A monument to SC’s black Confederate soldiers? None fought for the South, experts say

Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery

Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery

(The State) Two South Carolina lawmakers want to erect a monument on the State House grounds to African-Americans who served the state as Confederate soldiers. But records show the state never accepted nor recognized armed African-American soldiers during the Civil War.

“In all my years of research, I can say I have seen no documentation of black South Carolina soldiers fighting for the Confederacy,” said Walter Edgar, who for 32 years was director of the University of South Carolina’s Institute for Southern Studies and is author of “South Carolina: A History.”

“In fact, when secession came, the state turned down free (blacks) who wanted to volunteer because they didn’t want armed persons of color,” he said.

Pension records gleaned from the S.C. Department of History and Archives show no black Confederate soldiers received payment for combat service. And of the more than 300 blacks who did receive pensions after they were allowed in 1923, all served as body servants or cooks, the records show. (more)

Related: S.C. lawmakers debunked over Black Confederate troops

Texas History Minute: Bass Reeves was possible inspiration for Lone Ranger

Bass Reeves was one of the first black Deputy U.S. Marshals west of the Mississippi River, working mostly in Arkansas and the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). During his long career, he claimed to have arrested over 3,000 felons and shot and killed fourteen outlaws in self-defense.

Bass Reeves was one of the first black Deputy U.S. Marshals west of the Mississippi River, working mostly in Arkansas and the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). During his long career, he claimed to have arrested over 3,000 felons and shot and killed fourteen outlaws in self-defense.

(Herald Democrat) For generations, the Lone Ranger has charged the imaginations of millions around the world with tales of western adventure and the pursuit of justice. But a number of historians now believe that the Lone Ranger was possibly based on a real person, an escaped Texas slave turned U.S. Marshal named Bass Reeves. Regardless of any possible link to the Lone Ranger stories of the twentieth century, the story of Reeves is as remarkable as any western legend.

Reeves was born in Crawford County, in Northwest Arkansas, around 1838. His family was owned by the prosperous and politically well-connected family of William Reeves, an early Arkansas legislator. While Bass Reeves was still young, the family left Arkansas for Texas. They settled in Grayson County, not far from Sherman, around 1846. George Reeves, the son of William Reeves, would grow up and serve as Grayson County Tax Collector by 1848 and county sheriff by 1850 and would play an important role in the future lawman’s life.

Bass Reeves eventually became the property of the younger son and adopted the last named of Reeves, neither of which was unusual among slaves and slave-owning families at the time. When the Civil War began, his owner took Reeves with him to serve as a valet. The cavalry unit which George Reeves commanded often fought in areas of the Indian Territory (modern-day Oklahoma) as Confederate forces attempted to convince the Native American tribes of the area to side with the South. (more)

The Strike That Brought MLK to Memphis

National Guard troops lined Beale Street during a protest on March 29 , 1968. “I was in every march, all of ’em, with that sign: I AM A MAN,” recalls former sanitation worker Ozell Ueal. (Bettmman Collection / Getty Images)

National Guard troops lined Beale Street during a protest on March 29 , 1968. “I was in every march, all of ’em, with that sign: I AM A MAN,” recalls former sanitation worker Ozell Ueal. (Bettmman Collection / Getty Images)

In his final days, Martin Luther King Jr. stood by striking sanitation workers. We returned to the city to see what has changed-and what hasn’t

(Smithsonianmag.com) The Memphis sanitation workers’ strike is remembered as an example of powerless African-Americans standing up for themselves. It is also remembered as the prelude to the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

The workers had made a few attempts to strike, several years earlier, but their efforts had failed to attract the support of the clergy or the middle class. By February 1968, though, things had changed. Memphis’ mayor, Henry Loeb, refused to negotiate with worker representatives and rejected a pay raise for workers that the city council had approved. Some of them began holding nonviolent marches; the use of mace and tear gas against demonstrators galvanized support for the strike. One hundred-fifty local ministers, led by the Rev. James Lawson, a friend of King’s, organized to support the workers. King came to town and on March 18 delivered a speech to a crowd of around 15,000 people. He returned ten days later to lead a march. Though King’s hallmark was nonviolent protest, the demonstration turned violent, with stores being looted and the police shooting and killing a 16-year-old. Police followed retreating demonstrators to a landmark church, the Clayborn Temple, entered the sanctuary, released tear gas and, per one authoritative account, “clubbed people as they lay on the floor to get fresh air.”

Some blamed the violence on a local Black Power group called the Invaders. King resolved to work with them and gain their cooperation for another march, to be held April 5. He arrived on April 3 and, as rain poured outside that night, he delivered his famous “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech to a group of sanitation workers. (more)

TIPHC Bookshelf

The Price For Their Pounds Of Flesh book coverPublished scholarship on black history in Texas is growing and we’d like to share with you some suggested readings, both current and past, from some of the preeminent history scholars in Texas and beyond. We invite you to take a look at our bookshelf page – including a featured selection – and check back as the list grows. A different selection will be featured each week. We welcome suggestions and reviews. This week, we offer, “The Price for Their Pound of Flesh,” by Daina Ramey Berry.

Groundbreaking look at slaves as commodities through every phase of life, from birth to death and beyond, in early America

In life and in death, slaves were commodities, their monetary value assigned based on their age, gender, health, and the demands of the market. The Price for Their Pound of Flesh is the first book to explore the economic value of enslaved people through every phase of their lives-including preconception, infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, the senior years, and death-in the early American domestic slave trade. Covering the full “life cycle,” University of Texas historian Daina Ramey Berry shows the lengths to which enslavers would go to maximize profits and protect their investments. Illuminating “ghost values” or the prices placed on dead enslaved people, Berry explores the little-known domestic cadaver trade and traces the illicit sales of dead bodies to medical schools.

This book is the culmination of more than ten years of Berry’s exhaustive research on enslaved values, drawing on data unearthed from sources such as slave-trading records, insurance policies, cemetery records, and life insurance policies. Writing with sensitivity and depth, she resurrects the voices of the enslaved and provides a rare window into enslaved peoples’ experiences and thoughts, revealing how enslaved people recalled and responded to being appraised, bartered, and sold throughout the course of their lives. Reaching out from these pages, they compel the reader to bear witness to their stories, to see them as human beings, not merely commodities.

A profoundly humane look at an inhumane institution, The Price for Their Pound of Flesh will have a major impact how we think about slavery, reparations, capitalism, nineteenth-century medical education, and the value of life and death.

This Week in Texas Black History, Dec. 31-Jan. 6

Jan1

On this day in 1929 the first black college football bowl game was played. The Prairie View Bowl was played at Houston’s West End Park, located in the Freedman’s Town area of Fourth Ward. With the exception of four games, the bowl game was played annually until 1963 on Jan. 1.

Wally Triplett

Wally Triplett

Jan1

The 1948 Cotton Bowl football game in Dallas featured the first African Americans to participate in the game when Southern Methodist and Penn State played to a 13-13 tie. Penn State’s roster included running back Wally Triplett and wide receiver Dennie Hoggard. It was the first interracial game played at the stadium.

Jan1

Adam (“Adan”) Paine, a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, died on this day in 1877. Paine was a scout at Fort Duncan, Texas and received the MOH for his actions during a battle at Quitaque Peak where he defended himself and four other scouts against several bands of Comanche Indians on September 26, 1874. Thanks to his efforts during the engagement, all of the scouts survived. Paine’s commanding officer, Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie, said that Paine “has more cool (and) daring than any scout I have ever known.”

Lovie Louise Yancey

Lovie Louise Yancey

Jan3

On this day in 1912, the founder of the Fatburger restaurant chain, Lovie Louise Yancey, was born in Bastrop. She moved to Los Angeles in the mid-1940s and at age 35 partnered with Charles Simpson to open their first restaurant, a three-stool hamburger stand in South Central Los Angeles in 1947. They called the business Mr. Fatburger, dropping the “Mr.” in 1952. By the end of 1985, the chain had over fifteen franchise sites throughout southern California. Noted as “The Last Great Hamburger Stand,” Fatburger now has restaurants in 29 countries, including China, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates. Yancey established a $1.7-million endowment at the City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, California in 1986 for research into sickle-cell anemia as a dedication to her grandson who died of the disease. Yancey died of pneumonia on January 26, 2008, at the age of 96.

Alvin Ailey

Alvin Ailey

Jan5

Alvin Ailey, dancer, choreographer and founder of the world famous Alvin Ailey Dance Theater was born on this day in 1931 in Rogers (Bell County). He made his Broadway debut in 1954 and in 1958 gained his first critical success for his choreography for Blues Suite, which also marked the beginning of the Alvin Ailey Dance Company. His troupe, in 1970, became the first American dance company to tour the USSR in 50 years and received a 20-minute ovation for their performance in Leningrad.

Charlie Strong

Charlie Strong

Jan5

The University of Texas at Austin made a historic hire on this day in 2014 when it announced that Charlie Strong would become the school’s new head football coach, making him the program’s 29th head coach and the first African American to hold the position since UT began playing football in 1893. In fact, he also became the first black coach for any of the school’s major men’s programs. Strong, 59, signed a five-year deal paying him $5 million annually making the Batesville, Ark. native one of the highest paid coaches in the country.

Blog: Ron Goodwin, Ph.D., author, PVAMU history professor

Ron Goodwin’s bi-weekly blog appears exclusively for TIPHC. Goodwin is a San Antonio native and Air Force veteran. Generally, his column addresses contemporary issues in the black community and how they relate to black history. He and the TIPHC staff welcome your comments.

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