“I wonder if our white fellow men realize the true sense of meaning of brotherhood? For two hundred years we had toiled for them; the war of 1861 came and was ended, and we thought our race was forever freed from bondage, and that the two races could live in unity with each other, but when we read almost every day of what is being done to my race by some whites in the South, I sometimes ask, “Was the war in vain? Has it brought freedom, in the full sense of the word, or had it made our conditions more hopeless?…
There are still good friends to the negro. Why, there are still thousands….Man thinks two hundred years is a long time, and it is, too; but it is only as a week to God, and in his own time…the South will be like the North, and when it comes it will be prized higher than we prize the North to-day. God is just; when he created man he made him in his image, and never intended one should misuse the other. All men are born free and equal in his sight.”
“Every where the years bring to all enough of sin and sorrow; but in slavery the very dawn of life is darkened by these shadows. Even the little child, who is accustomed to wait on her mistress and her children, will learn, before she is twelve years old, why it is that her mistress hates such and such a one among the slaves. Perhaps the child’s own mother is among those hated ones. She listens to violent outbreaks of jealous passion, and cannot help understanding what is the cause. She will become prematurely knowing in evil things. Soon she will learn to tremble when she hears her master’s footfall. She will be compelled to realize that she is no longer a child. If God has bestowed beauty upon her, it will prove her greatest curse. That which commands admiration in the white woman only hastens the degradation of the female slave.
I know that some are too much brutalized by slavery to feel the humiliation of their position; but many slaves feel it most acutely, and shrink from the memory of it. I cannot tell how much I suffered in the presence of these wrongs, now how I am still pained by the retrospect. My master met me at every turn, reminding me that I belonged to him, and swearing by heaven and earth that he would compel me to submit to him. If I went out for a breath of fresh air, after a day of unwearied toil, his footsteps dogged me. If I knelt by my mother’s grave, his dark shadow fell on me even there. The light heart which nature had given me became heavy with sad forebodings. The other slaves in my master’s house noticed the change. Many of them pitied me; but none dared to ask the cause. They had no need to inquire. They knew too well the guilty practices under that roof; and they were aware that to speak of them was an offence that never went unpunished.”
–Harriet Jacobs, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself
“My mother was sold at Richmond, Virginia, and a gentleman bought her who lived in Georgia, and we did not know that she was sold until she was gone; and the saddest thought was to me to know which way she had gone, and I used to go outside and look up to see if there was anything that would direct me, and I saw a clear place in the sky, and it seemed to me the way she had gone, and I watched it three and a half years, not knowing what that meant, and it was there the whole time that mother was gone from her little ones.”
“The every-day life of a slave on one of our southern plantations, however frequently it may have been described, is generally little known at the North. The principal food of those upon my master’s plantation consisted of corn meal, and salt herrings; to which was added in summer a little buttermilk, and the few vegetables which each might raise for himself and his family, on the little piece of ground which was assigned to him for the purpose, called a truck patch. The meals were two, daily. The first, or breakfast was taken at 12 o’clock, after laboring from daylight; and the other when the work of the remainder of the day was over. The only dress was of tow cloth, which for the young, and often even for those who had passed the period of childhood, consisted of a single garment, something like a shirt, but longer, reaching to the ankles; and for the older, a pair of pantaloons, or a gown, according to the sex, while some kind of round jacket, or overcoat, might be added in winter, a wool hat once in two or three years, for the males, and a pair of coarse shoes once a year. Our lodging was in log huts, of a single small room, with no other floor than the trodden earth, in which ten or a dozen person-men, women, and children-might sleep, but which could not protect them from dampness and cold, nor permit the existence of the common decencies of life. There were neither beds, nor furniture of any description-a blanket being the only addition to the dress of the day for protection from chillness of the air or the earth. In these hovels were we penned at night, and fed by day; here were the children born, and the sick-neglected. Such were the provisions for the daily toll of the slave.”
–Josiah Henson, “The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave. Narrated by himself. 1849
“Slavery has existed in this country too long and has stamped its character too deeply and indelibly, to be blotted out in a day or a year, or even in a generation. The slave will yet remain in some sense a slave, long after the chains are taken from his limbs, and the master will yet retain much of the pride, the arrogance, imperiousness and conscious superiority, and love of power, acquired by his former relation of master. Time, necessity, education, will be required to bring all classes into harmonious and natural relations…
Law and the sword can and will, in the end abolish slavery. But law and the sword cannot abolish the malignant slaveholding sentiment which has kept the slave system alive in this country during two centuries. Pride of race, prejudice against color, will raise this hateful clamor for oppression of the negro as heretofore. The slave having ceased to be the abject slave of a single master, his enemies will endeavor to make him the slave of society at large.”
-Frederick Douglass, December 28, 1862, Rochester, New York, Speech at the Spring Street AME Zion Church
Mary Elizabeth Bowser-Freed Slave, Union Spy, and Abolitionist
Mary Elizabeth Bowser was born Mary Jane Richards on May 17, 1846, near Richmond, Virginia. She was born a slave to the Van Lew family, Eliza Baker and John Van Lew, of Richmond, Virginia.
Records show that Mary was baptized at St. John’s Church, the white congregation of the Van Lew family, as opposed to the First African Baptist Church in Richmond. This fact proves that Mary was treated differently by other slaves, by the Van Lew family from birth.
When she was of age, Eliza and John’s daughter, Elizabeth, sent Mary north to get an education. In 1885, she sent her to Liberia for missionary work and she did not return to the Van Lew home until 1860 again.
A few days after the battle of Fort Sumter, Mary married Wilson Bowser on April 16, 1861, in the same church she was baptized in. The Civil War had just begun.
During the war, Mary was instrumental in helping Elizabeth with her spy operation and aided her in helping escaped slaves take refuge in the Van Lew mansion. Mary, as well as many of the slaves freed by the Van Lew family, completed dangerous missions to get information to General Grant about the movements of the Confederate army. Mary even managed to obtain a position as a servant in the household of Jefferson and Varina Davis. She worked directly for Varina Davis and managed to learn about important strategies and plans of the Confederate government.
Soon after the war, Mary Bowser worked as a teacher to freed slaves in Richmond and, in 1867, founded her own school in Georgia. She alone taught young children and adults, all former slaves, to read and write.
A letter surviving with the date, June 1867, stated her new name as Mary Garvin and the intention that she would be joining her new husband in the West Indies.
The year of her death is unknown, but a memorial plot was placed in her memory at Woodland Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia. It honors her memory as an agent who helped saved the Union during the Civil War. The stone reads, “Mary Elizabeth Bowser, Born 1840, Union Military Intelligence Agent, She risked her life and liberty so that all could know freedom.”
“This past, the Negro’s past, of rope, fire, torture, castration, infanticide, rape; death and humiliation: fear by day and night, fear as deep as the marrow of the bone; doubt that he was worthy of life, since everyone around him denied it; sorrow for his women, for his kinfolk, for his children, who needed his protection, and whom he could not protect; rage, hatred, and murder, hatred for white men so deep that it often turned against him and his own, and made all love, all trust, all joy impossible-this past, this endless struggle to achieve and reveal and confirm a human identity, human authority, yet contains, for all its horror, something very beautiful. I do not mean to be sentimental about suffering-enough is certainly as good as a feast-but people who cannot suffer can never grow up, can never discover who they are.”
HAPPY JUNETEENTH MY FELLOW AA’s, celebrate, liberate, educate, dismantle the racist establishment, & support your local black economy! The ancestors started the work and passed the strength onto us to finish it.
How is Robert Carter (1728-1804), one of the wealthiest slave-owners in all of American history; his Deed of Gift set in motion the single largest act of liberation prior to the Emancipation Proclamation (1791 vs 1865), related to -~-~ Benjamin Harrison (1726-1791), a signatory of the Declaration of Independence?
The Emancipation Proclamation outlawing slavery in the U.S. passed January 1, 1863. Enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, didn’t find out they were free until June 19, 1865. Juneteenth is the commemoration of when all enslaved people became free. The story of Juneteenth: https://daily.jstor.org/the-story-of-juneteenth/
On May 31, 1921, the Greenwood section of Tulsa, OK, also known as Black Wall Street, was destroyed by an agry mob of white people. Thirty-five city blocks went up in flames, 300 people died, and 800 were injured. The story of the devastation of Black Wall Street: https://daily.jstor.org/the-devastation-of-black-wall-street/
This day and this place are not a coincidence.
(source: TULSA HISTORICAL SOCIETY via cbsnews.com)
Juneteenthmarks our country’s second independence day. Though it has long been celebrated among the African American community, it is a history that has been marginalized and still remains largely unknown to the wider public. The legacy of Juneteenth shows the value of deep hope and urgent organizing in uncertain times. Our Museum is a community space where that spirit can continue to live on–where histories like this one can surface, and new stories with equal urgency can be told.
Watch the video as Founding Director Lonnie Bunch III leads a tour through our Slavery and Freedom exhibition to celebrate #Juneteenth! He highlights the stories behind some of our most popular objects, including Nat Turner’s Bible, freedom papers of free African Americans and a Sibley tent that housed African Americans who ran away from Southern plantations in search of freedom with the Union army.
listen up, i’m gonna say what i have to say nice and respectfully, so y’all can understand and be educated. i’m in no way the spokes person for all black people, but i’m using the small voice that i do have in hopes that everyone will still amplify it and help me educate.
for those who are unaware, juneteenth (first officially celebrated june 19th 1866) is the date the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. note that this was two and a half years after president lincoln’s emancipation proclamation – which had become official january 1, 1863. but guess what? it took two years for it to reach the texan slaves.
and even then, it wasn’t like slaves just chucked up the peace sign to their masters and walked out. some slave lives were threatened by their owners if they even thought about leaving. whites and blacks didn’t just join hands and sing kumbayah together. work still needed to be done. they weren’t out of the woods just yet and we still aren’t today.
it wasn’t until 2021 that juneteenth was made a federal holiday. but if you’re wondering why so many are feeling negatively toward it becoming a holiday, it’s basically because we feel gaslighted in a sense. we asked for extensive voting rights protections, job training, anti-lynching laws, criminal justice system overhaul and reparations and so much more. but all it seems like is that white folks gave themselves another day off work. true definition of “what we asked for” vs “what we got”.
and before you say we should just be happy it’s being recognized, let me tell you something. black folks had already recognized and celebrated it for decades. as candice benbow, a cultural commentator stated: we were still gonna have our festivals, pageants, cookouts, fish fry’s, and gatherings (small or not). we didn’t need to be given a day off work to do stuff we were already gonna do. we needed you to actually do something to change the conditions of our lives.
as much as i love all my bipoc’s (black, indigenous, people of color) this is a black holiday. not a bipoc one. show your support for the black community please. below are some images from instagram with some information on what juneteenth as a holiday means, and what you can do to show your support (cred is tagged in each pic):
just a quick note: if you’re white, please don’t be performative. don’t wear a t-shirt with juneteenth on it or anything because it will be a problem for most. don’t constantly feel like you need to show everyone you’ve donated to organizations or the community and that you’re an ally. there’s no need to prove that you are “one of the good whites”, so don’t be more of an activist than the black community. it’s rude, distasteful, and frankly, annoying as hell. trust me when i say this:
you are not more “woke” than us, and you neverwillbe.
