Download Moodle Everywhere Policy and more Essays (high school) Engineering Science and Technology in PDF only on Docsity!
Black History
in the Last Frontier
by Ian C. Hartman
With a Foreword by Ed Wesley
Black History
in the Last Frontier
by Ian C. Hartman
With a Foreword by Ed Wesley
National Park Service
University of Alaska Anchorage
Contents
Living through History:
A Foreword and Refections by Ed Wesley ....................................
Introduction
Black History in Unlikely Places ...................................................
Chapter One
Black Exploration and Arrival in the Icy Northwest .................
Chapter Two
Black Life in the Gold Rush Era .....................................................
Chapter Tree
World Wars and a Changing Alaska ..............................................
Chapter Four
Statehood and the Cold War ...........................................................
Chapter Five
Civil Rights Under the Northern Lights .......................................
Conclusion
Black History in Alaska at Century’s End ..................................
150 Years of Black History in Alaska: A Timeline ....................
Biographical Sketches ....................................................................
Sources by Chapter ........................................................................
Selected Bibliography ....................................................................
Index ..................................................................................................
Anchorage
Fairbanks
Utqiagvik (Barrow)
Nome
Juneau
Seward
Kotzebue
Bethel
A L A S K A
Skagway
insurance company when Dr. Howard sent Evers to become Mississippi’s state feld secretary for the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). Although not many know Dr. Howard’s name or his contributions, he was a prominent leader in the civil rights movement. He organized boycotts against Mississippi gas stations where the owners prohibited black folks from using public restrooms. He helped bring to light the murder of fourteen- year-old Emmett Till by two white men in Money, Mississippi, on August 28,
- Black newspapers published the picture of Till’s mutilated face in an open casket. Te photograph generated outrage throughout the country and propelled the civil rights movement. Eight years later, hundreds of thousands participated in the March on Washington. During her visit to Anchorage in 1982, I spoke with Rosa Parks, and she told me Dr. Howard inspired her to resist giving up her seat on the bus, the action that culminated in the famous bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. My mother, Minnie, and stepfather, Prentiss, both worked as sharecroppers—or what some call tenant farmers—on a plantation. By age thirteen, I was chopping cotton for twelve hours a day—laboriously using a garden hoe to remove weed from around the cotton plants—at a pay rate of three dollars a day. In the hot Mississippi sun, my family and I worked the felds, tended to animals, and pumped water for drinking, cooking, and bathing. Like many families along the Delta, debt was a part of life, and it usually got worse over time. At the end of the year you never had enough money to pay of what you borrowed the previous year. Tey called it “settling up”—the ability to actually free yourself from all of that debt—and it was all but impossible to get out from under. Tat was by design. Te white landowners in the South never intended blacks to gain economic or political freedom. Tey rigged the system and made sure you could never balance the fnances, let alone get ahead. So in 1965 we did what we had to do to escape the debt and poverty of Mississippi. We lef for Chicago and joined a great migration to the north just as so many other blacks had done throughout the middle of the twentieth century. We moved in with some relatives who arrived earlier and took up residence on the South Side, one of the nation’s most famous black neighborhoods. Our apartment was on Forty-sixth Place and Vincennes, immediately south of the commercial district on Forty-seventh Street and a block from the Regal Teater. At the Regal the Motown Revue was more ofen than not a coming attraction. I went to Forestville High School and took up football before an injury ended my playing days. Around that time, my stepdad insisted that I contribute to the household fnances.
You had to grow up fast in the city. To help support our family, I took a job at the Empire Room in downtown Chicago, a place known for its celebrity appeal. I worked as a busboy and encountered star performers, including Jimmy Durante, Ethel Merman, Vikki Carr, Phyllis Diller, Alan King, and Tony Bennett. Chicago in the late 1960s was the place to be. Tere was always something happening. I witnessed the police riots on the young people protesting the 1968 Democratic National Convention at Grant Park (the most famous of whom became known as the Chicago Eight). Te Black Panthers organized in and around my neighborhood. So, too, did other youth street clubs like the Blackstone Rangers and the Disciples. Te Nation of Islam sold bean pies and the latest issue of Mohammed Speaks , their widely distributed newspaper, on the street corners. Even though the media described these clubs as “gangs” there wasn’t the violence you see today. Teenagers spent summer days at the park, on the beach at Lake Michigan, or over at the Brookfeld Zoo on Sundays. As a sports fan, Chicago was—and still is—a great town. Te Bears had Gale Sayers; Ernie Banks played for the Cubs; and the Bulls had Bob Love and Jerry Sloan. I took an interest in politics around that time, too. In 1969 I participated in a protest organized by the Reverend Jesse Jackson. We marched on the Illinois State Capitol in Springfeld under his umbrella organization, Operation Breadbasket. Tis was part of the Illinois Campaign to End Hunger and was rooted in the Poor People’s Campaign that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. initiated before he was assassinated a year earlier. During those same years, a Chicago Democratic Party precinct captain named Glosson Mahorn took me under his wing and taught me about Mayor Richard Daley’s political machine. I learned about organizing voters and that any successful political campaign must start at the most local level, the neighborhood. I’ve considered myself an activist ever since. In the fall of 1970 I met Frances, the woman I’d soon marry. We went on dates throughout the city as we continued our education at the Central YMCA Community College on West Wacker Drive. I look back on those years and realize how blessed I was to experience such change and transformation in our society. Not only did I meet my future wife and make lifelong friends, I learned the value of community organizing and acting locally to get things done. My aunt Val Grey Ward reinforced this message. She believed in the power of the performing arts to shape the lives of young people. She founded a nonproft called Kuumba and ran art workshops for hundreds of South Side–area youth. Meanwhile, the campus activism at the Central YMCA Community College around the Vietnam War strengthened my belief in the cause of the anti-war movement. Tere were so many rallies and workshops; I couldn’t attend them all.
for bullying men in the other unions. Tey also refused to hire black workers. Eventually a lawsuit settled the matter. Te 798ers, as they called themselves, caused so many disputes that we wanted them to go back to Oklahoma. Tey may have had a lot of power, but our union—Laborers’ Local 942—also negotiated strong contracts with excellent pay. We had to work for it. We’d be on the job for nine weeks at a time, working twelve-hour shifs seven days a week, and then we would have two weeks of before starting the next nine- week stretch. Without question, I earned more money in Alaska in the 1970s than I could have just about anywhere else given my experience and background. It was a bonanza, which is why people came from all over the country. Te party never stopped, and it seemed like the paydays wouldn’t either. I earned enough to purchase a house and thirty-fve acres in Delta Junction. But by 1977, with the pipeline nearly complete, it was time for a change. I took time of to travel, and then my wife and I eventually moved down to Anchorage, where we raised fve children, Wendell, Cynthia, Chairita, Kiala, and Tamika. Tere’s always work and activism to pursue here in Anchorage. Since I’ve lived here, I’ve worked as a union laborer and as a real estate and insurance broker, and I’ve continued to participate in politics and volunteer. I’ve served as president of the African American Business Council, the Anchorage NAACP, and the Alaska Black Leadership Conference. I’ve served on the Alaska Veterans Administration Hospital Volunteers’ Committee, the American Legion (General “Chappie” James Post 34), the Anchorage Council of PTAs, the Municipality of Anchorage Zoning Board of Examiners and Appeals, the Alaska Retirement Management Board (as a trustee), and the Alaska Democratic Party (as a national committee person). Tere always seems to be something new happening around the community. I’m particularly proud of my time on the African American Business Council. We provided greater access to banking for Anchorage’s black population and opened up new avenues of investment. Te business council’s board of directors included B. Kaleem Nuriddin, an insurance broker; William Browner, a pediatrician; Mayfeld Evans, owner of Mayfeld’s Cleaners; Johnny Gibbons, an attorney; Conrad Worthy, an insurance agent; and Ret. Sgt. Maj. Bill Cobbs from the U.S. Army. One of our most notable successes was facilitating a contract between Lawry Seasoning, a national brand with broad distribution, and Roscoe’s BBQ, a local barbeque spot in Anchorage. We also recruited high school and college students to fll entry level and intern manager’s positions at First National Bank and the National Bank of Alaska. Some of these students stayed in fnance and have assumed leadership positions. As a result, Anchorage’s black community has greater representation in business and politics, but we always have more work to do.
Learning and writing our history is one way to do this work. We must know our history and our struggles. Knowledge grounds us and provides a way forward. Over a year ago, the HistoryMakers, an educational institution and digital archive committed to preserving and making accessible the history of African Americans, identifed ten “unsung heroes” to interview in Alaska. I was honored to be among them. Based in Chicago, the HistoryMakers conducts oral interviews and documents the black past. Shortly afer their visit, some of us who sat for interviews partnered with the Rasmuson Foundation and the University of Alaska Anchorage to support access to the HistoryMakers Digital Archive through the university’s library. Tis was where I met Dr. Ian Hartman. Since then, I have developed a collaborative relationship with him on this book. To illustrate how small and interconnected the world we live in is, I’d also relate that while my aunt Val Gray Ward directed Kuumba, in Chicago, she mentored Julieanna Richardson, the founder of HistoryMakers. Tose connections and coincidences might be seen as one of the central themes of this book. Black history is interconnected: It is the story of movements, migrations, and community formation. It is people coming together to relay their wisdom and create a better, more just world. African Americans who came to Alaska did so for reasons similar to mine. Many came through the military; others traveled north for an opportunity they believed they couldn’t fnd in other parts of the country. Alaska has long had a transient population, and most of the black men and women who have come up have lef. But others have stayed for generations, put down roots, and have no plans to leave. My family has made it home. It’s a far cry from Mississippi, or even Chicago. But like those places, here in Alaska we’ve fought for justice, honored our ancestors, shared our history, and spoken our truth. Tat’s what this book aims to do. It doesn’t tell us everything, but it’s a start. I hope you’ll take away some of its key lessons and together we’ll make Alaska an even more inclusive place for everyone.
Black History in the Last Frontier maps some of the trials and challenges African Americans have faced in America’s northernmost territory and then state. It also presents a series of biographical sketches of notable black men and women who passed through or settled in Alaska and meaningfully contributed to the politics, culture, and social life in the so-called Last Frontier. Most of the early whalers, prospectors, and men and women in uniform did not stay long. Others put down roots and lived out their lives in Alaska. Tis book showcases the achievements and contributions of Alaska’s black community, while demonstrating how Alaska’s black population has endured racism and fought injustice. In sum, Alaska’s history of race relations and civil rights reminds the reader that the currents of discrimination and its responses—self-activity, activism, and perseverance—are American stories that might be explored in the unlikeliest of places. Te frst chapter, “Black Exploration and Arrival in the Icy Northwest,” takes a broad, introductory view by recounting the history of black participation in Alaska from the middle of the nineteenth through the early twentieth century. Tis era straddles the Treaty of Cession between the United States and Russia, whereby the 663,000 square miles known as Alaska came under American control in 1867. Te frst documented presence of black men in Alaska’s waters and perhaps on land occurred as early as the 1840s as whalers set out from New Bedford, Massachusetts, and other New England ports and plied their craf in the icy waters of the North Pacifc and the Arctic. Some of these crews established temporary settlements in Point Hope and Point Barrow. Evidence suggests these men arrived as free people of color in the North; other documentation suggests some had been enslaved and fed to freedom. Tey believed a life at sea was preferable to a life in bondage. Tough scant documentation remains of these men and their activities, more evidence exists from the gold rush era of the late 1890s and early 1900s as described in chapter 2, “Black Life in the Gold Rush Era.” Tis chapter showcases the frst well-documented period of U.S. control of the territory. During these years, black men and women came by the hundreds—some through the military, others to prospect or set up businesses in support of mining activity. In any case, by the frst decade of the twentieth century, a permanent and growing black population called Alaska home. Blacks who arrived afer the Treaty of Cession are among the most understudied populations in Alaska; yet they contributed mightily to Alaska’s culture and economy in ways that historians have yet to fully record.
Due to federal legislation, world wars, and the nation’s worst economic depression, immigration from abroad slowed from 1916 through the 1950s. However, those same years correspond to what historians have called the “Great Migration”—the mass movement of Americans from the South to the North and West. Tis included millions of African Americans. Alaska did not attract black men and women on the scale of Chicago, New York, or California; although, thousands nonetheless arrived through the armed forces and on their own accord. Te world wars shaped and redefned Alaska unlike any other events. Chapter 3, “World Wars and a Changing Alaska,” highlights the war years and demonstrates the numerous ways that global confict at once provided new opportunities for Alaska’s black population and limited them from pursuing others. Black men helped build the Alaska Highway, served in the Aleutian Islands Campaign, and were stationed across the territory. Notably, the 383rd Port Battalion landed on Attu and helped retake the island from the Japanese. In addition, the 93rd Engineers, whose labor had proven so pivotal on the Alaska Highway, joined the fray in the Aleutian Islands Campaign and served on Adak Island. Others served at the Army Air Corps bases at Cold Bay and on Umnak Island. Despite these contributions, African Americans faced discrimination, most notably from the military commander of Alaska Territory, Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr. In the face of mistreatment, black men nonetheless served valiantly and with distinction. Consequently, the U.S. military would never be the same and neither would Alaska. Te actions of black troops and citizens throughout the territory presaged and arguably facilitated the integration of the U.S. armed forces and helped launch one of the nation’s great social movements. Chapter 3 thus recasts World War II–era Alaska as not only a critical staging ground to the global confict but also an early battleground in the movement for civil rights. Chapter 4, “Statehood and the Cold War,” details the years between the end of World War II and Alaska’s statehood in 1959. Te Southcentral region emerged as the economic and population center of the territory and eventually the state in the 1950s and ’60s. Te onset of the Cold War and the geopolitical signifcance of the circumpolar North and Pacifc ensured Alaska would receive copious levels of defense appropriations. Tis rapid expansion of Anchorage—and to a lesser extent, Fairbanks—in the postwar decades ofered the possibility of establishing a life anew in ways not possible in the older cities of the Lower 48. But like their counterparts elsewhere, black Alaskans
advance in business and politics. But by 1985, the price of oil plummeted and triggered a statewide recession. Te infux of residents who arrived in the 1970s included many men and women from the American South; they tended to be more religious than previous generations of migrants and more conservative. Some still clung to the days of segregation and, in at least some cases, resented the advances made during the civil rights movement. Black Alaskans reported increases in racial animosity in these years. Hate crimes and divisive rhetoric underlined the fractured dialogues between white and black residents. Tis required a new wave of activism among blacks and allied white citizens to confront the resurgent currents of racism. Black history in Alaska is reminiscent of black history in the continental United States more generally. For certain, Alaska has mostly lacked the history of racism that defned slavery and the Jim Crow era in the American South that existed from Reconstruction to the 1960s and was defned by racial segregation, violence, and strict limits to black advancement. Likewise, Alaska’s remote location created some exceptional patterns of behavior and public policies that are not replicated elsewhere. Yet Alaska’s race relations appear similar in many ways to the rest of the nation. Tis is most true when examining housing policy, segregation, and discrimination in the decades following World War II, a period of unprecedented growth. Alaska’s urban areas, and the white citizens who have formed the majority of the population, have implemented the same types of discriminatory policies associated with postwar America. Tis has imprinted a legacy of racial tension that must be confronted and addressed. Nonetheless, Alaska’s black population has cultivated a vibrant sense of community and built civic institutions that have endured into the present. Te vitality of these institutions belies the comparatively small number of people who have created them. Tis reveals how successful black Alaskans have been at carving out social and cultural spaces in an unlikely part of the country. Indeed, black men and women have taken part in every facet of Alaska’s economic, cultural, and political development for well over a century. Tis book details some of the participants and their contributions. Black History in the Last Frontier should be viewed as an interpretation informed by some key sources. I build on the fndings of Everett Louis Overstreet’s Black on a Background of White: A Chronicle of Afro-Americans’ Involvement in America’s Last Frontier, Alaska, and George Harper’s collection lef to the Archives and Special Collections at the University of Alaska Anchorage/Alaska Pacifc University Consortium Library. Both Overstreet
and Harper chronicled black history in Alaska; the research for this book is deeply indebted to the eforts of these men, and I owe much gratitude to their labor. I also relied on George Harper’s collection and insights in the development of the timeline of black history and the biographical sketches. Regretfully, it is not possible to have included everyone who deserves recognition for their achievements. Tere are undoubtedly people whom I have overlooked and others on whom I did not locate enough information to warrant inclusion. When putting together the biographical sketches, I attempted to identify notable members of the black community who have taken on leadership positions in business, culture, politics, or education. Some of the men and women included are historical fgures who passed away decades ago; others are still very much active in their respective professions and communities. But in any case, this is a list that will inevitably grow in the future, and it is my hope that historians will use this appendix as a reference point to build upon in their own research. I would like to thank Ed Wesley for providing many of the names and information encountered in the text and the appendix. Ed has also proofread the manuscript and has been indispensable in his knowledge of black history here in Alaska. Without his encouragement and counsel, this book would be missing some key details and highly infuential people. He has resided in Alaska for nearly ffy years, and he’s proven to be a fountain of knowledge. It has been an honor to work with him in the development of this project. I greatly appreciate his eforts. His foreword has enriched this book. I relied on an array of primary source material, oral histories, and existing scholarship to deliver a study of black life in the forty-ninth state. For certain, it is not comprehensive and should be viewed more as an invitation for additional research than as a fnal word on the topic. Black history in Alaska provides an extraordinarily rich line of inquiry, and there is much still to know and document. In that spirit, I hope the reader will at once fnd enjoyment in this illustrated study, but more importantly may the reader fnd inspiration to research and write the next volume of Alaska’s black history. Finally, this work has received generous funding from the National Park Service and the University of Alaska Anchorage. Historian Janet Clemens and anthropologist Rachel Mason, both with the NPS, have provided insightful comments. It’s truly been a collaborative efort, and their knowledge and feedback have meaningfully contributed to my research. I’ve also been fortunate to discuss the topic of black history in Alaska with Eleanor Andrews.
CHAPTER ONE:
Black Exploration and
Arrival in the Icy Northwest
Starting in the 1870s William T. Shorey ascended the ranks of whaling crews and eventually worked his way up to captain by the early 1900s. He led voyages on whaling barks, such as the Emma F. Herriman, the Andrew Hicks, and the John & Winthrop, which traversed the Pacifc Ocean. It was a notable feat for a man of African descent born to formerly enslaved parents on a sugar plantation in Barbados. Shorey’s status as one of the era’s most skilled whalers was as unlikely as it was remarkable. Afer leaving Barbados for greater opportunity in New England, Shorey took his maiden voyage as a whaler in 1876 when he was not yet twenty years old. On one notable expedition, a sperm whale nearly capsized the boat, endangering the lives of the crew. A crewmate threw a makeshif bomb at the whale, saving the ship and the men from almost certain death. Shorey, undeterred, stuck with the industry and became a boat steerer and captain. He quickly recognized that sailing the high seas in search of the world’s largest creatures could be an adventurous and capricious profession. As the industry shifed from the North Atlantic to the Pacifc, Shorey found himself whaling ever farther from his adopted home in Boston, Massachusetts. Te Herriman crossed the Atlantic to the Cape of Good Hope, of the coast of southern Africa, and reached the waters of the Indian and the South Pacifc Oceans. Te men aboard kept watch for the bountiful whale populations, prized for their blubber and oil. Eventually, the Herriman’s crew navigated the ship north to the Gulf of Alaska and the Arctic before heading back south to San Francisco. Tese icy waters would be a focus of the whaling industry from the 1880s through its decline in the frst decades of the twentieth century.
