A HISTORY OF AFRICAN AMERICANS OF DELAWARE AND MARYLAND'S EASTERN SHORE Carole C. Marks, Editor Copyright A History of African Americans of Delaware and Maryland's Eastern Shore Edited by Carole C. Marks Copyright 1996 The Christian Council of Delaware and Maryland's Eastern Shore and the University of Delaware Black American Studies Department. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. A Delaware Heritage Press Book Second Edition Published under the Auspices of the Delaware Heritage Commission November 1998 ISBN: 0-924117-12-5 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 98-74339 The Delaware Heritage Commission Carvel State Office Building 820 North French Street Wilmington, DE 19801 PREFACE You hold in your hands an important book—a document that restores an important but little-known part of our American heritage. Within these pages are stories of bravery, determination, principle and struggle, and we al benefit from the effort that brings to light valuable information on the history of African Americans in our region. This book shares the truths of a group of Americans, truths that have only recently found their way into our history books. The individuals whose lives and contributions are chronicled here have surely helped shape our country— both in slavery and in freedom. All of us owe a debt of thanks to the Christian Council of Delaware and Maryland's Eastern Shore and The Speer Trust Commission of New Castle Presbytery for their determination to celebrate the contributions of persons of color and for its decision and commitment to publishing this book. Dr. Carole Marks has ably assembled this book. The Director of the University of Delaware Black American Studies Program since 1994, she has brought to the task a personal commitment and a reputation as a respected scholar. Dr. Marks has written several articles and made presentations on the topic of the black underclass and the work of black women, and she is the author of a book, Farewell, We're Good and Gone: The Great Black Migration. Certainly, her participation ensured the fine range of contributors who are featured in this book, several of whom are members of the University of Delaware faculty and staff. Our thanks are due to al the participating scholars for enlightening us with their chapters. My advice to you is, "Take this book, read, and learn." We cannot hope to change the future until we have an appreciation for what came before us. This book is an important aid in what is certainly the chief struggle facing our nation "learning to live together, to" as the Greek philosopher Aeschylus so eloquently said "make gentle the life of this world." I recall the words of the late Robert F. Kennedy, who was asked to talk after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He said, "We can, perhaps, remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life, that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can. Surely this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something." A History of African Americans in Delaware and Maryland's Eastern Shore eloquently captures the spirit of this bond of common faith and common goal and it certainly teaches us something, something very important indeed. David P. Roselle President University of Delaware INTRODUCTION "Delaware like Gaul is divided into three parts, counties, if you will, or as wits have it, two counties at high tide, and three at low." Alice Dunbar-Nelson "An old and rich country, Maryland -fit for kings, and slaves-the lush riches of the country had been owned by the most regal wealth and worked by a subject people." Earl Conrad In January 1994, my phone rang. The pleasant, voice belonged to Beth Doty of the Christian Council of Delaware and the Eastern Shore. She asked if the Black American Studies program at the University of Delaware could write a history of African Americans in the region to be used in local schools and churches. My first response was that this must already have been done. I checked. It had not, and so this project was born. Our intent is to reveal the long neglected and ignored history of a people who fought against incredible odds merely to be left alone to live, work, and raise their families. Many heroic lives are portrayed in this volume. And questions are raised about what might have been if these struggles were directed against poverty, disease, and ignorance instead of discrimination. Delaware Alice Dunbar-Nelson, wife of black poet laureate Paul Lawrence Dunbar gives us an interesting point to begin looking at Delaware. In the fall of 1924, she published an article in the journal, Messenger, about Delaware for a series called, "These Colored United States." The article, "Delaware-A Jewel of Inconsistencies," was remarkably flattering. "The Negro in Delaware," wrote Dunbar-Nelson, "believes in his diamond state, and loves it, prospers when it prospers, sorrows when it is sad, and is loyal to a degree that is fine." In fact, Dunbar-Nelson found it "irritating" that the black population was so loyal. She had a point. The Delaware that Dunbar-Nelson described in 1924 hardly invited such loyalty. Wilmington, for example, had a population of 110,000 with 11,000 blacks. However, no black policemen, firemen or lawyers lived in the city. "Delaware is the only state in the Union," Dunbar- Nelson wrote, "where a colored man may not practice law. There is no law against it, merely custom and maneuver." While there were no separate street or railway cars or waiting rooms, Dunbar-Nelson observed, "restaurants and soda foundations, except in rare instances, will not serve Negroes," and theaters will admit them only occasionally to the gallery. She concluded, "Delaware is a state of anomalies, of political and social contradictions. Still, there are few states where the relations between the races are more amicable." She supports this claim by suggesting there is, "never a public movement of any sort that does not have on its committee the names of one or more Negro citizens of good standing, and colored men and women are always consulted in all matters of public interest." Delaware's mixed roots explain some of the anomaly. Balanced between the North and the South, it had a well-defined system of segregation and discrimination but one without extreme expression of race prejudice. There was, according to Dunbar- Nelson, only one lynching, for example. "Delaware is located on the periphery of the Old South, and that fact is central to understanding the state's past. Even today the southern mystique continues to cast a spell over the culture and thought patterns of many of its residents," wrote Bill Williams in the introduction to his recent study, Slavery and Freedom in Delaware, 1639-1865. In over 300 years of residency, blacks have established themselves as a vital and integral part of the state. Black labor- both slave and free-was essential to its economic development. But, dependence on black labor was itself problematic. Coercive labor laws discussed by both Dalleo and Amuti (in this volume) suggest some of the tensions within this relationship. The need to maintain the labor force, Williams suggests, "was balanced by the growing white fear of what was proportionally at least, the largest free African American population in the United States." Politically, with a voting strength of over 13,000, Dunbar- Nelson argued that blacks were able to exercise something of a balance of power-to represent the deciding factor in a close election. In the elections of 1922, she points out the black electorate "punished" Caleb Layton, a Republican who had voted against the Dyer anti-lynching bill and helped return Democratic Senator Bayard, a Democratic Congressman and elected a Democratic majority in the General Assembly. "They had not originally intended to do as much," she contended, "but the insistence of Republican leaders that the Negro did not know how to scratch (split) the ticket so angered Negroes that they did not scratch the ballot but voted solidly Democratic." Suffrage worker Florence Bayard Hilles, daughter of Thomas Bayard and sister of the Senator, added more irony to the situation when she observed, "The Democratic party was afraid to give the colored women the vote for fear of simply doubling the Republican vote, and the first time the party has been in power for a generation it was swept in by these same colored women, who rose in their righteous wrath against the traditions of their men." Blacks were not only important to the state's economic and political development, but to its folklore and mythology as well. Dunbar-Nelson speaks of a huge black man, for example, "who suddenly appeared, no one knew from where, at the Battle of the Brandywine, a battle that was going badly for the American troops." This "Black Sampson," as she calls him, "nonchalantly went through the British lines, mowing down the redcoats as if they were so much wheat." According to the legend, his courage won the battle. His story found a place in the hearts of the black school children of her day. Black Delawareans, serving as the conscience of the state, were also active participants in struggles to eradicate injustice and bigotry.