19th Century Burrow Family and the History of American Slavery
Chapter Six continued
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The Slave Owner’s Sexual Abuse of Slaves
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“The basic problem, concluded Col. Samuel Thomas, who directed the Freedmen’s Bureau in Mississippi in 1865, was that white public opinion could not ‘conceive of the negro having any rights at all’: ‘Men, who are honorable in their dealings with their white neighbors, will cheat a negro without feeling a single twinge of their honor; to kill a negro they do not deem murder; to debauch a negro woman they do not think fornication; to take property away from a negro they do not deem robbery.... They still have the ingrained feeling that the black people at large belong to the whites at large.” Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, Stephen Ash, Page 150
The dependency or subordinate relationship of the abused to the abuser is an element in almost all instances of sexual abuse. In childhood sexual abuse, it is often a parent or older relative who abuses children. In adult relationships, it is often the abuse of the wife by the husband, the abuse of the employee by the boss and so on. The greater the artificial dependency on the abuser or the imbalance of the power relationship, the more likely that abuse will happen. In many cases, the victim’s hope for more favorable treatment, advancement or status within the immediate environment, such as the family home, the slave plantation, the modern office, etc., is added to the mix.
All of these elements exist in multiple ways in the phenomenon of sexual abuse of slaves by slave owners. This issue has a prominent place in the central story presented in this paper. Based on our genealogical research, we speculate that Fannie Burrow (1820- ) produced one or more children through sexual contact with her slave owner. It appears that she was sexually exploited by Phillip Jarrell Burrow (1781-1861) leading to the birth of two biracial sons: Riley Burrow (1831- ) and Green Burrow (1832-about 1905). Green Burrow is shown in the 1850 census as a part of the Phillip Burrow family unit in Lavinia. Fannie and Green are the early family links leading to the inclusion of the “Black Burrows” of this study.
Based on our theory, Fanny would have been 12 years old at the time of the abuse; Phillip Burrow was 61. The first problem facing the historian of two hundred years later is “how could the community at the time condone this egregious behavior by the White slaveholder? Would there not be even a hint of scandal associated with biracial children being openly acknowledged by the slaveholder family? The answer to these questions is that it was normative behavior in that place and time.
“Shortly after emancipation, 37% of the newly freed black persons admitted to “mixed color,” so that more than one in three of more than 9,000 Blacks that were interviewed in the lower South traced White ancestry to racial intermixture that had occurred among their grandparents and great grandparents, mixing that had mostly taken place in the 18th century.” The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, Herbert Gutman, Page 19
“White men openly forced black slaves into their beds for two centuries before the Civil War, and sexual access to local black women remained a running point of confrontation between white landowners and their black laborers deep into the twentieth century—a phenomenon that continued to demonstrate itself a century later with the public revelation that South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond fathered a black child with an Black American family servant in 1925. ‘The whole country well knows that white men of the South have come into closer relations with negroes and committed far grosser sins than that of sitting down to meat with a reputable and representative colored person.’ wrote William A. Sinclair, a black physician, in 1905. ‘And in the eyes of their fellows they suffered no disgrace."' Slavery by Another Name, Douglas Blackmon, Page 169
“Shortly after the war, an ex-slave delegate to the 1868 Arkansas constitutional convention, James I. White, urged strong legal measures against concubinage. He stated that ’the white men of the South have been for years indulging in illicit intercourse with colored women, and in the dark days of slavery this intercourse was largely forced upon the innocent victims, and I think the time has come when such a course should end.’” The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, Herbert Gutman, Page 400
Adding to the revelation of wide-spread sexual abuse of slaves is the growing awareness of the resulting Black/White kinship that many of us have today. It is altogether fitting that it was discovered as part of this study that such a relationship exists between the author and the husband of Renee, the Black American collaborator to this paper.
“Rape did commonly take place in the netherworld of the plantation. We now know, thanks to developments in DNA analysis, that one in three African American males carries a Y-DNA signature inherited from a direct white male ancestor (say, a great-great-great-grandfather) and that the average African American autosomal admixture is about 25 percent European. These startling results could only reflect the frequency of the rape of black women by white men during slavery. The science is irrefutable and telling.” Stony The Road, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Page 146
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Chapter Seven- Black Burrows in the Jim Crow Era of the South, 1877-1963
What can we say about Green & Sarah’s progeny? They had seven children; only three of which (John, Parlie and Thomas) we have been able to determine if they also had children. John Burrow and his wife, Mollie, had one child, Josie. Parlie and her husband, Mike Jones, had seven children (Lovey, Hattie, T.J., Mary, Sarah, Martha & Andrew). After Mike Jones’ death, Parlie & her second husband, Bill Green, had five children (Rosalee, Mike, Pauline, Lockie Maye & Pearly.) Thomas Burrow & his 1st wife, Jennie, had two children (Lula Mae & Harley); his 2nd wife, Mollie, and he had four children (Edward, Curtis, Linnie & Fred); and one child, Abe, with his 3rd wife, Harriett.
To follow all of the above family lines would be overwhelming to the author and the reader. To move forward, I propose to study only Thomas (1864-1950) & his 1st wife, Jennie (1857-1939), and their offspring, Harlie & Lula Mae. Both Harley Burrow (1885-1956) and Lula Mae Burrow (1886-1962) were born on the old Burrow plantation in Lavinia just before the death of the White Burrow (John Jefferson Burrow) owner’s death in 1887; his wife, Eliza died in 1891. Both John and Harriett (the two surviving children of John Jefferson and Eliza Burrow) were buried on the plantation in the Burrow family cemetery. Some of the Burrow land continued to be owned by the McKelvy family (J.J. and Eliza Burrow’s daughter, Harriett, was married to James Willis McKelvy) by as late as the 1920s.
In 1910, Harley Burrow is shown as a “hired man” and living with a White family in the Lavinia area. He married Arrah Lewis (1887-1989) in Gibson, Tennessee in 1919. Their children were Clara (1905-1925) and Lula Mae (1919-2002). At the time of his death in 1956, Harley’s profession was as a plumber. In their last years Harley and Arrah lived in Milan, Tennessee. Clara married Ollie Atichison (1902-1930) in 1920 in Gibson, Tennessee. They had two children; one that died at age two and a daughter, Virginia (1921-2016). Both Clara and Ollie died young. Ollie died from tuberculosis; Clara’s death certificate does not give a cause.
1900 Census
Green Burrow, 75, shown as farm laborer and servant to Richard Estes and his White family in District 18 (the town of Gibson is in the middle of this district), Gibson County.
Green and Sarah Burrow’s son, Thomas Burrow, is married and has a young family: Thomas is now 37 years old, his wife, Mollie is 26; the children are Edward, 8, Curtice, 5, and Lubbie, 2. They have moved and are living in Civil District 21 (Atwood is in the center of this district). Thomas’ first wife, Jennie, and their children: Horace, 17 and Lula Mae, 13 are still living on the old White Burrow plantation in Lavinia.
We now focus on Luther & Lula Mae (Burrow) Kirby for the Jim Crow period of the 20th century.
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Lula Mae Kirby (Burrow) Luther Kirby
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1910 Census
Luther, 26 & Lula Mae Kirby, 24 and their daughter, Milla, 3, and sons, Jessie & Cannie. The census category of industry is shown as “General Farming” for Luther. They are living a short distance (7-8 families away from the McNail family in Lavinia), so Luther has begun some kind of employee, tenant or sharecropping arrangement with Robert L. McNail (1863-1946). Luther continues to work for the McNail family for the next forty years.
1920 Census
Luther, 39 & Lula Mae Kirby, 30 and eight children: Millie, 13; Jesse, 10; Connie, 9; Tom Thumb, 8; Holly Bell, 6; Willie, 4; Alonzo, 2 & Cordie, 1. Luther is shown by the census taker as a farmer, living next door to Robert L. McNail.
1930 Census
Luther, 48 & Lula Mae Kirby, 46 and eleven children: Jesse, 21; Connie, 19; Beatrice, 19; Tippa, 18; Holly Belle, 16; Alonzo, 12; Willie, 14; Cordie, 10; Hervie, 7; Hallie Mae, 5 & Mattie, 3. Luther is shown by the census taker as a tenant and farmer, living next door to John P. McNail (1894-1967). John McNail is the son of Robert)
1940 Census
Luther, 58 & Lula Mae Kirby, 56 and nine children: Tipper, 29; Willie Pink, 22; Alonzo, 22; Cordie, 20; Hervie, 19; Alex, 17; Hallie Mae, 16; Mattie Fanice, 14 & Governor, 9. Luther is shown by the census taker as a farmer and the children as farm laborers, living next door to Robert L. McNail.
1950 Census
Luther, 70 & Lula Mae Kirby, 70 and three adult children: Hannah, 25; Mattie, 23 & Governor, 18. Luther is shown by the census taker as a farmer, living next door to John P. McNail and Luther’s sons: Jessie, 44, & family and Henry (Mose), 29 & family. Jesse is shown by the census taker as a farmer and Henry as a farm laborer.
Events that Impacted the Luther & Lula Kirby family during the first half of the 20th Century:
1901- Alabama adopts a new state constitution in which virtually no Black person could vote in that state. This continued for the next forty years. Nearly every other Southern state including Tennessee completed this disfranchisement as well.
1905- The U.S. Supreme Court overturns United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, Emory Speer’s, order against Georgia’s county convict leasing system, finding that the federal courts had no jurisdiction to dismantle Georgia’s practice of obtaining and selling of Black American convicts for forced labor.
1906- The Atlanta race riot took place with 25 Black Americans killed.
1909- The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is formed.
1910- The Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad held more than three thousand Black Americans against their will in Alabama’s mines.
1918- More 2,000 African Americans march in protest of a lynching in Estill Springs, Tennessee.
1920- A second version of the Klan suddenly starts to grow and flourishes nationwide with a membership estimated to be three to eight million persons.
1921- In Tulsa, Oklahoma, a mob composed of two thousand White men and women attack the Black community killing as many as three hundred people and burning down 35 city blocks of Black American homes and businesses.
1929- Alabama eliminated the sale of men into its coal mines.
1931- A group of Whites attempt to take a Black American from the Huntingdon, Carroll County, Tennessee jail, but are turned away by the Sheriff’s wife.
1934- The Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union (STFU) is founded. Its headquarters was in Memphis, Tennessee.
1940- NAACP worker, Elbert Williams, is murdered after attempting to vote in Haywood County, Tennessee. No prosecution was undertaken at the time by state or federal authorities because of lack of evidence, although local law enforcement officials were reportedly complicit in Williams's arrest and release to persons unknown.
1940 to 1970- The Great Migration. More than 20 million Americans—including over 4 million blacks—left the countryside for the cities. In 1940, half of the nation's blacks lived on the land; by 1965 four-fifths of them were urban. The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, Herbert Gutman, Page 466
1948/1951- President Harry Truman’s Committee on Civil Rights recommended bolstering the anti-slavery statute to plainly criminalize involuntary servitude. Congress passed even more explicit statutes, making any form of slavery in the United States indisputably a crime.
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McNail plantation house, 2023
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Lula Mae Burrow (1886-1962) married Luther Kirby (1884-1969) in 1905 in Lavinia. By the 1910 census, Luther had begun working for the McNail family in Lavinia and relocated his and Lula’s family with three children to the McNail property. He is identified by the census as a “general farm laborer.” The McNails were a socially prominent White family who owned substantial plantation property and a large plantation mansion that still stands today in Lavinia. That Luther became indispensable to the McNails is apparent, as he worked there for the next 40 years. A total of 14 children (eight boys: Jesse, 1909-1982; Connie, 1909-1983; Tom Thumb, 1913-2009; Alonzo !918-1959; Cordie, 1920-1995; Hervie, 1921-1985; Alex, 1924-1993; Governor, 1930-1986 and five girls; Millie, 1907-1926; Harlie Bell, 1913-2009; Willy Pink, 1915-2010; Hannah Mae, 1922-1984 & Mattie Louise, 1927-2008 were born to Luther & Lula. Looking back in time and from all appearances, the family prospered. All of Luther & Lula’s offspring went on to marry except Millie, who died at 19 years old and Hannah Mae. Jesse, Willy Pink, Alanzo, Cordie, Hervie & Alex had children of their own. By the 1950 census, Luther and Lula were grandparents to 20 grandchildren. All of Luther & Lula’s children stayed close to home, living and dying in Carroll and Gibson County communities: Lavinia- 5, Carroll County- 4, Atwood-3, Milan- 1. Five of their sons served their country in the military: Jessie, Alonzo, Cordie, Hervie & Alex. Of Luther & Lula’s eight sons, five (Jessie, Connie, Tom, Alanzo & Governor) were lifetime farmers; one, Alex, had a regular factory job and two (Cordie & Hervie). had careers in the military.
It is important to note at this point in this paper that Luther (1884-1969) and Lula Mae Kirby’s (1886-1962) life spans took place in most of the “Jim Crow” period of the South. They were children at the time of the beginnings of “Jim Crow” and died close to the advent of the civil rights legislation of the 1960s. Of Luther and Lula Mae’s children, all lived most of their lives during this period; all but one, Millie, who died in 1926, lived to see the end of Jim Crow in the 1960s. That Luther and Lula lived on the McNail property for most of this part of the Jim Crow era, largely protected them from White supremist terrorism. However, any time away from home had to be perilous and any contact with the White community potentially dangerous. Family was obviously very important to the Kirbys, given that much of the surrounding area was profoundly hostile to Black citizens. Northern Gibson County (immediately adjacent to the west of Carroll County) was known as a long-time hotbed of animosity of Whites for Blacks. As it is likely that Luther was a tenant or sharecropper with some work duties to the McNail family, this relationship provided social stability and a stable (if relatively small) income that was sufficient to support a large family.
The list given below gives us further information about the sons of Luther & Lula:
Jessie- 1940- Farmer 1950- Farm Laborer
Connie- 1930- 21 years old. He and his wife, Beatrice, live with Luther & Lula’s family and is listed as a “farm helper”
Tom Thumb- 1940- Farmer; 1950- Farmer
Alanzo- 1940- Farmer; 1950- Farmer
Cordie- 20 years old. 1940- Lives with Luther & Lula’s family and is listed as a “farmer.”; 1950- No Census report (Military duty?)
Hervie- 1940- 19 years old. Lives with Luther & Lula’s family and is listed as a “farmer.”; 1950- No Census report (Military duty?)
Alex- 1940- 16 years old. Lives with Luther & Lula’s family and is listed as a “farmer.”; 1950- “Machine helper in box factory (Milan Box Factory?).”
Governor- 1940- Lives with Luther & Lula’s family as a 9 yr. old; 1950- 20 yrs. old. Lives with Luther & Lula’s family and is listed as a “farm helper”
No information could be found on Harlie Bell Kirby’s husband, Floyd Pope; Hannah Mae was never married and was mentioned in her obituary as a “household domestic”; Mattie Kirby’s husband, Luther Caldwell, was a farmer.
Of the thirteen children of Luther and Lula, two had large families: Jessie & Edna Kirby had eight children; Wilma, Willie, Helen, James, John, Prentice, Gordon, & Jessie, Jr.; Henry & Amanda Jane Kirby had nine children: Arthur Joe, Tommy, Linda, Ruby, Rosemary, Peggy, Bertha, Bobbie & Terrance; Tom Thumb & Betty Bell Kirby had no children; Alonzo and Eulene Kirby had one child, Obie Luther Kirby (1955- ); Cordie & Ora Lee Kirby had one child, Cheryl Denise (1963- ); Alex & Ida Mae had four children; Governor was never married. Of the daughters of Luther & Lula Mae, Millie died young, Harlie Bell and husband Floyd Pope had no children; Willie Pink & Isaac Adams had one child; Hannah Mae Kirby was never married; Mattie Louise and her husband, Luther Caldwell, had no children.
Events that Impacted the Kirby family during the last half of the 20th Century:
1953- Tennessee’s poll tax is rescinded by the state legislature (After 52 years in place).
1954- Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case ruled that racially segregating children in public schools was unconstitutional. This effectively ended the “separate but equal” doctrine established by the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court ruling.
1955- The murder of Emmett Till in Mississippi
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
1959- Major push to register to vote for Black Americans in Fayette County, Tennessee. Sharecroppers who then attempted to vote after registering were thrown off the land they were farming by the White landowners. The families that lost their homes lived in a tent city from 1960-1963. Using the 1962 Civil Rights Act, they successfully brought suit against the State of Tennessee to regain their homes.
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1962- Lula Mae Kirby’s death.
1963- The march on Birmingham was organized and conducted by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
1964- The U.S Civil Rights Act prohibiting discrimination based on: race, color, religion, sex, and national origin was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson. The act includes several provisions, including:
•Prohibiting discrimination in public places, schools, and federally assisted programs
•Establishing the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
•Authorizing the Attorney General to institute suits to protect constitutional rights in public
facilities. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination in employment,
including: hiring, promotion, discharge, pay, fringe benefits, job training, classification, and
referral. The EEOC is a five-member, bipartisan commission that has the power to prevent
unlawful employment practices.
1965- The National Voting Rights Act is passed into law by the U.S. Congress.
1967- The Detroit Race Riots
1968- The Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
1969- Luther Kirby’s death.
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Chapter Eight- The Genealogist’s Journey Continued
Something needs to be said at this point about the author’s discovery of the McNail mansion in Lavinia in 2023. During my visit to Carroll County in 2016, I drove around the parts of the Lavinia area where the White Burrows owned land, hoping to find any existing structure that might be the plantation home of the Burrows. I did not find any good possibilities. Before my 2023 trip, I did some online research on this topic and found a real estate advertisement for the McNail mansion in Lavinia. The advertisement included a visual tour of the home and it was clear that this was a classic plantation home and possibly of antebellum construction. Prior to my 2023 trip, I contacted Brent Cox, the curator of the Browning Historical Museum in McKenzie, and asked what he knew about the McNails. He turned out to know quite a lot. I then contacted the realtor and asked if it could be arranged to have a tour of the McNail mansion. She and the owners were open to this.
Brent Cox and I spent the better part of a day driving around Carroll County in August of 2023. A part of that day was visiting Ricky & Sarah Clifton who very graciously took us on a tour of their beautiful home, the McNail mansion. Ricky had spent the last 20+ years restoring the home and now they had put it up for sale. As Brent had a considerable amount of knowledge regarding historical architecture, the Cliftons allowed him to inspect the attic to determine the approximate age of the home. As Brent’s opinion was that its construction was postbellum, that ended the possibility that it was the antebellum home of the Burrows. The next day, I was able to research the deeds for the home in the County Land Records office and determined that the home was built by Dr. Thomas Addison McNail (1821-1895) after his marriage to Emily Herron in 1855 and graduation from the Jefferson Medical School of Philadelphia in 1856. Emily died in 1858 and he lived with a relative of Emily’s prior to marrying Rachel Caldwell in 1862. Dr. McNail probably took his inheritance (his father died in 1850) and had the mansion in Lavinia built sometime shortly after the end of the Civil War. He began a lifelong medical practice in Lavinia from the late 1850s to his death in 1895.
And now the best part of the story comes in with the early correspondence with Renee’ in the spring of 2024. She informed me that one of the principal characters in the Black Burrow family history, Luther Kirby, worked for the McNail family and raised his and his wife, Lula’s, family while living and working on the McNail plantation for 40+ years (approximately 1910-1950).
I did find the likely location of the White Burrow plantation homestead in the 2023 trip. It was on Sand Hill Road about five miles south of Lavinia and located close to the middle of the Burrow plantation land. Brent Cox had several photos of the original structure that burned to the ground 30+ years ago. The house is not as grand or as large as the McNail plantation house, but was large enough to house the Banks Burrow, Sr. and later the John Jefferson Burrow families. There is a barely standing barn about 200 yards south from the location of the house.
There is one last story worth telling about the 2024 trip to Milan, Tennessee. On my second to last day there, I used the morning to visit a road on the outskirts & south of Milan. On the map it is shown as Burrow Lane and is a recently black-topped (in the last 30 years?), narrow two lane road dead-ending about two miles west of Stinson Street. I stopped first at the intersection of Stinson Street and Burrow Lane as there was a very large piece of mowed and groomed land surrounding a large modern home. This was on the SW quadrant of the intersection, and it seemed to me to have the feel of old plantation land. It was also only 3-4 miles from the village of Gibson. This seemed significant to me as Gibson is central to the ancestral land of Banks M. Burrow, Jr. On the whole, Burrow Lane is rural farmland with single homes spaced every 1/8th mile or so. I drove further west on Burrow Lane and in about ½ mile became intrigued with a very old log cabin that had been renovated. I parked my car in an open field on the opposite side of the road and knocked on the door. The person who answered my knock turned out to be extremely knowledgeable about the history of the neighborhood. He spent much of the rest of the morning chatting with me on his front porch. The first part of my story is that his historic home was from a site 6-10 miles away. He purchased it 40+ years ago and dismantled it numbering each and every piece so it could be hauled to his present residence where he reassembled it and modernized the inside. He was most conscientious in preserving the historic character of this quite beautiful home. The last part of this story is that he told me that one of the homes closer to Stinson Street had been owned by a Floyd Burrow who was a ten-year mayor and city judge of Milan in the 1950s. When I got back to Ann Arbor, one of the first things I did was to find Floyd Burrow (1907-1995) on Ancestry.com. It turns out that his 7th great grandfather is the same as Lawrence and me.
1- Floyd Leon Burrow, Jr’s lineage is Phillip Burrow, Sr. (1715-1778), John Jarrell Burrow (1739-1820), Phillip Jarrell Burrow (1771-1861), Martin Harvey Burrow, Sr. (1804-1847), Martin Harvey, Jr. (1847-1919), James Christopher Burrow (1869-1944) & Floyd Leon Burrow, Sr. (1907-1995).
2- Lawrence’s lineage is Phillip Burrow, Sr. (1715-1778), John Jarrell Burrow (1739-1820), Phillip Jarrell Burrow (1771-1861), Green Burrow (1832- ), Thomas Burrow (1864-1950), Lula Mae Burrow (1886-1962), Alex Kirby (1924-1993).
3- The author’s lineage is Phillip Burrow, Sr. (1715-1778), Phillip S. Burrow (1742-1829), Ephraim Burrow (1768-1833), Solomon Porch Burrow (1791-1841), Solomon Burrow (1814-1899), Lonie Editha Burrow (1893-1950), Helen Maria Finney (1910-1988), Hugh Finney McPherson (1941-Living).
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4- Banks Mechium Burrow, Sr.'s lineage is Phillip Burrow, Sr. (1715-1778), Phillip S. Burrow (1742-1829).
Chapter Nine- One White Man’s 20th Century Journey in Understanding Social Behavior & Race
Of course, researching and writing this paper has triggered many memories in the author about his own gradual coming to realization and terms with the problem of race in America. My earliest childhood memory of race came with the experience of a Black American playmate that I had when my family lived in Virginia Beach, Va. in the early 1950s, He would regularly appear at my home to engage in play. I don’t remember ever going to his home, even though he lived nearby. This childhood friendship lasted for the whole time we lived there (about one year.) I recall it being wholly positive.
As a child, I remember asking my mother what the “Colored Only” sign meant over the brown drinking fountain in the largest department store in Oklahoma City. I don’t remember her answer, but I believe that it was about her acceptance of the status quo of race relations in the 1950s.
I recall a term paper that I turned in for an undergraduate class (sociology?) at a college in Edmond, Oklahoma in the early 1960s. I felt particularly proud of the work that I put into this paper (on the origin of racial discrimination) and was amazed when the grade given by the instructor was a C. I went to find out how he arrived at this grade. I recall that one of the ideas put forth in the paper (I think that it was my own), that lower class Whites needed to have a class lower than their own, thus leading to their own violent behavior towards Black Americans. The instructor told me that this was an erroneous (or even ridiculous) theory and that was the chief reason for the low grade on the paper. I do remember that he became angry and agitated when I questioned his position.
I attended segregated public and parochial schools in Oklahoma, Virginia and Colorado. Also, I don’t remember Black American students at any of the colleges (Central State University, University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University) that I attended in 40 years. My first real experience with race relations and American politics took place when I was a manager of a large “public” swimming pool in an Amusement Park in Oklahoma City in the1960s. I started working there in the summers as a lifeguard and loved the job. I even loved it more when I became the manager of the pool. With the advent of the civil rights legislation, the owner of the amusement park was forced to accept Black Americans to the pool for the first time. He was worried that the admission of Blacks would ruin the traditional White attendance, and he would have to shut down that part of the park. His solution was to charge a higher admission rate for Blacks. At the time I was able to recognize the basic unfairness of this policy, but knew if I objected, I could lose my job. As a result, I went along with what I now can clearly see was an especially egregious act of racial discrimination. One particular memory of that time stands out. I was told one day that a group of Black youths were visiting the pool to speak to the “manager.” I particularly remember how handsome, intelligent and articulate this group of college age boys and girls were. They were there to object to the pool’s practice of discriminatory charges for admission. I also remember feeling that they were most certainly right in their objection, but not outwardly letting on that I agreed with them. All that I knew to do was to refer them to the owner of the park. I believe that the discriminatory admission fee practice was discontinued the next summer.
In the early 1970s, as part of a Master’s program at Eastern Michigan University, I took a graduate course called “The Negro in America” taught by a Professor Wells, an African American. I recall that the majority of the students in the class were White. Also, during the 70s, I read a number of books on the subject (Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver, Another Country, Go Tell It on the Mountain & Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin, The Autobiography of Malcom X and The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron). Recently, I was surprised to find that I had not read another book on the subject until I began researching for the first paper that is on the subject of family genealogy and the history of American slavery. The first paper on American slavery has to do with the Fulkerson side of my family and is published on the Internet at www.fulkerson1847.org. Since that time (2021), I have read 40+ books on the history of American slavery.
I want also to speak about my own personal experience with one of the topics of this paper. In the early 1970s, I was a 3rd grade public school teacher in Saline, Michigan. I think that I read Harris’ Uncle Remus as an undergraduate and loved it. It occurred to me that I could read it to my 3rd grade class on a regular basis. It was a common practice for grade school teachers to read out loud from a book for 15 minutes a day to their class. This I did, Black plantation dialect and all. At the time, it did not occur to me that this was an inappropriate use of a prejudicial stereotype. Saline was an all-White community (It was widely known that there was only one Black family living in town). I do remember another teacher bringing up that what I was doing was controversial, but I dismissed her idea almost outright. I felt that this was great literature and that was enough for me at the time.
A few years later in the 1970s, I was hired as a public swimming pool manager in Ann Arbor, Michigan. At this time there was great unrest in race relations in the U.S. and a growing awareness of the need for greater employment of African Americans in public services. I had stepped into the middle of a hotbed of racial conflict and attempts of city government to address this in their hiring practices (At the time, Black Americans made up 11% of the Ann Arbor population). I must have recognized this as an opportunity to do something right in an area that I was poorly equipped to adequately deal with earlier in life. I do recall (especially when I was promoted to an administrative position in the Ann Arbor Parks & Recreation department.) embracing the idea that Black Americans were underrepresented in city government employment and the need to rectify this in increased recruitment of Blacks on all levels. I worked for the Ann Arbor Parks Department for ten years. At the end of my tenure, there was no longer a climate favorable to Black employment and many of the Black Americans that were hired in my administration were disappearing. Some that I had personally hired or promoted had to be let go by me as a result of “cutbacks in funding”.
My last significant interaction with Black American families was through my eleven years as a youth soccer coach. Often, the composition of the team would be about 25% Black and 75% other. I found this a totally positive experience for all parents and kids alike. However, there were times when we traveled as a team to play in other towns and we were met with racial taunting by the players and parents of the opposing team. One game in particular, I had to step onto the playing field during the game to prevent the verbal and possibly physical abuse of one of our Black players by the White spectators of the other team. This abruptly ended the game and led to my being suspended as the coach in the next game. I remember being amazed and appalled by the disrespect shown of our Black players by a “White mob.” We were truly fortunate to get out that situation without physical injury.
Another event from that time was when I and several soccer players (including my son) were returning from an away game in my car. One of the boys was a very popular and athletic friend of my son. He was one of four African Americans on our soccer team. The away game was about 30 miles from our hometown. As we began to get closer to home on our return trip, I began to realize that we were dangerously low on gas in the car. At the time we were on a major expressway. When I announced this development to the boys, almost immediately I noticed a significant change in behavior of the African American player. He became obviously anxious and agitated. This lasted for the last 10 minutes on the expressway. Providentially, we made it to the exit that led to our town and happily coasted into the nearest filling station. I did not know what to think of this player’s behavior until his mother explained it to me later. He was deathly afraid of being exposed and vulnerable in this way. He had been told repeatedly by his family of the dangers to African Americans caught in situations such as these. It was years later that I began to more fully understand.
More recently was the one-hour meeting with Renee’ and Lawrence during my visit to Gibson County, Tennessee in the Summer of 2024. I was nervous about the meeting, as I wanted to be seen as a fairly enlightened White person as to questions of race. I also didn’t want to be guilty of an embarrassing gaffe. At one point in the meeting, I stated that I saw myself as having “little” prejudices (such as billionaires, people who smoke cigarettes, dishonest public figures, et cetera, et cetera), but also that I had never seen myself as being prejudiced regarding race. What began as an attempt to be honest and candid has ended up being the thing that I fretted most about our meeting afterwards. Was what I said believable? Was it naïve or foolish? It is my hope that they and I will have more time when we meet next to talk further about this difficult but necessary topic.
Ironically, my introduction to genealogical research began as a graduate student at the University of Michigan Social Work School in the early 1980s. I was taking a course on “the Family” and the instructor was the only Black American instructor that I had during my time as a student there. The students had to produce several major papers for this course and he allowed one of them to be a genealogical study of our own family through the use of the U.S. census. This was the beginning of what is now 40+ years of my continuing research on the history of my family.
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Bibliography
1619 Project, Edited by Nicole Hannah-Jones (2021)
All God’s Dangers- Nate Shaw & Theodore Rosengarten (1974)
The Black Family in Slavery & Freedom, Herbert G. Gutman (1976)
Carroll County, Tennessee History- Goodspeed Publishing Co. (1887)
Gibson County, Tennessee History- Goodspeed Publishing Co., (1887)
Gibson County: Past and Present- Frederick Culp, the Gibson Historical Society (1961)
Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880- W.E.B. DuBois (1935)
Driven to the Field: Sharecropping and Southern Literature, David A. Davis (2023)
Good & Faithful Labor: From Slavery to Sharecropping, Ronald L.F. Davis (1982)
History of Carroll County, Volume One- Turner Publishing Co., (1885)
History of Tennessee and Tennesseans (Carroll County), Lewis Publishing Co., (1913)
I Was A Sharecropper- Harry Harrison Kroll (1936)
Klan War: U.S. Grant & the Battle to Save Reconstruction- Fergus Bordewich (2023)
Middle Tennessee Society Transformed, 1860-1870- Stephen Ash (1988)
Reconstruction After the Civil War- John Hope Franklin (1961)
Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877- Eric Foner (1988)
Slavery by Another Name, Douglas A. Blackmon (2008)
Slavery’s End in Tennessee- John Cimprich (1985)
Slaves in the Family- Edward Bell
Stony The Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy & Jim Crow, Henry Louis Gates (2019)​
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