NorthStar’s Week in Black History

March 15 through March 21

March 15

1809 ----- Joseph Jenkins Roberts, who was a black nationalist during slavery and who became the first and then the seventh president of Liberia, was born free on this date in Norfolk,Va.

Roberts’ father was a Welch plantation owner, and his mother was a biracial enslaved woman. Roberts’ father freed Roberts’ mother and all of their children while the mother was still young.  Once free, Roberts’ mother married a free black man, James Roberts, who raised her children as his own.

As a young man, Roberts worked for his stepfather in his successful boating business on the James River.  When his stepfather died, Roberts continued to work in the family business; he also worked as a barber’s apprentice. The barber and shop owner, William Colson, was an educated black man and a minister who allowed Roberts access to his library.  Roberts took advantage of this opportunity, read voraciously and educated himself accordingly.

When Roberts learned that the American Colonization Society intended to colonize the African coast at Cape Mesurado, near what is now Monrovia, Liberia. Roberts, then 20, eagerly joined the expedition.  Restrictions on free blacks in Virginia were intolerable to most blacks.  These negative conditions influenced Roberts’ decision to leave the United States. A strongly religious man, he also felt it would be important to convert Africans to Christianity.

Sailing aboard the Harriet, Roberts, his wife, their infant son, Roberts’ mother and six of Roberts’ siblings set out for Africa on February 9, 1829.  Roberts’ wife and son died during the first year the family lived in Monrovia.  Roberts married for a second time in 1836 to the daughter of a Baptist minister, Jane Waring.

Roberts and his brothers established a successful export business in Monrovia.  Their chief exports were camwood, ivory and a variety of palm products. Roberts’ brother, John Wright Roberts, established the Liberia Methodist Church, and Henry Roberts, the youngest brother, studied medicine in the United States and then returned to Liberia to work as a physician.

In 1833, Joseph Roberts was appointed high sheriff of the colony in Monrovia.  He had many duties, but his chief responsibility was to organize men into militias and to travel into the interior of Liberia, collect taxes from indigenous people and to quell rebellions against colonial rule.

Six years later, the American Colonization Society promoted Roberts to vice-governor of the colony.  When the colony’s governor, Thomas Buchanan, died in 1841, Roberts was appointed governor of Liberia, becoming the first black to achieve the distinction. In 1846, Roberts moved for the independence of Liberia.  The legislature called for a referendum and the colony’s voters chose independence.  

Roberts declared Liberia independent on July 26, 1847.  When free elections were held, Roberts was chosen as Liberia’s president on October 5, 1847.  He served his newly independent country for eight years, or until 1856, having been re-elected three more times by Liberian voters.

During his first presidency, Roberts worked to establish treaties with indigenous people of Liberia, and he also worked to increase trade with European countries and to gain recognition for Liberia as an independent nation.   The United States government withheld their formal recognition of Liberia, fearing that southern congressmen would never accept a black ambassador in Washington, DC.  In 1862, during Lincoln’s administration, the United States officially recognized Liberia.

When Roberts completed his first term as president, he served as a major general for fifteen years in the Liberian army.  He also served as a diplomat and represented Liberia in both France and Great Britain.  He traveled frequently to the United States during this period, primarily intent on raising funds for Liberia College, which he had helped found.  He served as president of the college from 1872 to 1876.  He also held a professorship in jurisprudence and international law.

In 1872, Roberts was re-elected to the presidency of Liberia.  He became Liberia’s seventh president since independence, and he served two terms, leaving his post in 1875, because he was too ill to manage the responsibilities of the office.

Roberts died February 24, 1876, less than two months after stepping down from the presidency.  He was 66.

Liberia’s largest airport, Roberts International Airport, was named in his honor as were the Liberian town of Robertsport and Roberts Street in central Monrovia.  Roberts’ birth date is celebrated as a national holiday in Liberia.

March 16

1827 ----- Freedom’s Journal, the first black-owned and operated newspaper in the United States, was founded by a group of free black men in New York City. The newspaper served to inform the black community as well as provide a counterbalance to the racist commentary characteristic of news publications of the time.

Founded the same year slavery was abolished in the state of New York, the Freedom’s Journal was a four-page, four-column, standard-size weekly publication, edited by Samuel E. Cornish and John B. Russwurm.

The Journal featured current events, anecdotes and editorials.  Initially opposed to the “colonization movement” that was gaining support in the United States, encouraging free blacks to repatriate to Africa, the Journal eventually took up that cause as part of its advocacy of black political power, black suffrage and its opposition to both slavery and lynching.

The Journal advocated strongly for improved conditions for the 300,000 free blacks living in the North at the time.  The paper offered news from all part of the world, but stories about African countries were highlighted.  The Journal was also an organ of record, and birth, death and wedding announcements were printed as a matter of course.

In order to encourage black achievement, the Journal offered brief biographies of accomplished blacks.  To further support its readers, the Journal also published lists of educational, employment and housing opportunities.  

The newspaper employed between 14 and 44 sales agents at any given time, and these agents collected and renewed subscription fees.  The Journal was circulated in 11 states, Washington, DC, Canada, Haiti and Europe.  An average advertisement cost between 25 and 75 cents.

When Cornish resigned as editor of the Journal in 1827, Russwurm assumed his post.  He eagerly supported the colonization movement in the United States, taking it up as the paper’s cause.  Most of the readers of the paper did not support the movement, thinking it a too radical solution to their ills.  They disagreed with Russwurm’s position and with the direction in which he was taking the paper.  Subscribership declined sharply and in 1829, the Freedom’s Journal ceased publication.

Though the Journal folded after only two years of publication, it proved to be an inspiration. By the time the Civil War broke out in 1861, more than 40 black-owned newspapers had been established throughout the United States.

March 17

1806 ----- Norbert Rillieux, chemical engineer, inventor and Egyptologist, who was noted primarily for developing the multiple-effect evaporator, an energy-efficient way to evaporate water, was born in New Orleans to a white plantation owner and a free black woman.  Rillieux’s invention was instrumental in the development of the sugar refinement industry, making it possible to produce larger quantities of sugar at lower cost.

As a Creole, Rillieux had advantages and opportunities that other blacks of his day did not have.  He attended Catholic schools in New Orleans and was educated in Paris during the 1820s at the exclusive Ecole Centrale.  While in Paris, Rillieux studied engineering and became an expert in steam engines.  At 24 and fluent in French, he was offered a teaching position at the Ecole Centrale, becoming the youngest person ever to teach there.

Rillieux was interested in the sugar refinement process and while in Paris, he researched ways in which to make the process more efficient.  At the same time he was conducting his research, Rillieux’s brother, Edmond Rillieux, a builder, and their cousin, Norbert Soulie, an architect, were in the process of building the Louisiana Sugar Refinery.  In 1833, Rillieux was offered a position as head engineer of the concern.

Though construction of the sugar refinery was never completed and the plan to create the business was abandoned, Rillieux continued his efforts to improve the sugar refining process, working from 1834 to 1843 to build a prototype of his multiple-effect evaporation system.  Rillieux patented his machine in 1843 and eventually sold it to more than a dozen Louisiana sugar factories.  

By 1849, Merrick & Towne, manufacturers in Philadelphia, were offering sugar refiners a choice of three different multiple-effect evaporation systems.  Refiners were able to purchase machines capable of producing 6,000, 12,000 or 18,000 pounds of sugar a day.

During the 1850s, Rillieux applied his skills as an engineer in a unique manner when he consulted with the city of New Orleans regarding ways to eliminate moist breeding grounds for the mosquitoes that carried Yellow Fever and caused an epidemic of the disease in the city.

In the last quarter of his life, Rillieux studied hieroglyphics at the Bibliotheque Nationale in
Paris, and he attempted to adapt his multiple-effect evaporation system to extract sugar from beets. Eventually he patented a machine capable of affecting this process.  He later lost that patent.

Norbert Rillieux died in 1894 at the age of 88.  He was buried in Paris.

1999 ----- Maurice Ashley, an immigrant from Jamaica, who was raised in Brooklyn, won the coveted title of International Grandmaster of Chess, the first black person to achieve the honor.

Ashley began playing chess at 12, was inspired at 14 by reading a book on chess, written by former American world champion player, Paul Morphy.  He tried out for his high school chess team in Brooklyn, but did not play well enough to gain a place on the team.  Undaunted, Ashley practiced playing independently and played in local championships, rapidly developing his skills.

In 1986, Ashley earned the rank of National Master, and in 1993, he earned the rank of International Master.  He worked as a chess coach, and it 1999 he played in the Manhattan Invitation and became a GM or grandmaster. Ashley was 33 years old and one of 800 chess players internationally to achieve this title and distinction.

In 2005, Ashley published his book, Chess for Success.  At intervals, he has delivered motivational speeches and has appeared on ESPN as their live chess commentator.

March 18

1933 ----- Born to sharecroppers in Coahoma County, Mississippi, civil rights activist Unita Blackwell, was the first black woman in the state of Mississippi to be elected mayor.

Blackwell attended school in West Helena, Ark., because there were no schools in Mississippi that accepted black students.  She earned an eighth grade diploma and then worked in the fields with her parents.  She chopped cotton in the early 1960s and earned three dollars a day.

In 1964, Blackwell taught Sunday school in Mayersville, Miss.  She was invited to join the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee and was soon recruited to serve as a field worker, registering her neighbors to vote.

Later the same year, Blackwell participated in Freedom Summer, a massive civil rights effort to register black voters throughout Mississippi.  She served as a delegate of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and served along with many others as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in New Jersey in a move to represent the state.  The Convention was not convinced to seat Blackwell or the other delegates, and they were turned away.

Three years later, Blackwell served as a community development specialist for the National Council of Negro Women.  

In 1976, Blackwell was elected mayor of Mayersville, Miss., a town that boasted a population of 1,635.  A strong advocate for improving the conditions of her town in general and housing conditions of the town’s most economically vulnerable residents in particular, Blackwell was an effective mayor.  In 1979, she was invited by President Jimmy Carter to participate in the national Energy Summit, and in 1989, she was elected chair of the National Conference of Black Mayors.

Blackwell earned a master’s degree in planning from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1983, and she was a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Fellowship in 1992.  Her autobiography, Barefootin:  Life Lessons from the Road to Freedom, was published in 2006.

March 19

1897 ----- A pioneer on the “Chitlin’ Circuit, the African-American vaudeville scene,  Jackie “Moms” Mabley was born Loretta Mary Aiken in Brevard, NC.  Mabley, a stand-up comedian, was the first African-American woman to develop a solo comedy act. Her satirical style influenced the comedic styles of later African-American comedians, including Richard Pryor, Whoopi Goldberg and Bernie Mac.

One of 20 children born to her parents, who owned and operated a general store, Mabley’s early life became difficult when her father died when she was eleven.  By the time she was 15, Mabley had been raped twice and had also given birth to two children, both of whom were given up for adoption.

When he stepfather demanded that she achieve stability by marrying an older man, Mabley turned to her grandmother, who encouraged her to try living independently instead.  Mabley ran away from home and joined a traveling minstrel show in Cleveland, performing as a singer.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Mabley was one of the few women engaged in standup comedy and she was one of the most popular and successful. Her comedy routines ranged from folksy to satirical to x-rated.  She addressed her audience as ‘children.’ During her career she recorded 20 comedy albums, and she also appeared frequently in clubs, on television and in films.

When she appeared during her heyday at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, Mabley earned $10,000 a week.  During the 1960s, she attracted white audiences as well as black audiences, and she performed her comedy act at Carnegie Hall in 1962.  At about the same time, she was a frequent guest on television’s Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, the most successful show on CBS.

Often billed to as “the world’s funniest woman,” Moms Mabley died in 1975 at the age of 81. In addition to the two children she gave up for adoption early in her life, Mabley was survived by four children she raised and five grandchildren.

March 20

1916 ----- Ota Benga, a Congolese Mbuti pygmy man, who was once kept in the Bronx zoo with a group of primates as part of an exhibit on the evolution of man, committed suicide.

Benga was born in the Belgian Congo in 1881.  Benga, who was 4’ 11” tall and who weighed 103 pounds, was married twice.  His first wife was captured by a tribe hostile to the Mbuti, and his second wife died, having been bitten by a poisonous snake.  African explorer Samuel Verner found Benga, then 23, in the Congo, took him from Africa and
brought him to the United States.

Along with members of the Batwa tribe, also pygmies, who had been captured earlier, Benga was “displayed” at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.  When Verner returned the Batwa people to the Congo, Benga accompanied them.  As he did not feel as though he belonged with the Batwa, he chose to return to the United States with Verner and lived temporarily in a spare room at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

Later, Benga was “given” to William Hornaday, director of the Bronx Zoo, and Hornaday “displayed” him as part of an ongoing exhibit in a structure where primates were housed and viewed by the public.  No distinction was made between Benga, a human being, and the wild animals held in captivity at the zoo. While confined at the Bronx Zoo, Benga lived in a cage with a parrot and an orangutan.

Treated as a freak, Benga was seen by thousands at the zoo and was the subject of both sensational and racist news coverage.  The newspapers also printed articles protesting the treatment of Benga and demanding his release from the zoo.

Once released from the zoo, Benga lived in a church-sponsored orphanage for black children.  In 1910, Benga was relocated to Lynchburg, Va., where he lived with a family named McCray, attended elementary school and was tutored in English by local poet Anne Spencer.

Once he had a basic command of English, Benga found work at a Lynchburg tobacco plant, where he became a valued employee.  Benga planned to return to Africa, but when World War I broke out, it was clear that his plans had to be set aside.

Lonely, homesick, increasingly depressed, and disappointed that he could not return to Africa, Benga committed suicide in 1916 by shooting himself through the heart with a borrowed pistol.  He was buried in an unmarked grave in the black section of the Old City Cemetery in Lynchburg.

Explorer Samuel Verner’s grandson, Phillips Verner Bradford, wrote a book about Benga, entitled,
Ota Benga:  The Pygmy in the Zoo.  The book was published in 1992.  A life mask and body cast of Benga are part of a permanent exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History.  The display is simply labeled “Pygmy,” and does not acknowledge Ota Benga, the man, by name.

March 21

1856 ---- A former slave, Henry Ossain Flipper, born on this date, was the first African American to graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point.  Flipper, then 21, graduated in 1877 and earned a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the United States Army. He was assigned to the Tenth U. S. Cavalry, one of two black cavalry regiments, established following the Civil War.

During his first years in the military, Flipper performed well in the situations to which he was assigned and he was well regarded. He was transferred in 1880 to Fort Davis, Texas, and assigned the duties of assistant quartermaster.  When Colonel William Shafer gained command of the post in the spring of that year, he relieved Flipper of his responsibilities as quartermaster.  At the same time, Flipper discovered that commissary funds were missing from his trunk where they were always stored, and fearing that Shafer would blame him for theft, Flipper attempted to cover-up the loss and keep the information from Shafer.

The money was not recovered as Flipper had hoped, and Shafer charged Flipper with embezzlement and moved to have him court martialed.  Flipper was tried, found guilty of misconduct and dismissed dishonorably from the Army. Throughout the trial and throughout his life, Flipper steadfastly maintained his innocence.

Using skills learned in the Army, Flipper found work as a surveyor.  He was soon in demand, and his reputation grew.  In 1890, Flipper opened his own civil and mining engineering office in Arizona.  

From 1893 to 1901, Flipper worked for the Department of Justice as a special agent for the Court of Private Land Claims.  He translated Spanish documents into English and also surveyed land grants and appeared as an expert witness in numerous court cases.

Later, Flipper worked as a mining engineer in Mexico until the Mexican Revolution made it impossible for him to live and work in Mexico.  He relocated to El Paso and worked as an interpreter for the Senate subcommittee on foreign relations.  In 1921, he was appointed as a special assistant to the Secretary of the Interior and worked with the Alaskan Engineering Commission.

During his adult lifetime, Flipper attempted by various means to clear his name of the charges that resulted in his dismissal from the military.  He died in 1940 at the age of 84 without having cleared his name and without knowing that in time the early charges against him would be dismissed and his rank would be restored.

As a result of efforts made during the civil rights movement, the Army reviewed Flipper’s case in 1976 and posthumously awarded Flipper an honorable discharge, retro-dated June 20, 1882, acknowledging that while Flipper lied to his commanding officer, discharge from the service was an unwarranted action for his lack of judgment.

In 1999, President Bill Clinton pardoned Henry Flipper, calling him an American hero.

NorthStar's Week in Black History is compiled by Susan M. Miller.
susanmiller@thenorthstarnews.com