The Advocate
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THE ADVOCATE Newsletter of the Towson University Retired Faculty Association Spring/Summer 2020 President’s Message I write this from my home where I am keeping away from others—even the gym has closed!! Who knew what this year would bring when I wrote my letter in the fall—or even a month ago? The year certainly has been busy. Under TURFA sponsorship, we have toured the Amazon distribution center, brushed up on skills to use Towson’s online interface, and learned about “The Power of the Presidency and the Impeachment Inquiry,” a talk given by Professor Jack Fruchtman (Political Science). While we planned another talk for the spring semester, the closure of TU’s campus has put that on hold. Our website, which has been redesigned by President-Elect candidate Ron Matlon and is being maintained by Peg Benner, is a good source for information about TURFA news and about ongoing and future TURFA programs and events: https://www.towson.edu/retiredfaculty/. We have just received notification from the president of AROHE (the Association of Retirement Organizations in Higher Education) that they will include on their web site the survey that TURFA conducted several years ago, tabulating the post-retirement productivity and activities of TU faculty and librarians, as a resource for all member institutions to use. This year has brought updates to operating procedures and to relationships with the main TU community. TURFA has a voting membership on the Academic Senate, and we continue to work to have faculty emeriti included in the University Catalog. As we address issues of concern to retirees, we find holes in past practices (years when the Senate minutes did not list faculty emeriti, for example). Our presence on the Academic Senate and in the faculty lists of the TU Catalog serves as a reminder that we are still vital members of the University community. In any case, I cannot say strongly enough how grateful I am for the support of the Provost and her office, particularly AVP Maggie Reitz and Kameron Croup. Through much transition and turmoil, they have guided and assisted us in our operations. In addition, the TURFA Executive Committee is a varied and talented group of people. I thank them for their wisdom, creativity, and patience. Elections for TURFA’s 2020-2021 officers will take place primarily online. Also online will be new by-laws, which you will need to approve. Keep safe and keep in touch. Sincerely, TURFA Executive Committee Tracy Miller, President * Ron Matlon, Present-Elect * Fran Bond, Past President Jane Wolfson, Secretary * Ray Castaldi, Treasurer * Peg Benner, Representative at Large * Jim Paulsen, Representative at Large Committee Chairs Programs and Events, Donna Cox & Jim Paulsen * Scholarship, David Larkin * Oral History Project, Don Forester * Newsletter, Florence Newman 2 either a slave or an indentured servant before he The TURFA Fall Meeting: A was freed and took the name Anthony Johnson, History of Slavery Close to after which he held land, paid taxes, owned slaves, Home borrowed and lent money, and signed legal documents, just as did white settlers. In the mid- Florence Newman seventeenth century, Hedberg noted, there were few differences between the rights of freemen/owners, The TURFA fall meeting was held Oct. 10 in the those of indentured servants, and those of slaves. In South Pavilion. After greetings by TURFA President 1664, however, in response to repugnance against Tracy Miller, Jo-Ann Pilardi introduced the featured racial intermarriage, the Act Concerning Negroes speaker, Jacqueline Simmons Hedberg, author most and Other Slaves decreed that all children born to recently of Plantations, Slavery, and Freedom on slaves would be slaves for life. One Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Hedberg, who currently result, Hedberg pointed out, was that the line lives in Baltimore and taught history for many years between slave and free shifted to one between black in the Baltimore County Public Schools, was born on and white. Still the law affected relatively few Hooper’s Island in Dorchester County. Her post- people: in 1680, there were 1,611 slaves in retirement research into family history has produced Maryland and servants outnumbered slaves four to a number of books and essays on Hooper’s Island. one. Ms. Hedberg began her talk by observing that her investigation of slavery on Maryland’s Between 1680 and 1750, the Maryland slave Eastern Shore was “not merely a work of population grew to 43,450, one third of the personal curiosity but of civic and moral population. Many of these slaves came directly responsibility,” inasmuch as studying history in from Africa. Hedberg explained that this greater order to understand the past can also lead to a dependence on slaves reflected the economic better understanding of our present change called The Plantation Revolution that saw circumstances. She structured her lecture the rise of tobacco farming, the need for more and around the stories of six individuals, some sustained labor, and the consequent passage of laws enslaved, some free. “The history of slavery,” that treated slaves as chattel rather than human she said, “is a history of changing relationships beings. Hedberg cited the story of Denby, a slave based on power,” power which varied by time on a plantation in Talbot County who was shot dead and place, so that slavery in Maryland differed when he refused an order, as just one example of from slavery in the deep South. For instance, the level of violence during this era, when planters the first individual she discussed, “Antonio, a meted out “justice” legitimated by eighteenth- Negro” in colonial records, could have been TURFA Executive Committee Tracy Miller, President * Ron Matlon, Present-Elect * Fran Bond, Past President Jane Wolfson, Secretary * Ray Castaldi, Treasurer * Peg Benner, Representative at Large * Jim Paulsen, Representative at Large Committee Chairs Programs and Events, Donna Cox & Jim Paulsen * Scholarship, David Larkin * Oral History Project, Don Forester * Newsletter, Florence Newman 3 century doctrines about the inferiority and century laws designed to keep manumitted slaves in deficient rationality of blacks. their place, which prevented blacks from voting, By the time of the American Revolution, giving evidence against whites, or own a firearm or tobacco farming in Maryland had given way to a dog. Free blacks from other states were mixed farming, which did not require year- prohibited from entering Maryland, and the round labor, and slaves ceased to be essential to Maryland State Legislature, Hedberg noted, rejected the economy. Hedberg pointed out that at the the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the same time the antislavery movement was Constitution, those which grant citizenship to all gaining strength, based on the argument that persons born in the U.S. and confer on those slavery was incompatible with the ideals of citizens the right to vote. The two-caste system of American freedom and with Christian blacks and whites on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, belief. Hedberg discovered that between 1727- according to Hedberg, persisted into the twentieth 1826 over 300 slaves were manumitted in century. Dorchester County, some of whom went on to Ms. Hedberg concluded her talk by quoting purchase land there and farm it. Unfortunately, President Barack Obama: “A clear-eyed view of manumission was but one response to the history can make us problem of surplus slaves: another was selling uncomfortable.” Hedberg acknowledged that her slaves south to plantations in Georgia and own eyes had been opened by researching her book, Mississippi where conditions for slaves were which began with delving into her own family’s even harsher. Families were cruelly separated, past on Hooper’s Island. Following her formal a point Simmons underscored with the story of presentation, she entertained questions ranging from the Rosses, who were first dispersed to different whether she favored reparations for the descendants plantations on the Shore, then some of them of slaves (it’s complicated) to whether her family’s sold south by their owner. Slaves escaped in slave-owning past was obscured in the records (no) greater numbers than ever before, and one of to how her book was being received on the Eastern the Ross sisters, Araminta, fled up Shore (quite well among historical societies, less so the Choptank River, only to return later to lead among local bookstore owners). President Miller others to freedom. Under the thanked Hedberg for presenting to TURFA and name Araminta chose for herself, Harriet encouraged audience members to buy her book, an Tubman, she became the legendary exhortation many took to heart, “Moses of her people” on the Underground since Hedberg remained afterward signing Railroad. purchased copies until her supply of books ran out. Oral History Update Don Forester The TURFA Oral History Project had a productive late Fall and early Spring. In November, with support from the College of Business and Economics (CBE) we were able to complete an interview with Ray Castaldi (Accounting). That interview is now available for viewing in the Over thirty years, from 1790 to 1810, the University Archives. To view this and other videos percentage of free blacks on the Eastern Shore in the collection search “Libraries.towson.edu”. from 7% to 23%. Free blacks were never fully Scroll down to “Special Collections” and select integrated on the Eastern Shore, “TURFA Oral History Project.” however, Hedberg said, pointing to nineteenth- TURFA Executive Committee Tracy