey reflects a profound legacy. Stop my the Fort Bend Museum next month to join in celebrating the life of a remarkable woman.

The Fort Bend Museum is located in Richmond, Texas. Fort Bend Museum 410 S. Fifth Street Richmond, TX 77469 281-342-6478 [email protected]

Source: Fort Bend Museum

You can read a transcript of an interview Mrs. Woods did in 2008 by the Oral History Committee of the DeWalt Heritage Project here.

Pictured above: Left-right, Effie Blake, Nancy Stephenson Woods, with children Debra and George.

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Untold Stories of Black Life in Texas: Reframing Our Shared History

Untold Stories of Black Life in Texas: Reframing Our Shared History, a presentation hosted by Fort Bend County Libraries. Journey through the impactful events that shaped early Black history in Texas.

Wednesday, February 28, 7:00pm Fort Bend County Libraries - Missouri City Branch 1530 Texas Pkwy., Missouri City, TX 77489 Saturday, March 9, 2:00pm Fort Bend County Libraries - Sienna Branch Library 8411 Sienna Springs Blvd., Missouri City, TX 77459

Photograph of the regular monthly hands on the George Ranch. Five cowboys on horseback - four of them African-American cowboys - watch over a calf nestled in the grass in front of them. The rest of the herd of cattle can be seen in the background. The top of a windmill is visible near the center background. Bottom of photograph in border printed in black: "The Harper Leiper Company Photographers". Back of photograph written in black identifies cowboys: "Left to right Johnny Hudgins, Henry Klazer, Buster Jackson (Joe B. Forman), Frank Simpson - cook, Joe Bingum, Regular monthly hands". Also on back stamped in blue: "KE - 1293 The Harper Leiper Company Photographers (Photographers stamp) 1009 Isabella at Main Houston, Texas Refer to Neg. No 5734 [circled and written in blue ink] 3" Source: University of North Texas Libraries [Photograph of five cowboys on horseback - four of them African-American], photograph, [1940..1955]; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth7805/: accessed February 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting George Ranch Historical Park.

“Most cowboys in Fort Bend County were African American from the late 1800’s into the mid 1900’s. Buster was said to be the finest horseman anyone had ever seen.” Source: Rosenberg Today

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Read Madam C.J. Walker's Textbook

Text Book of the Madam C. J. Walker Schools of Beauty Culture

Scroll through the pages here.

Source: National Museum of African American History and Culture

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Are there Black dialects of Spanish?

Some people got a surprising result after taking an MIT dialect quiz. It was meant to guess what U.S. dialect the test taker spoke and the person's native language. As results started coming in, many Spanish speakers saw their English dialect had been marked as “U.S. Black Vernacular/Ebonics”

But what's the connection between speaking Spanish and U.S. Black Vernacular?

In the United States, dialects spoken by African Americans are sometimes referred to as Black English, African American Vernacular English, or even Ebonics. Though the terms have had different levels of popularity, having a specific name at all has given African Americans the ability to reclaim their language practices as a joyous part of their identity. 

But much less common are terms and discussions about Blackness and Black language beyond English. If Black English dialects exist, are there also Black forms of other languages due to colonization? For example, are there Black Spanishes and Black Portugueses, too? Read more here.

Source: Are there Black dialects of Spanish? by Aris M. Clemons

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Dr. Charles Prudhomme

Dr. Charles Prudhomme, the first Black Vice President of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), and artist, Mrs. Naida Willette Page, present a portrait of Solomon Carter Fuller, MD, the first Black member of APA, in 1971.

Dr. Prudhomme commissioned the portrait as a gift to the Association.

Charles Prudhomme, M.D. (1908–1988), an African-American physician and psychoanalyst, entered the field of psychiatry in the 1930s. He served as the vice president of the American Psychiatric Association in 1970-1971, the first African-American to gain elected office in the organization.[1]

Prudhomme was born in Opelousas, Louisiana. When Prudhomme was three years old, his father developed tuberculosis, and the family moved to Denver, Colorado. Along the way, the family stopped in Kansas City, Missouri where Prudhomme and his mother stayed while his father continued to Denver. Prudhomme received his schooling in Kansas City, became a baseball player, and graduated from high school second in his class.

Prudhomme entered the University of Kansas but remained for only a short time. Due to segregation laws…[Read more here]

Sources: Wikipedia, American Psychiatric Association Foundation, Jet magazine

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Solomon Carter Fuller, M.D., a Black Mental Health Pioneer

Solomon Carter Fuller, M.D., the first known Black psychiatrist in America and an early pioneer in the fight against Alzheimer's. Dr. Fuller collaborated with Dr. Alois Alzheimer, identifying the disease we now know as Alzheimer's, and helped translate much of his work from German to English.

Sources: Patch.org, American Psychiatric Association Foundation, and Melvin Sabshin, MD Library and Archives

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Pauline Humphrey and Black History in Iowa

Group portrait, including Pauline B. Humphrey, front row center wearing tied shoes, with hands in pockets, outside Crescent School of Beauty Culture with Dormitory, [1940s], African American Museum of Iowa

Pauline Brown Humphrey was the first African American woman to own and operate a certified cosmetology school in Iowa and the first certified to teach cosmetology in the state.

Cosmetology students in Crescent Beauty School Classroom, 1950s, African American Museum of Iowa

Sources: African American Museum of Iowa, Iowa Women's Foundation, and The University of Iowa Libraries

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William Wells Brown, Hoodoo in St. Louis

William Wells Brown (circa 1814-1884) was a formerly enslaved man and an abolitionist who documented Hoodoo practices of enslaved people in St. Louis in two of his books. Brown was born enslaved in Kentucky. In 1827 Brown’s enslaver, Dr. John Young, moved near St. Louis, Missouri, and established a small farm. Dr. Young hired out Brown to work in the city of St. Louis for steamboat captains and local merchants. During his years enslaved in St. Louis, Brown saw conjure practices of enslaved people that he documented years later in his autobiographies after he escaped from slavery on the Underground Railroad. In 1849, Brown published Narrative of William W. Brown, An American Slave. Written by Himself. In the book, Brown wrote that he saw an enslaved man named Frank, who was a fortune-teller. Brown spoke to Frank to know if his plan to escape from slavery on the Underground Railroad would lead to his freedom. Brown wrote…[Read more here]

An Obeah Practitioner at Work, Trinidad, 1836.

Painting, An Obeah Practitioner at Work, Trinidad, 1836.

This painting depicts an Obeah ritual in the Caribbean. Hoodoo and Obeah are similar religious practices influenced by African traditions.

Source: SlaveryImages.org

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Summer Scene, 1866 by G. Gable

Harry Stephens was a former house servant of Alexander Hamilton Stephens, vice-president of the Confederacy and, after the war, U.S. senator. The photograph was likely made on the grounds of Liberty Hall, Alexander Stephens's home in Crawfordsville, Georgia. In its modest scale, careful annotation, and evocative title, the photograph remains a personal document that is nonetheless especially poignant and monumental. Harry and Eliza Stephens and their five children had survived slavery and the war. A local photographer's success at recording the family's collective possession of their new freedom is one of the more remarkable achievements of the still unseasoned medium.

Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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