Moaney, Jaelon 2019 Africana Studies Thesis Title: ‘Something on the Inside, Is Working on the Outside’: A Continuum of Buried Testaments to Black Tidewater Voice on the Eastern Shore, MD’s 1st Congressional District: Advisor: Neil Roberts Advisor is Co-author: None of the above Second Advisor: Released: release now Authenticated User Access: No Contains Copyrighted Material: No ‘Something on the Inside, Is Working on the Outside’: A Continuum of Buried Testaments to Black Tidewater Voice on the Eastern Shore, MD’s 1st Congressional District by Jaelon Terrele Moaney Neil Roberts, Advisor A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment Of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Africana Studies WILLIAMS COLLEGE Williamstown, Massachusetts May 20, 2019 Moaney 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................ 3 AUTHOR’S NOTE ........................................................................................ 4 ILLUSTRATIONS ......................................................................................... 5 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................... 6 CHAPTER ONE THE MIDDLING SORT OF THE MIDDLE PASSAGE: THE CURTIS BROTHERS ................................................................................................. 13 CHAPTER TWO A POLITICAL SANDBAR BENEATH THE RISING TIDES OF POLARIZATION IN THE NEW AMERICAN SOUTH: PUBLIC EDUCATION IN MARYLAND’S FIRST CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT ...................................................................................................................... 32 CHAPTER THREE A SALTWATER BASIN RUNNETH OVER: THE POLITICAL LEGACY OF THE MARYLAND EASTERN SHORE’S AFRICAN METHODIST EPSICOPAL CHURCH ............................................................................... 73 • Redemption, Come Hell & Shallow Water: The Impact of the Chesapeake’s African Methodist Episcopal Church on U.S. Christianity………………………………………………………...76 • The Ebb and Flow of The Holy Ghost: Negro Sorrow and Joy in Musical Harmony…………………………………………………94 • A More Perfect Union in His Brackish Galilee: Civic Fortunes, Misgivings and Divinations of the Chesapeake’s African Methodist Congregations……………………………………………………107 CONCLUSION .......................................................................................... 143 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................... 150 Moaney 3 I am so blessed to have shared and done justice to the narrative of Black tidewater communities with this thesis. In many ways, this work is an enlightened tribute to the Chesapeake’s ethos, politics and unique sense of place. Coming from the Maryland Eastern Shore, life always seemed so simple and time always seemed to inch along. Daily interpersonal communication rarely began with any other question than “Who are your people?” Country roads that led to sprawling farms and beautiful waterfront from each small town or village were the same as when my ancestors walked them. Void of any buildings comparable in height to churches or the bitterness that comes over New Englanders during each never-ending winter season, the MD Eastern Shore was and remains worlds away from the exposure I’ve gained since arriving at Williams. In particular, the late History Professor Leslie Brown planted the seed of intellectually pursuing the micro-political. My grandmother and matriarch of my storied family, Mary B. Moaney, navigated and knew the micro-political world that I inherited like the back of her hand. It is through her unceasing love and teachings that I am beginning to understand the intangible depths of my own identity. Both of their passing during my undergraduate career catalyzed my passion for this work as well as the impetus for its continuation in my career as a public servant. Lastly, Professor Neil Roberts, no stranger to the Old Line State, has been a tremendous advisor and mentor for which I will forever be grateful. Without the help of this intellectual and familial community, the grace of God or the sustenance of the Chesapeake Bay this work would be truncated at best. As a living testament of the Black tidewater tradition and a future proponent of its political force, this work is only the beginning of my devotion to the region’s Black tidewater narrative redemption in the academy and in the political arena. Moaney 4 AUTHOR’S NOTE This is a work of nonfiction. Most of the interviews and interactions described in this book took place in sacred spaces of fellowship between the span of November 2018 and April 2019. Except where indicated in the notes, all events that occurred within that window of time were witnessed firsthand. All quotations were captured by hand in a notepad or were copied from official documents and published literature. The first names of the active and retired ministry, as well as scholars, have been rescinded to protect their individual privacy while still giving the reverence owed to the historic free Black tidewater families of the Maryland Eastern Shore. Moaney 5 ILLUSTRATIONS MD State Flag…………………………………………………………………………………….……….7 Downes and Albert Curtis…………………………………………………………………….…...31 Daniel Coker Plaque…………………………………………………………………………….…....41 Dorchester County Canning Industry…………………………………………………….…...42 Rock Hall Monument………………………………………………………………………….….…..45 Newspaper Clipping of Mathew Williams 1931 Lynching…………………….……...52 Moaney Family Outside the Historic Bethel AME Church of Chestertown….....77 Reverend Richard Allen Portrait………………………………………………………………..79 Bethel AME Church of Easton, MD……………………………………………………………...80 Bethel AME Church of Baltimore, MD………………………………………………………....82 “The Presentation” of December 1845………………………………………………………..84 Historic Free Black Community of Bellevue, MD………………………………………….87 Jerena Lee Portrait……………………………………………………………………………….........88 St. Stephens AME Church of Unionville, MD…………………………………………………89 Talbot County United States Colored Troops……………………………………………….90 1933 black-and-white lithograph Hell’s Crossing by Ruth Starr Rose…………….91 Crisfield, MD African-American women picking crabmeat…………………………...92 203rd AME Church Baltimore Annual Conference Opening Service……………….93 Map of MD Eastern Shore…………………………………………………………………………...97 Crisfield, MD African Americans Atop Oyster Midden…………………………………..99 Shot from the banks of the Chester River…………………………………………………..104 1951 color serigraph This Train is Bound for Glory by Ruth Starr Rose………..109 Talbot County, MD Courthouse…………………………………………………………………112 Mother Bethel AME Church of Philadelphia, PA…………………………………………115 Frederick Douglass 1847 Speech on the Dred Scott Decision……………………...117 Kent County, MD NAACP Marching in Chestertown, MD……………………………..118 Aerial view of the Nanticoke River…………………………………………………………….120 H. Rap Brown during the Cambridge Riot of 1967……………………………………...121 Pine Street following the Cambridge Riot of 1967……………………………………...122 Worton Point Schoolhouse………………………………………………………………………..124 Chief Justice Earl Warren Majority Opinion………………………………………………..128 President Trump Tweet following Stephen Decatur High School Rally………...131 Moaney 6 Since its inception, Maryland has been just one of many American border-states riddled with a contradictory past that frequently influences its trajectory. Therefore, embedded deep within its cultural fabric, symbolism has been the prominent arena of political warfare between competing historical narratives. In 1928, William Isaac Thomas contributed a world-renown theory to sociology when he expressed “if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.”1 In other words, what is imagined to be real, is real in its consequences. This notion of conceptual place-making is the essence of the state’s most prized and potent symbol: its flag. Branded on beer koozies, swimwear, storefront exteriors, blankets, vehicle doors, athletic uniforms and even tattoos, the Maryland state flag which contemporary U.S. citizens admire was not officially created until 19042. Its popularity is buttressed by a widespread misremembrance of its inherent moral dichotomy spread statewide following the American Civil War, nearly four decades after its conclusion. As a slave-state that never seceded from the Union, Maryland’s strong undertone of Confederate sympathy for approximately 25,000 rebel soldiers has “weaved into our art and politics” espousals for civic myths that Maryland-native Ta-Nehisi Coates argues “dress villainy in martyrdom and transform banditry into chivalry”3. History is a hotly contested field of knowledge that accredits the narratives of winners over losers, heroes over villains and, in America’s case, conquerors over the conquered. Maryland was and continues comfortably to be no exception to this subjugation. 1John Scott, and Gordon Marshall. "Thomas Theorem." A Dictionary of Sociology. : Oxford University Press, January 01, 2009. Oxford Reference. Date Accessed 22 Apr. 2019 http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199533008.001.0001/acref-9780199533008-e-2359. 2Ron, Cassie. “Understanding the Maryland Flag's Ties to the Confederate Cause.” Baltimore Magazine, Mar. 2018, www.baltimoremagazine.com/2018/3/20/does-the-maryland-state-flag-have-ties-to-the-confederate-cause. 3Ta-Nehisi, Coates. We Were Eight Years in Power. An American Tragedy. One World, 2017, pp. 64. Moaney 7 The flag combines the black and gold crosshatched paternal Calvert crest with the red and white Christian, triple-lobed