Say it Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud

The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross
Rise! 1940-1968

The Afro, Symbolic of the Movement
Angela Davis wears it well.

Episode five of PBS' Many Rivers to Cross examined the struggles of African Americans to receive their full rights as United States citizens. James Brown's song, Say it Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud, and the afro hair style were symbols of the Civil Rights Movement. The song and the hair style were affirmation of self-love, self-respect and self-determination. The afro was seen as a political symbol that reflected black pride, wearing our hair in its natural state. The song was recorded in 1968 in response to the movement.

My brother Richard sporting his afro in the early 1970s.

Say It Loud - I'm Black And I'm Proud

Uh, with your bad self
Say it louder (I got a mouth)
Say it louder (I got a mouth)
Look a'here, some people say we got a lot of malice
Some say it's a lotta nerve
I say we won't quit moving
Til we get what we deserve
We've been buked and we've been scourned
We've been treated bad, talked about
As just as sure as you're born
But just as sure as it take
Two eyes to make a pair, huh
Brother, we can't quit until we get our share

Say it loud,
I'm black and I'm proud
Say it loud,
I'm black and I'm proud, one more time
Say it loud,
I'm black and I'm proud, huh
I've worked on jobs with my feet and my hands
But all the work I did was for the other man
And now we demands a chance
To do things for ourselves
we tired of beating our heads against the wall
And working for someone else

Say it loud,
I'm black and I'm proud
Say it loud,
I'm black and I'm proud
Say it loud,
I'm black and I'm proud
Say it loud,
I'm black and I'm proud, oowee

The African Americans Many Rivers to Cross Blogging Circle

Jim Crow Laws Making a Way Out of No Way

Attached is a list of the various Jim Crow laws in response to PBS The African Amercian Experience: Many Rivers to Cross
Episode 4, Making a Way Out of No Way (1897-1940)

Jim Crow laws were established to force segregation. Business owners and public places were ordered to keep groups separated and most states had laws preventing interracial marriage. Jim Crow was said to be a black character in minstrel shows.

At the height of the Miss Black America contests, I was asked by one of my white high school classmates why black folks separated themselves from the main stream. Why did we need our own beauty contests, newspapers, magazines, TV shows, etc.? I told her we were not included and had to make our own. In other words, making a way out of no way. I asked her to bring a magazine from home and show me how many pictures were in the magazine of people who looked like me. I should have told her to point out stories about black folks. She never brought the magazine and we never spoke about the subject again. This was in the early 1970s.

JIM CROW LAWS
Barbers: No colored barber shall serve as a barber [to] white women or girls. Georgia

The Blind: The board of trustees shall...maintain a separate building...on separate ground for the admission, care, instruction, and support of all blind persons of the colored or black race. Louisiana

Burial: The officer in charge shall not bury, or allow to be buried, any colored persons upon ground set apart or used for the burial of white persons. Georgia

Buses: All passenger stations in this state operated by any motor transportation company shall have separate waiting rooms or space and separate ticket windows for the white and colored races. Alabama

Child Custody: It shall be unlawful for any parent, relative, or other white person in this State, having the control or custody of any white child, by right of guardianship, natural or acquired, or otherwise, to dispose of, give or surrender such white child permanently into the custody, control, maintenance, or support, of a negro. South Carolina

Circus Tickets: All circuses, shows, and tent exhibitions, to which the attendance of...more than one race is invited or expected to attend shall provide for the convenience of its patrons not less than two ticket offices with individual ticket sellers, and not less than two entrances to the said performance, with individual ticket takers and receivers, and in the case of outside or tent performances, the said ticket offices shall not be less than twenty-five (25) feet apart. Louisiana

Cohabitation: Any negro man and white woman, or any white man and negro woman, who are not married to each other, who shall habitually live in and occupy in the nighttime the same room shall each be punished by imprisonment not exceeding twelve (12) months, or by fine not exceeding five hundred ($500.00) dollars. Florida

Education: Separate schools shall be maintained for the children of the white and colored races. Mississippi

Fishing, Boating, and Bathing: The [Conservation] Commission shall have the right to make segregation of the white and colored races as to the exercise of rights of fishing, boating and bathing. Oklahoma

Hospital Entrances: There shall be maintained by the governing authorities of every hospital maintained by the state for treatment of white and colored patients separate entrances for white and colored patients and visitors, and such entrances shall be used by the race only for which they are prepared. Mississippi

Housing: Any person...who shall rent any part of any such building to a negro person or a negro family when such building is already in whole or in part in occupancy by a white person or white family, or vice versa when the building is in occupancy by a negro person or negro family, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine of not less than twenty-five ($25.00) nor more than one hundred ($100.00) dollars or be imprisoned not less than 10, or more than 60 days, or both such fine and imprisonment in the discretion of the court. Louisiana

Intermarriage: The marriage of a white person with a negro or mulatto or person who shall have one-eighth or more of negro blood, shall be unlawful and void. Mississippi

Juvenile Delinquents: There shall be separate buildings, not nearer than one fourth mile to each other, one for white boys and one for negro boys. White boys and negro boys shall not, in any manner, be associated together or worked together. Florida

Libraries: The state librarian is directed to fit up and maintain a separate place for the use of the colored people who may come to the library for the purpose of reading books or periodicals. North Carolina

Lunch Counters: No persons, firms, or corporations, who or which furnish meals to passengers at station restaurants or station eating houses, in times limited by common carriers of said passengers, shall furnish said meals to white and colored passengers in the same room, or at the same table, or at the same counter. South Carolina

Mental Hospitals: The Board of Control shall see that proper and distinct apartments are arranged for said patients, so that in no case shall Negroes and white persons be together. Georgia

Militia: The white and colored militia shall be separately enrolled, and shall never be compelled to serve in the same organization.No organization of colored troops shall be permitted where white troops are available, and while white permitted to be organized, colored troops shall be under the command of white officers. North Carolina

Mining: The baths and lockers for the negroes shall be separate from the white race, but may be in the same building. Oklahoma

Nurses: No person or corporation shall require any white female nurse to nurse in wards or rooms in hospitals, either public or private, in which negro men are placed. Alabama

Pool and Billiard Rooms: It shall be unlawful for a negro and white person to play together or in company with each other at any game of pool or billiards. Alabama

Parks: It shall be unlawful for colored people to frequent any park owned or maintained by the city for the benefit, use and enjoyment of white persons...and unlawful for any white person to frequent any park owned or maintained by the city for the use and benefit of colored persons. Georgia

Prisons: The warden shall see that the white convicts shall have separate apartments for both eating and sleeping from the negro convicts. Mississippi

Railroads: The conductor of each passenger train is authorized and required to assign each passenger to the car or the division of the car, when it is divided by a partition, designated for the race to which such passenger belongs. Alabama

Reform Schools: The children of white and colored races committed to the houses of reform shall be kept entirely separate from each other. Kentucky

Restaurants: It shall be unlawful to conduct a restaurant or other place for the serving of food in the city, at which white and colored people are served in the same room, unless such white and colored persons are effectually separated by a solid partition extending from the floor upward to a distance of seven feet or higher, and unless a separate entrance from the street is provided for each compartment. Alabama

Teaching: Any instructor who shall teach in any school, college or institution where members of the white and colored race are received and enrolled as pupils for instruction shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof, shall be fined in any sum not less than ten dollars ($10.00) nor more than fifty dollars ($50.00) for each offense. Oklahoma

Theaters: Every person...operating...any public hall, theater, opera house, motion picture show or any place of public entertainment or public assemblage which is attended by both white and colored persons, shall separate the white race and the colored race and shall set apart and designate...certain seats therein to be occupied by white persons and a portion thereof , or certain seats therein, to be occupied by colored persons. Virginia

Telephone Booths: The Corporation Commission is hereby vested with power and authority to require telephone companies...to maintain separate booths for white and colored patrons when there is a demand for such separate booths. That the Corporation Commission shall determine the necessity for said separate booths only upon complaint of the people in the town and vicinity to be served after due hearing as now provided by law in other complaints filed with the Corporation Commission. Oklahoma

Textbooks: Books shall not be interchangeable between the white and colored schools, but shall continue to be used by the race first using them. North Carolina

Toilet Facilities, Male: Every employer of white or negro males shall provide for such white or negro males reasonably accessible and separate toilet facilities. Alabama

Wine and Beer: All persons licensed to conduct the business of selling beer or wine...shall serve either white people exclusively or colored people exclusively and shall not sell to the two races within the same room at any time. Georgia

The African Americans Many Rivers to Cross Blogging Circle

Source: Examples of Jim Crow Laws
Images courtesy of Wikipedia.

Peggy's Letter Seeking Family Separated During Slavery

Family of Slaves - 1861
Washington, DC or Hampton, Virginia

I thought of this letter while watching the PBS series, African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, Part 3 - Into the Fire - 1861-1896. Peggy does not connect to my family but found her letter to be very touching. My great grandfather Washington Marshall, who was a slave in Copiah County, MS, spoke of the siblings he left in Virginia. I can easily imagine him writing Peggy's letter

The letter was written by Reverend J. H. Nichols, Starkville, MS, on behalf of Peggie, to William Peacock, Shelbyville, TN. William Peacock was Kelly's former owner who had sold her away from her family many years before. Kelly was inquiring of Peacock if he knew the whereabouts of any surviving family members whom she had not seen since being sold.

The letter represents a woman's determination to locate before she died surviving members of her family from whom she had long been separated. It provides poignant evidence of the tragic and lingering consequences of slavery on the individual.

Starkville, MS
January 31, 1892

Mr. William Peacock
Shelbyville, Tenn

Dear Sirs or Friends

I am trying to find my mother and father. My father's name was named Prince and my mother's name was Rose. They both belong to above Peacock. They had four children when I was sold. Their names Peggie, Isaac, John, and George and I had two half sisters belonging to old Thomas Peacock.

I was sold to James Wortham in KY where I lived 3 years then he sold me to Jack Tucker and then was sold to Evan Davis in this state.

Any information given if any or the where abouts of them will be thankfully received. Let me know if they are dead or alive.

My name was Peggie one of the children of Prince and Rose.

Yours inquiring,
Peggie Kelly, now
Peggie Peacock

Sources:
Kelly (Peggie Peacock) Letter
Manuscript Collection Number: Z1821.00S
Manuscript found at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
Photograph courtesy of Library of Congress

They Fought Back Murdered the Master - Burned his House Many Rivers to Cross

The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross
The Age of Slavery - Episode 2

Several heart felt moments were experienced watching the second episode of the PBS series: the personal accounts of Margaret Garner and Frederick Douglass, the 2nd middle passage - transporting slaves from the Upper South to the Lower South, and the resistance to the cruelties of slavery. Re-posted from November 18 2011 is an example of resistance from slaves in the area my people were enslaved.

Slave Coffle
Image from Library of Congress.

Two diarists recorded the murder of William Anderson Killingsworth and the destruction of his home by fire in Lorman, Jefferson County, Mississippi. Slaves of Killingsworth were accused of the murder and setting the house on fire. They were tried, convicted and hung within four months for the crime. While the house was ablaze, unnamed slaves of Killingsworth rescued his body and his three children from the fire.

A motive for the murder is not known, although it was speculated by Killingsworth's descendants that the slaves who committed the crime were field hands, angry with Killingsworth because of his business of tracking and capturing runaway slaves.

Killingsworth owned Richard "Dick" Bailey, the blacksmith, and his wife Maria and their children. They may have helped to recover his body and his children from the burning house. Richard and Maria's descendants married cousins of my cousins.

Union Church, Jefferson County, MS
Photograph courtesy of Georgia Wise

Diary Entries
1854

July 20: There was an awful murder committed at Killingsworth' s last night. He was murdered by his negroes & the house burned down. He had 4 children but the house was discovered & the children were taken out.
Susan Sillers Darden Diary

Thursday July 20, 1854 - This morning 2 o'clock or before Billy Killingsworth murdered by his negroes and his house burned down. Great many people collect. His runaway Jesse suspected.
Dr. Walter Wade Diary

Friday July 21, 1854 - People all collect again. Negro boy Albert confess to have seen Jesse murder his master & that he was with him. Caught two of his runaways today, Moses & Lucy.
Dr. Walter Wade Diary

Saturday July 22, 1854 - In pursuit of Jesse this morning.
Dr. Walter Wade Diary

Sunday July 23, 1854 - Caught Jesse at the bridge between Grand Gulf & Port Gibson.
Dr. Walter Wade Diary

Monday July 24, 1854 - Jesse bought back. Acknowledges killing his master and setting the house on fire, and says Albert, Charles and old Bill assisted.
Dr. Walter Wade Diary

Receipt for Jesse's Jail Fees

Tuesday July 25, 1854 - The above negroes sent to jail to await their trial for murder & arson. Many people present and many were for administering punishment in a summary way.
Dr. Walter Wade Diary

July 25: They have taken the negroes that killed Mr. Killingsworth; there was four concerned. They are in jail.
Susan Sillers Darden Diary

July 26: Mr. Darden went to Fayette this eve; they were trying those negroes; they were all committed to jail.
Susan Sillers Darden Diary

Oct. 21: Mr. Darden went to Fayette to serve on the jury to try the Killingsworth negroes.
Susan Sillers Darden Diary

Oct 23: Old Jesse & Albert were sentenced to be hung in Nov. For killing their master Mr. Killingsworth. They were trying old Bill & Charles for burning the house down.
Susan Sillers Darden Diary

Nov. 21 Our negro man went to Fayette to see Jesse & Albert hung for murdering their master W. Killingsworth, Jesse confessed that he done it all, that no one helped to do it; exhorted his fellow servants to be faithful & do their duty.
Susan Sillers Darden Diary

The slaves accused and convicted of this crime knew the cost they would pay if caught. The practices of tracking and capturing slaves was a crude and cruel business. They likely had loved ones who had experienced the Killingsworth's treatment of capturing runaways.

African American: Many Rivers to Cross Bloggers

William Anderson Killingsworth was born 1821 in Tennessee, son of Anderson Killingsworth and Mary Sweet. He died 19 July 1854 in Jefferson County. Mississippi. He married Nancy Ann Shaw, daughter of Thompson Breckenridge Shaw and Mary Shaw. She was born 1820 in Mississippi, and died 23 June 1853 in Jefferson County, MS. Their children were Francis, Horace, Valencia, William, and Albert.

Frances was attending school at the time of her father's death; Horace died in 1853; Valencia, William and Albert were the children rescued from the fire.

Sources:
Judy's Family
Annie's Place
Diary of Susan Siller Darden 1854
Hire Appraisement of William A Killingsworth's Slaves - 1861
Diary of Dr. Walter Wade of Rosswood Plantation, Jefferson County, MS, 1834-1854;
Microfilm Number: 36015, Mississippi Department of Archives and History
Jesse's Jail Receipt Courtesy of Anthony Miller

Many Rivers to Cross Flora's Mama Born in Africa

THE AFRICAN AMERICANS: MANY RIVERS TO CROSS
The Black Atlantic (1500-1800)- Episode 1

"Through stories of individuals caught in the transatlantic slave trade, we trace the emergence of plantation slavery in the American South."
PBS African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross

The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade took place across the Atlantic Ocean from the 16th through to the 19th centuries. The transatlantic slave trade was responsible for the forced migration of between 12 - 15 million people from Africa to the Western Hemisphere. The vast majority of slaves transported to the New World were Africans from the central and western parts of the continent, sold by Africans to European slave traders who then transported them to North and South America.

The slave trade not only led to the violent transportation overseas of millions of Africans but also to the deaths of many millions more. Nobody knows the total number of people who died during slave raiding and wars in Africa, during transportation and imprisonment, or in horrendous conditions during the Middle Passage, the voyage from Africa to the Americas.

The kidnapping of Africans occurred mainly in the region that now stretches from Senegal to Angola.

Major Slave Trading Regions of Africa

Getting my people to the last farm, plantation before they arrived in Mississippi has been my genealogical goal. I didn't put much thought of tracing them back to Africa, until I saw this 1880 census entry for Flora Culver; I then realized it was possible. The first time I saw this census, I starred at the screen, ran my finger across her name to the word Africa.

1880 Federal Census - Caseyville, Lincoln County, MS - Beat 5 - Page131
Flora Culver was 95 years old living in the household of farmer James A Decell
and his family. She was born in Virginia and both parents were born in AFRICA.

I have often wonder about Flora's mama. How old was she when she first arrived in America? Was she as young as the 10 year Priscilla mentioned in the first episode? Was she a teenager?

Prior to arriving in Mississippi, Flora was the slave of Malcolm "Saddler" McNeill of Robeson County, North Carolina. After the death of Malcolm McNeill in 1833, Flora was given to Malcolm's son John David McNeill. John left NC, for Mississippi, between 1836 and 1838, bringing his slaves with him including Flora and her three sons, Daniel, John, and Robert. Flora's daughters remained in North Carolina. John McNeill settled in Caseyville, MS, with his slaves.

Flora was described as an "old woman" on the John McNeill's 1858 inventory listing of slaves, valued at $10. Based on the 1870 and 1880 census records, Flora was born between 1785-1790. Her first child was born in 1815. Going back one generation, 20 years, I estimate Flora's mama was born about 1770. Flora's mama was a child when she arrived in America.

Close your eyes, take yourself back to your child self. Try to imagine the horrific conditions, depravity, the loneliness. Take a moment to remember those young females who were forced immigrants to this county. Remember their strength.

Flora's mama is a direct ancestor of a set of my mother's 1st cousins.
African Americans- Many Rivers to Cross Bloggers
Images from Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Private John Culver of the 58th Regiment, United States Colored Infantry