Climbing Up to Glory (22 page)

Of all the changes brought by emancipation, perhaps none meant more to the former slaves as a symbol of their new status than the opportunity to choose names and surnames. Most black children were named after their parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles during slavery, but often slaveholders assigned names from ancient history or mythology such as Primus, Bacchus, Scipio, Orpheus, and Caesar. Biblical names such as Isaiah, Moses, Joshua, and Ezekiel symbolized blacks' new status as free men and women and continued to be passed from one generation to the next. After emancipation, there appeared a host of Anglo-Saxon-sounding names such as Mary, Elizabeth, John, William, Charles, and George, which also were identified with freedom.

Once freedom came, blacks also acquired surnames. Some adopted the surnames of their masters, not out of affection, but because it was convenient and the easiest way to be identified. The slaves on the same plantation with Martin Jackson of Texas, for example, took the name of their owner, Fitzpatrick.
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George Selman and his parents also adopted the surname of their owner at the time of emancipation.
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Likewise, Albert Henderson took his owner's name when he was freed.
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Hundreds took the names of historic or public figures such as Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Grant, Hamilton, Lincoln, Fillmore, Madison, or Polk—names that were associated with the concepts of independence and freedom. Nelson Polk, for instance, was named after President James Polk rather than any master.
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And Austin Grant's father took his name from General Ulysses Grant, and his grandfather was named for President Millard Fillmore.
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Other blacks adopted surnames because they simply liked the way they sounded or found them to be unique. Some had an emotional or cultural appeal. Aaron Ray recalled, “Me an' my sister us changed our names to Ray case us jes' lak dat name, an' hit wuz anodder name, an‘ dar didn't seem to be noboddy dat had dat kind ob er name.”
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James Martin took the surname Martin after the man who brought his grandfather from England,
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and Martin Jackson adopted the surname Jackson because one of his grandfathers in Africa was called Jeaceo.
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In most cases, however, blacks took the name of the first master in the family's oral history, as far back as it could be recalled.
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For instance, although William Moore and his parents were owned by Tom Waller when emancipation arrived, they called themselves Moore after their first owner.
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Similarly, although the family of Mandy Jones was owned by a man named Stewart, the family took the surname of their first owner, named Young.
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Like their black counterparts living in Southern states, Seminole freedmen adopted the last names of their fathers or former owners. To the citizenship rolls of the Seminole Nation were added the family names of Abraham, Cudjo, Dindy, Primus, and Sandy—names still borne by their descendants today.
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Regardless of the name, it was important to blacks that they made the decision themselves without the interference of whites.

Along with the symbolic disassociation from whites represented by their taking new names came efforts by freedmen to physically separate themselves from whites, the most visible reminders of slavery. Whitelaw Reid noted that “the more intelligent negroes generally think it would be better for their people to be freed from contact with the whites; but their idea of accomplishing it is, not to remove the blacks, but to have the whites remove from them.” Thus, Reid continued, “They believe in colonization; but it is in colonization on the lands they have been working.”
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Apparently, a large number of freedmen and women shared this view. Annie Young, a former slave, recalled that “after the war my stepfather come, and got my mother and we moved out in the piney woods.”
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One freedman's former owner offered him a nice house nearby, but he refused to accept it and moved instead to a shack in “Freetown.” He also declined the former owner's offer to grind his grain at no charge because it “make him feel like a free man to pay for things just like anyone else.”
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In an effort to minimize contact with whites, freedmen built all-black communities where they could live among themselves and control their own affairs. All-black communities were established at Princeville, North Carolina; James City, North Carolina, near New Bern; Kendleton, Shankleville, and Board House, all in Texas, to name only a few.
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Some of these all-black settlements still exist today. Princeville, for example, was a relatively thriving town until Hurricane Floyd devastated it in September 1999.

Strengthening the bonds of their own community was a major goal of freedmen, but the new black community was confronted with many serious problems. Despite the fact that most black men fulfilled their roles as husbands and fathers admirably, some did not. They beat their spouses, were adulterous, refused to support their families, and broke promises to prospective wives. Black women in the South flooded the Freedmen's Bureau with complaints about these marital problems. Julia Gibson reported that her husband beat her over the head and bit her hand.
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A woman named Esther was constantly whipped and maltreated by her husband, who also threatened to poison her.
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Julia Ray complained that her husband, Alec, beat her badly, and a Freedmen's Bureau official noted that “her appearance is such as to indicate a gross assault.”
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Rose Freeman's husband, David, repeatedly beat her and refused to support her. When Rose informed him that she would go to the Bureau to lodge a complaint against him, he replied, “damn the Freedmen's Bureau—I'll cuss you before them.”
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Betty Ann Ellington caught Harry, her husband, in their bed with another woman. When she confronted him, “he seized her by the throat and choked and beat her.” He took his belongings and left with the woman, deserting not only Betty Ann but his three children as well.
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Harriet Buchanan accused her husband, Alfred, of having sexual relations with another woman. Alfred eventually moved in with the woman, leaving the two children behind with Harriet. When Harriet charged him with living with the woman, Alfred beat her.
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Charlotte Brown complained to Bureau officials that her husband, George, was having illicit sexual intercourse with a white woman, Amelia Tines. After promising to foresake his bad conduct, he was caught by Charlotte at Amelia's house. When Charlotte struck Amelia twice, George intervened and “held her off the woman and put her out of the yard and picked up a stick and struck her with it and put a large hole in her head.”
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Black women were not reluctant to file charges against the white fathers of their babies if they refused to support their children. Harriet Ogleby, for example, asked the Bureau to assist her in forcing Drew Ogleby, the father of her son, Beauregard, to provide child support.
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Ellen Nesbit also went before the Bureau to argue that Frank Lumpkin, a white man, was the father of her son Frank, and that he was not providing support.
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Sometimes the Freedmen's Bureau rendered decisions favorable to black female complainants. For example, Celia Horn successfully sued her husband for child support. Reese Horn was ordered to immediately pay twelve dollars and then two dollars per month for two years. George Washington Holmes was forced by the Bureau to support Louisa, his former wife, and their children, whom he had deserted.
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A father in Louisiana was ordered by a Bureau officer to pay four dollars per month for his daughter's upkeep until she was ten years old. Ellen Nesbit and three other women from Athens, Georgia, received lump-sum payments of $50 to $60 from the white fathers of their children.
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Henry Goaldsby was found guilty of breach of promise to marry Amanda Moore and fined $150. And a man named Simmons lived with Ann Marshall for several years. Even though Ann gave him her savings of almost $400, he refused to marry her. He was heavily fined for using the prospect of marriage to defraud her.
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Black men also complained of being physically, psychologically, or emotionally abused. David Fry accused his wife of beating him, refusing to sleep in the same bed with him, and denying him all “matrimonial connections.”
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Jackson Fields of Louisville, Kentucky, swore in an affidavit before a Freedmen's Bureau agent that his first wife, Sarah, had been unfaithful to him, having lived with another man while he was in the armed forces. As a result of Sarah's alleged infidelity, Jackson felt justified in taking another wife. Jackson was so incensed at Sarah that he refused to pay child support. After hearing the case, the Bureau agent gave judgment that Jackson pay fifty dollars to Sarah “to assist in supporting her child of which he is the Father.”
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During Reconstruction, the black community was confronted with problems such as unemployment, hunger, homelessness, prostitution, drunkenness, and lack of adequate medical attention. In order to solve these problems, however, blacks relied upon a tradition of self-help that they had developed during slavery. They counted on themselves, not on the Federal government or sympathetic Northern whites. Freedmen took great pride in their ability to care for their orphans, widows, widowers, cripples, and those who were destitute through their own mutual-aid and beneficial societies. Beneficial societies required members to pay dues so that funds would be available to provide respectable funerals for their members and to pay death benefits to their widows and children. Mutual-aid societies were organized for the benefit of members but they sometimes would help poor nonmembers as well. As soon as the war ended, blacks in Nashville, Jackson, New Orleans, Atlanta, Richmond, Charleston, and in many rural areas began the work that would bring them pride and dignity as a community, raising money to establish orphanages, soup kitchens, employment agencies, and funds for relief of the poor. Although not exclusively, most of the beneficial and mutual aid societies were organized by black churches. They will be discussed in detail in Chapter Seven.

Throughout the antebellum period, skin color was a major issue among blacks. It was a problem that black social activism could not solve. Mulattoes looked down on darker complexioned blacks, and blacks of a darker hue ridiculed mulattoes because of their light skin. Dora Franks, for example, a mulatto during slavery, recalled, “The children chased and taunted her with shouts of ‘Old Yellow Nigger.' ” She added, “Dey didn't treat me good neither.”
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Apparently, some blacks detested mulattoes because they often were accorded positions of privilege among slaves and free blacks, due to their white ancestry.

These ill feelings would spill over into the Reconstruction period. In Charleston, for example, when two well-dressed young mulatto women and their black servant entered a railway car together, one of the young women ordered the servant to stay on the car's outer platform. When the conductor saw the servant and told her to take a seat inside, she replied, “Oh, ‘Lor bless you, massa, no, missus wouldn't 'low it.” But when the conductor made it clear that riding on the outside of the car was not allowed, she reluctantly took a seat by her mistress, who seemed greatly disturbed that “blacks were allowed to ride alongside ladies.”
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In another incident, a visitor to Charleston noted that “a couple of ebony damsels and a mulatto boy are belaboring one another in terms more vigorous than select as to each other's claims to respectability on the ground of color on the walk outside my window.”
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Although skin color sometimes was interconnected with socioeconomic class and determined whom one might date or marry during the post-Civil War period, this was not exclusively the case. For example, Frances Rollin, a member of the old freeborn mulatto elite in Charleston, married William Whipper, a prominent black politician, over the objections of her father. Despite the fact that her father indicated that he could not approve of the marriage because “it was too soon,” he no doubt objected for other reasons. Charlotte, Frances's sister, probably expressed the sentiments of the entire Rollin family over Frances's decision to marry Whipper when she told the
Herald
reporter: “In fact, our family never condescended to notice such small people as Elliott and Whipper, although Whipper married our sister Frances. They are both negroes and our family is french.” It is clear that antebellum class divisions among blacks did not suddenly disappear with emancipation. The Rollins and other mulatto elites remained deeply conscious of their status and traditions. Distinguished by culture, “previous condition,” and often color, these “colored aristocrats” adhered to a system of value and behavior that separated them from the black masses.
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While most blacks lived in wretched misery, the mulatto elite lived in nice houses, wore fine clothes, threw fancy balls, and formed militia clubs, musical bands, and literary and debating societies. The culture of the mulatto elite, materialistic and Victorian, was derived from white culture since it represented the standard against which they expected that they and all blacks would be judged. Having been educated in schools and colleges operated by white churches, many of them were taught the same value system that permeated respectable white society.
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At a time in which racial discrimination was hardening and white violence intensifying, they stood on the sidelines and did not play an active role in the black struggle for equality. Although they, too, sometimes had to confront white racism and racial discrimination, most members of the mulatto elite apparently did not see the need to join forces with other blacks to combat these injustices. In all fairness to the mulatto elite, however, it should be noted that some among their group did join the black struggle for equality. Nonetheless, the mulatto elite regarded themselves as superior to the black masses and looked down upon them with disgust. The black masses were an embarrassment to them and represented the confirmation of all the negative stereotypes attached to blacks by whites.

Despite the trials and tribulations experienced by blacks in the post-Civil War period, black families emerged from them stronger and with even more determination to prosper in American society. Now that they had control of their families, they were determined not to relinquish it to whites. Freedmen would raise their children as they saw fit, teaching them to love and respect each other and to honor and obey their elders. They would have to accomplish this goal against huge obstacles, as white racism and racial discrimination continued as threats. That they succeeded is a testament to their inner strength as a people. The fortitude shown by them should serve as an inspiration to all of humanity.