3. Slave auctions
1624: Africans were imported as slaves to New York’s Hudson River Valley.
1645: The TRIANGULAR SLAVE TRADE began:
• African SLAVES were brought to the West Indies to be traded for
SUGAR, RUM & TOBACCO, which
• were sold in New England for LUMBER & MANUFACTURED GOODS,
• in order to finance the purchase of new cargoes of SLAVES.
1688: Pennsylvania Quakers organized the
first American protest against slavery.
4. The Civil War brought many changes,
but exploitation of black
workers continued . . .
5. Fort Negley
• Fort Negley was the largest inland stone fort
constructed during the Civil War. It was never
directly attacked during the Battle of Nashville, and
the fort’s cannons were fired only a few times.
• Fort Negley, which covers four acres, was built in
1862, largely by impressed labor. More than 2,700
African Americans built Fort Negley, with only about
300 of them being paid for their labor. Many of the
workers died from the lack of appropriate clothing,
warm blankets, and adequate food and shelter.
6. “I lost 48 hours trying to get Negroes, teams, tools, cooking
utensils, and provisions. Only 150 Negroes so far, no tools,
teams, etc. I wanted to employ 825 Negroes by the 11th.”
(telegram, Gen. Morton to Gen. Buell, August 1862)
Fort Negley,
Nashville
7. “At African church a negro man shot down by the
guards engaged in pressing*. It is the custom of the
Military authorities to go to the colored people’s
churches on Sunday when they wish to make a big
haul of pressed* men. The man died afterwards –
Briggs attended him.”
(Diary of Dr. John Berrien Lindsley,
September 20, 1863)
* Impressing/impressed: forcing people into military service without notice.
9. From the Merl Eppse Papers
The Fisk Jubilee Singers helped make the nation
aware of African American achievement.
10. The transformation of America after the end of slavery
generated many political cartoons.
11. Images from TSLA
Photo Database
Cartoons and photographs
are often the beginning of
sympathy & understanding …
and, eventually, of change.
12. Household Slaves at
Wessyngton Plantation,
Robertson County
See John F. Baker’s book
The Washingtons of
Wessyngton Plantation
13. But Slavery by Another Name*
still existed in Tennessee
and other Southern states.
State Legislatures came up with an untapped
source of free labor: prisoners!
Under the Convict Leasing program, prisoners
were “rented out” to coal companies and other
employers during the day & returned to their cells
at night. The state made a great deal of money
. . . and the prisoners had become slaves again.
*See Douglas A. Blackmon’s eloquent book by that title (Anchor, 2009).
14. A man could be thrown into jail for years for such minor
offenses as stealing a fence rail to heat his house,
or a loaf of bread to feed his family.
Photo of Brushy Mountain Prison from Samuel Robert Simpson Papers
15. By 1889 TCI was contracting out 60% of Tennessee’s
prisoners for over $100,000 a year. One worker in ten died
every year.
16. One result of Convict Leasing was that white
miners were shut out of earning their
traditional livelihood. It was only after
miners revolted that Convict Leasing
ended and prison reform could occur.
17. How can TSLA help you
discover & untangle Tennessee’s past?
18. 1. The TSLA photo database,
accessible from the main page
of our web site and easily
searchable by subject, contains
thousands of photographs,
sketches, and other images.
http://tn.gov/tsla/
Here are a few of the many ways:
19. Images from TSLA Photo Database
Mary Church Terrell
(1863-1954)
Ray Perkins
Calvert photo, 1899
Sumner County child, 1950
23. 3. “This Honorable Body” in our
online Exhibits area
showcases the stories of the
14 African American legislators
who served in the TN General
Assembly in the 19th century.
http://tn.gov/tsla/
25. Tennessee’s 19th century
African American legislators
worked hard to make
the law more fair for everyone,
but after the last of them left office
(1888), the “Jim Crow” laws
disenfranchised African Americans
for many generations.
26. TeVA:
4. The Tennessee Virtual Archive
(TeVA) contains a wealth of
historic images from the
treasures in our collection.
It is accessible from our main web page.
http://tn.gov/tsla/
27. The Harry Mustard Collection chronicles
Rutherford County in the mid-1920s.
28. The Mustard Collection focuses on
health issues, as in this image of
children lined up for vaccinations,
31. Other relevant TeVA images may be found in
“Early 20th Century Schoolhouses”
32. The Rosenwald schools, a vital part of
early black education in Tennessee,
were funded by a private foundation,
along with some contributions from
individual donors and state funds.
Bells School, Crockett County
33. Other TN Rosenwald schools
Crockett
County
Gibson County
Lauderdale County
White
County
34. 5. TSLA holdings include a number
of drawings and political cartoons,
1866 Memphis riots
37. This Harper’s
Weekly cartoon
features Hiram
Revels (seated
right), the first black
Senator,* who was
elected to Jefferson
Davis’s former seat.
*Mississippi,
1870-1871
38. 6. One of the most interesting
photo collections at TSLA
can be found
in the Merl Eppse Papers,
featuring images of cultural,
educational, and
recreational life in Tennessee.
cd
45. The Eppse
collection also
includes photos
of several
famous African
Americans,
including Hattie
McDaniel, Louis
Armstrong,
Marian
Anderson, and
Jackie Robinson.
46. 7. The Earl S. Miers River Photographs
are part of the rich TeVA Collection.
http://tn.gov/tsla/
48. This is a favorite from the Miers Collection.
http://tn.gov/tsla/
49. 8. The Fisk University scrapbook of W.H. Fort Jr.
contains many historically valuable images.
These photos show Langston Hughes on campus
and a Nashville flood in 1926.
50. 9. TSLA has a number of important photos
and documents from the Civil Rights era.
Images from TSLA Photo Database
51. Image from TSLA Photo Database
Martin Luther King
and other Civil
Rights leaders
used the
Tennessee lunch
counter sit-ins as
a model for
effective protest.
54. In what year was the next black
legislator elected?
Monroe W. Gooden,
Styles L. Hutchins, &
Samuel A. McElwee,
members of the 45th General Assembly
(1887-1888),
were the last African Americans to
serve in the Tennessee State
Legislature in the 19th century.
55. A.W. Willis Jr., a Memphis
businessman & attorney who
had worked with the NAACP to
desegregate the Memphis city
schools, took his seat in the
Tennessee General Assembly.
(77 years later)
In
57. Tennessee has had 3 constitutions,
each new one re-defining
who is entitled to vote:
• 1st Tennessee Constitution (1796):
• Free male citizens who own property.
• 2nd Tennessee Constitution (1835):
• Free white male citizens who own property.
• 3rd Tennessee Constitution (1870):
• All male citizens, regardless of race, color,
or previous condition of servitude.
58. It took another 50 years before all
adult citizens were able to vote.
59. The Tennessee
vote was crucial to
ratification of the
19th Amendment,
which required
approval by the
legislatures of
36 states.
By early August of
1920 there were
still only 35
favorable votes.
60.
61. But . . . did
you know that
Tennessee
was the last
state to ratify
the 15th
Amendment?
62. . . . in 1997!
Did you also know that Tennessee
granted African Americans the vote before
the 15th Amendment was ratified in 1870?
On February 25, 1867, the Tennessee
General Assembly gave African Americans
the right to vote and to hold political office.
Governor Brownlow signed the bill
into law the following day.
65. CEREMONY TO OPEN THE CIVIL RIGHTS ROOM
L-R: Rev. C.T. Vivian, John Seigenthaler, Rev. James Lawson, Diane Nash,
Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), Dr. James Bevel, Dr. Bernard Lafayette.
Nashville Public Library, February 15, 2004. Photo by Gary Layda.
but we also have much to celebrate!
66. In 2010 a bust
of Sampson
W. Keeble,
Tennessee’s
first African
American
legislator, was
installed in the
State Capitol.
Sculptor Roy Butler prepares the Keeble bust
for firing.
67. Visit us soon – we are Tennessee’s
treasurehouse!
__________________
Tennessee State Library & Archives
403 7th Avenue North, Nashville 37243
68. Look under these catalog headings for interesting primary-source items:
• CIVIL RIGHTS – TENNESSEE
(Newsletters and reports from 1965-1967)
• CIVIL RIGHTS – PERIODICALS – TENNESSEE
• HIGHLANDER FOLK SCHOOL AUDIO COLLECTION
• COMMITTEE REPORT TO THE MEMBERS OF
THE 81ST SESSION OF THE GENERAL
ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE
• RACE DISCRIMINATION – UNITED STATES
(particularly the two books by Pauli Murray, concerning
States’ Laws on Race and Color.)
69. A Special TSLA Treasure
Zilphia Horton Folk Music Collection: IV-D-2, Ac. No. 1064
Mrs. Horton collected these folksongs, songbooks, and
song sheets between 1935 and 1956 when she was music
director at the Highlander Folk School in Grundy County.
The Highlander Folk School was the leading training center
for southern labor and civil rights leaders for nearly three
decades (1932-1961). Most of the tunes collected by Mrs.
Horton were songs of social protest.
And we have many other Highlander School materials.
70. Recommended Reading:
David Halberstam. The Children.
John Lewis and Michael D’Orso. Walking with the Wind:
A Memoir of the Movement.
Howard Zinn. SNCC: the New Abolitionists.
Tennessee Historical Quarterly:
David E. Summer. "The Publisher and the Preacher: Racial
Conflict at Vanderbilt University.“ (Spring 1997)
Linda T. Wynn."The Dawning of a New Day: The Nashville
Sit-Ins, February 13, 1960-May 10, 1960." (Spring 1991)
71. Our filmed interview with two Tennessee women
who took part in the 1960 sit-ins was webcast
from the MTSU Satellite & Webcasting Center in
November 2009. Go here to watch the interview:
http://cem.mtsu.edu/video/k-12/discovering-living-primary-sources-what-we-can-learn-
interviewing-participants-civil
You may be asked to create an account or to fill out a temporary webcast viewing
form. This process is free, takes only a few minutes, and does not obligate you to
anything.
72. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice
everywhere.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
The civil rights struggle is not over.
73. The arc of the moral universe is long,
but it bends toward justice.
Martin Luther King Jr.
