From Civil War to Civil Rights: African American Heritage in Western New York Is a Year-Round Source of Pride for All

From Civil War to Civil Rights: African American Heritage in Western New York Is A Year-Round Source Of Pride For All. Just over eighty years ago, in February 1926, the first formally organized celebration of African American Heritage was launched as “Negro History Week.” That same year, the first black female aviator, Bessie Coleman plunged to her death while preparing for an air show. Growing up in a Texas town where most black women spent their lives picking cotton or working as a domestic or in a factory, Bessie Coleman rejected all of it and moved to Chicago to become a manicurist in a Chicago barbershop. During that time, this young and adventurous girl had the opportunity to listen to stories of veterans from World War I, many relating their tales as pilots in the newly organized Amy Air Forces. Their stories inspired Coleman to leave this country for France (she was not allowed to attend aviation schools here) where she obtained her pilot license in 1921. Bessie did eventually return to the United States after she had established her reputation as a premier stunt flyer. Coleman’s tragic and premature death at age 30, unlike that of Amelia Earhart had been largely overlooked until 1995 when the US Postal Service issued a first class stamp in her honor and a book was published on her life by a former University of Rochester alumna, Elizabeth Hadley Freydberg. The book, “Bessie Coleman: The Brownskin Ladybird,” is available through most local bookstores. More information about Coleman’s courageous efforts to achieve an education and a career in a field that was largely cut off to not only African-Americans but to women as well is featured among the exhibits at the nearby Curtiss Museum of Flight in Hammondsport, New York (http://www.glenncurtissmuseum.org/). This region’s connection to true stories of challenges and adventures for African Americans like those of Bessie Coleman can be found from Lewiston to Westfield. Take for example, the story of Jermain Wesley Lougen (1814-1872), a runaway slave from Tennessee who became a nationally-known writer and lecturer and one of the most openly active “conductors” of the Underground Railroad. Lougen escaped to Canada (Hamilton and St. Catherines area), eventually returning to the United States, and settling in Syracuse. It was there that he began writing his reflections on his perilous journey to freedom, “The Rev. J. W. Lougen, as a Slave and as a Freeman. A Narrative of Real Life,” was published in 1859. An original copy of his work was scanned by the “Documenting the American South” project and is available at: http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/loguen/menu.html. You can also find Lougen’s biography, along with those of many other prominent abolitionists at: http://americanabolitionist.liberalarts.iupui.edu/ or at: http://www.nyhistory.com/central/loguen.htm Lougen met Caroline Storum, the daughter of William and Sarah Storum, an African- American couple who ran a farm in Busti, near Jamestown in Chautauqua County. The Storums were actively involved in the Underground Railroad. Caroline married the Reverend Lougen and she eventually joined him in Syracuse, where Lougen continued his work to abolish slavery. Their daughter, Sarah (Marinda S.) Lougen (1850-1933) became one of the nation’s first African-American women physicians, graduating from Syracuse University Medical College in 1876. In 1882 she traveled with her husband to the Dominican Republic and became the first woman doctor there! Another daughter of the Lougens’, Amelia, married Lewis Douglass, son of Frederick Douglass in 1869. The activities of the Storum and Loguen families, and their involvement in national anti-slavery activities, are currently being documented at the Fenton History Center in Jamestown (http://www.fentonhistorycenter.org/). The Town of Busti website (http://www.townofbusti.com/underrr.html) includes a brief description of the Storum family. Another excellent website is maintained by the Circle Association, with a comprehensive description of the history of African Americans in New York State, from Fredonia to Buffalo to Niagara Falls, and beyond. The site is at: http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/0history/hwny.html. The southern tier was known as a major center of abolitionist activity in the mid-19th century. There is a publication available at many local libraries called, “Sketches in the History of the Underground Railroad,” written by Eber M. Pettit as a series of reminisces of himself, his son and others who took part in the covert activities of helping slaves escape to the North. The original articles appeared in a local paper, The Fredonia Censor in 1870, reprinted as a book in 1879 and once again reprinted in 1999 with an introduction by local teacher, Paul Leone. The stories describe the various people and places to which escaped slaves would travel as they made their way North, usually eventually into Canada. Because of the covert nature of the activities surrounding the anti-slavery movement, the authenticity of some accounts may be uncertain, but the stories continue to be retold over and over! There is a collection of material not published but just as intriguing and inspiring with its stories of people struggling to establish freedom for all. The Elial Todd Foote Papers are a compilation of essays, letters, news articles, tracts (Foote was an early member of the American Tract Society, which got its start along the eastern seaboard) and notes compiled by Foote, a physician and judge who lived in Jamestown, New York from about 1815 to 1845. Foote was also an ardent abolitionist as evidenced in the voluminous papers he wrote and collected! Included in the Foote Papers are lists of names of known locals active as abolitionists, abolition songs and poems, and a single copy of a printed sermon given by a Reverend Rufus Murray from a church in Toledo Ohio in 1845. With the sermon is a handwritten note from Murray to Foote, indicating he was sending the copy at Foote’s request. That the two knew each other is likely, especially since with more information coming to light, it was discovered that Reverend Rufus Murray was active in several upstate churches, from as far east as Utica, to Lewiston to Westfield and Jamestown! The Lewiston Historical Association (http://www.historiclewiston.org) has burial records of St. Stephens Episcopal Church, from the time of Rev. Murray, indicating burials of “strangers” in the 1840s and 1850s. The use of “strangers” in burial records was a commonly known term for runaway slaves whose identities were withheld to protect surviving family members from recapture! Foote’s awareness of his own New England pre-Revolutionary heritage (he came from a Revolutionary War era family Connecticut) made him keen to preserve the records documenting local happenings during the tumultuous period preceding the Civil War. The Foote collection, along with an amazing collection of correspondence between two brothers (both Union officers) during the Civil War are housed at the McClurg Museum, operated by the Chautauqua County Historical Society in Westfield (http://www.mcclurgmuseum.org/). After the American Civil War most African-Americans found that their lives were not improving much since their days as slaves. Every day in every part of the country, African- Americans were facing social, political and economic hurdles that would have made the strongest of people feel crushed under such oppressive conditions. One American author and lawyer, Albion Tourgee was determined to help enforce the rights of all citizens, regardless of color. Tourgee was born in Ohio and studied law at the University of Rochester. He served briefly in the Union Army during the Civil War and afterward moved his family to North Carolina where he became a “carpetbag” lawyer and judge. Tourgee was a prolific writer and soon gaimed a reputation as a radical Republican. He wrote for national magazines (such as the Inter Ocean) and published several books. His most popular novel of that time – and one that is still used in classrooms today, “A Fool’s Errand” reflects his ideologies of racial equality and his experiences living in the Reconstruction South. Tourgee purchased a home in Mayville, NY about 1881, calling the property, “Thorheim.” He and his family lived there during much of his writing years. Tourgee left Mayville in 1897 when he was appointed US consul to France. He died in France in 1905, but his remains were brought back to Mayville for burial. He was eulogized by many former acquaintances, including W.E.B. DuBois and Ida B.Wells. The McClurg Museum holds a large collection of letters that were sent to Tourgee by people all around the country, black and white, telling him of the humiliating and horrifying conditions in which they were often forced to live and work - including their exclusion from hotels, restaurants and public transport; losing homes and jobs; and even worse, being heckled, tortured and having family members killed in racially motivated attacks. Tourgee tried to assist these people, either directly with legal advice or representation - or by writing books, or by discussing these situations with many Congressmen he knew and hoped would make the legislative changes to enforce and uphold the freedom of all people. In 1891 he founded the National Citizens’ Rights Association, an organization devoted to equality for African-American citizens. Before the organization ultimately died out, it did succeed in obtaining the insertion of a civil rights clause in the New York constitution. Tourgee also influenced a then governor William McKinley of Ohio to enact the first state level legislation intended to prevent lynchings of African Americans. In 1892, Tourgee was retained by a small group of black professionals in New Orleans who set up an incident to test the constitutionality of the “Separate Car Law” in Louisina, which forbade black passengers from sitting in train cars occupied by white passengers.

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