"THE STREAMS OF BLACK HISTORY"

 “The Streams of Black History”

As we enter a very difficult period in American history, we would do well to remember and learn from those who have found life and fought for freedom in more difficult times.  It is one of the gifts of Black History Month which calls us to remember the ancestors and learn from their witness.  

    Charlotte Forten was born in Philadelphia in 1837 as a free Black person, one of the granddaughters of one of the Black wealthiest men in America, James Forten.  She was educated by private tutors, and she became a well-educated woman and a poet.  In the 1850’s, she became involved in the abolitionist movement, penning poems about freedom that William Lloyd Garrison published in “The Liberator,” and that Frederick Douglass published in “North Star.”

After the Civil War broke out in 1861, the Union forces moved to cut off sea lanes from the South.  Early on, they took possession of the Sea Islands near Beaufort, South Carolina, and all the white plantation owners fled the Islands.  In order to prepare for the aftermath of the Civil War, the War Department decided to start schools for Black people  on the Sea Islands, seeking to ascertain what kind of education would be needed by those who were formerly enslaved.  

    This project was called “The Port Royal Experiment,” and many white teachers came down to teach the formerly enslaved people to read and write.  Charlotte Forten had been teaching in the North already, and though she encountered some resistance among the white leadership, she decided to come down to St. Helena Island to teach in the Penn School, as part of the Port Royal Experiment.  She was the first Black teacher there.  She taught there until the end of the Civil War.

After the Civil War, she taught in Massachusetts and back in Charleston, SC, until she moved to DC in 1872 to teach.  There she met the Rev. Francis Grimke, and they were married in 1878. In that marriage, she stepped into another stream of Black history.  Francis Grimke was the nephew of Angelina and Sarah Grimke, two white South Carolina sisters who were anti-slavery and who left the South before the Civil War.  They became famous abolitionists and feminists. 

     Also before the Civil War, the Grimke sisters discovered that their brother Henry Grimke had a relationship with one of his enslaved women, Nancy Weston.  Out of this union came three sons, one of whom was Francis Grimke.  Francis and his brother Archibald escaped from slavery, and they made contact with their aunts. The Grimke sisters helped to finance Francis’s seminary education at Princeton, and they generally supported Francis and his brother Archibald.  Francis later became pastor at Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in DC, where he served for almost 50 years.   He helped to found the Niagara Movement with WEB Dubois and later the NAACP.  

    He and Charlotte Forten made a formidable team fo justice, service, and equity.  She wrote a famous journal about her experiences in the Port Royal Experiment and in the white world. Charlotte Forten and Francis Grimke were one of several streams of Black history that came together and improved life for all of us.  May we find our place in those same streams now, because the water will be getting rougher for the next few years.

"A WITNESS FOR OUR TIME"

 “A WITNESS FOR OUR TIME”

    In 2019, Dr. Catherine Meeks and I wrote a book on Ida B. Wells, entitled “Passionate for Justice: Ida Wells as Prophet for Our Time.” We celebrated the life of Ida B., as well as lifting her up as a model for witness in our time. With the ascension of Donald Trump to the presidency and with all the chaos that he has already sown, Wells steps forward as a model for us to contemplate and for us to follow. She had direct engagements with two Presidents, William McKinley and Woodrow Wilson. In both of them, she took them to task: for McKinley’s mild response to a lynching in South Carolina, and for Wilson’s overt racism. 

    Though most of us are not in Wells’ league, Catherine and I suggested that we can draw strength from Wells, as seek to find our way to be a witness for justice and a resister of the reestablishment of white supremacy as the norm in American life.  Wells had been born in Mississippi in slavery in 1862, but she grew up with the legal shackles of slavery broken by the defeat of the South in the Civil War. Her parents had taught her that she was an equal to any person, and she sought to live that idea throughout her life. So, Wells’ first gift to us is to remember who each of us and all of us are: children created with equal dignity by God.

    As neo-slavery began to regain its strength after the Civil War (it is often called “Jim Crow,” but that is a misnomer), Wells began to experience a sense of anger and disgust that white supremacy was seeking to tell her and other Black people that they were inferior. She was outraged that neo-slavery sought to re-establish itself through violence and intimidation, including lynchings.  Wells responded with strength to engage the strength of the return of white supremacy. She would not be defined by white supremacy, and she fought hard to help others find the strength to resist this movement. So, as Trump seeks to re-establish white supremacy in our time, let us remember the deep resistance that Wells demonstrated, and let us find some of that same strength that Wells showed us. We must find ways to resist this Trumpist, white supremacist movement. 

    Second, Wells was not afraid to go public with her resistance. After several Black friends were lynched in Memphis in 1892, she decided to do a study of all the lynchings in the South in the 1880’s-1890’s. The rationale given by white people for the lynchings was that Black men were ravenous for white women, and that these Black men must be put back in their places. In her definitive study published in 1892, she exposed this rationale as totally false and as an excuse to terrorize Black people. Her public stance was both educational and dangerous. Black leaders like Frederick Douglass told her how much her study had helped them. White leaders in Memphis, where she lived at the time of this work, blew up her offices and put a bounty on her head. She was out of town when the terroristic attack happened, and she did not return South for 30 years.

    Third, Wells refused to let white people or men of any racial category define her. Even strong white women like Susan B. Anthony tried to direct her life, and Alice Paul refused Wells’ request to march in the front of the line at the Women’s March for the Vote in DC in 1913.  Undeterred by Paul’s racism, Wells found a way to step into the front of the line in the March.  We do Wells and ourselves a disservice by lifting her high above us, saying that she was so great or so exceptional that we cannot match her work.  While that is true on one level – Wells was truly exceptional – Wells herself would tell us that it is now our tine to step into the March.  The forces of oppression and suppression are gaining strength, and we must speak up and act out.  

"WHERE THE WHITE MAN DOES AS HE PLEASES"

 “WHERE THE WHITE MAN DOES AS HE PLEASES”

During this past week, I was cleaning up in my upstairs office (a never-ending task), and to help pass the time, I was listening to Nanci Griffith’s wonderful CD “One Fair Summer Evening.”  Griffith died three years ago – a big loss to us all.  One of the songs on this CD was “Deadwood, South Dakota,” written by her former husband Eric Taylor.  It is about the westward expansion of those classified as “white,” and the chorus of the song is powerful and could be describing our time right now:

“And the gold she lay cold in their pockets

And the sun she sets down on the trees

And they thank the Lord

For the land that they live in

Where the white man does as he pleases”

Many of Donald Trump’s followers are fueled by this chorus – hoping to regain a world where “the white man does as he pleases.”  All the attacks on DEI, critical race theory, Black history, and teaching about the history of racism are lodged in this complaint by white men:  we want to make America again, to make America white again, to have the white man do as he pleases.  This is why white people elected Trump:  we want to live in a land where the white man can do as he pleases.

The interesting part, of course, is that Trump is not driven by ideology but rather by a deep anxiety and anger about being held accountable.  His insistence on DEI being the cause of the DC plane crash is a bone to his base, but it is also something much deeper.  Three of the five prosecutions of Trump were led by Black people:  Alvin Bragg, Letitia James, and Fani Willis.  Trump is toxic because he wants to blow up the government that has sought to hold him accountable, that has bound him, prosecuted him, convicted him.   And, the real reason for the DC crash is that Republicans have savaged the FAA flight controller budgets for decades, beginning with Reagan’s smashing of the flight controller’s union over 40 years ago.  And, it is a terrible thing to say about the tragic loss of lives in DC and now Philadelphia, but it is the chickens coming home to roost.  We are fortunate that we have dedicated and competent flight controllers, who have prevented many more crashes, but the volume is starting to overwhelm them.

I’m also thinking about the despicable “immigration” raids now being carried out by ICE under Trump’s orders.  There are undoubtedly some immigrants who need to be deported, but now the “shock and awe” approach is stunning.  Many of those being arrested and detained and deported are law-abiding folks, and some of them are here legally.  The desire for white men to do as we please is overwhelming, however, and it is a travesty and a tragedy.  It is reminiscent of the 1850's when "slavecatchers" went North to round up people who had escaped from slavery - not only were people formerly held as slaves terrified and tortured, but many free Black people were also treated in the same despicable manner.  We are that country, whether it is Dixie, or the USA.

So, it is now time to speak up and act out.  Join with other human rights groups, or form your own.  Let your legislators know your opinions.  Donate to groups who are opposing the Trumpster agenda. Go to demonstrations, but also get ready to participate in acts of resistance.  If we fail on this, we will return to the land where the white man does as he pleases, where women are pushed back and where people of color are once again seen legally as second-class persons.