The African-American Experience in Ohio: Selections from the Ohio Historical Society

In a hurry? Save or print these Collection Connections as a single file.

Go directly to the collection, The African-American Experience in Ohio: Selections from the Ohio Historical Society, in American Memory, or view a Summary of Resources related to the collection.

Slave Narratives and Biographies

Photograph of Charles Garlick From His Biography.

Pamphlets such as Reverend Charles Thompson’s Biography of a Slave (1875) and Charles Garlick’s Life, Including His Escape and Struggle for Liberty (1902) provide first-hand accounts of life during slavery. Both authors target a general audience and offer a conversational style that Thompson describes as "being much better suited to the tastes and capacities of my colored readers." Compare the experiences of Thompson and Garlick. How are they similar? How do they differ? What may have prompted each to write of his experiences? What conclusions can you make about the institution of slavery based on these accounts?

Additional conversational narratives are available in twenty-seven interviews of former slaves that were collected by members of the W.P.A. Federal Writers’ Project. A search on ex-slave narrative provides the text while a search on ex-slave photograph yields a number of accompanying portraits. Additional material from the W.P.A. is available in the American Memory collections, Born in Slavery, 1936-1938 and American Life Histories, 1936-1940.

What are similarities and differences within these twenty-seven W.P.A. narratives? What do these narratives reveal about the individuals being interviewed? What might the narratives indicate about the interviewers and their intentions? Can facts mentioned in these pieces be verified? How? How do these oral histories compare to the works of Thompson and Garlick? Why might a former slave have thought it important to record his or her experience in either a biography or an interview? What concerns might an ex-slave have about being interviewed? How might the identity of the interviewer contribute to these concerns? How might being illiterate effect the interview itself or one's feelings about it?

Angelina Lester, an Ex-Slave, 1937.

Cultural Context and Language

Many newspaper articles and other materials in this collection feature the candid use of terms such as colored, negro, and nigger. These terms may be objectionable today, but an 1897 article in the Cleveland Gazette entitled, "Offensive Term ‘Nigger’" provides a starting point for discussions concerning these words:

Strange as it may seem, nigger, as [a British writer] uses it . . . is not slang at all, but is simply the ordinary English way of describing a person of color . . . It lacks the excuse of traditions of race contempt which one might find for it in a southern writer . . . And probably it is not a case of color prejudice; but only a case of not knowing when one is offensive. . . .

• How is the meaning of a word dependent upon its cultural context? In other words, why does the author make a distinction between the use of the word nigger by American and British writers?
• Is this a fair and logical distinction? Do you agree with it? Explain.
• How does such a distinction play out in a comparison of authors such as Mark Twain (Huckleberry Finn) and Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness, Nigger of Narcissus)?
• What are the connotations of these words when African-American writers use them?
• What are the connotations when these terms are used in contemporary culture in such media as rap music and movies? How do these contexts affect the meaning of the words?

Humorous Writing

A search on humor provides a number of jokes and stories such as a Fable of a sparrow and a hawk and the article, "Soldier Has Rather Novel Idea" in which an officer sells insurance to army soldiers by arguing that it would make it too expensive for the government to put them into dangerous situations. More topical satire is available in pieces such as "Humour Like This is the Spice of Life" in which the author suggests that repealing the Fifteenth Amendment and replacing it with an amendment that allows only one out of every ten African Americans to vote. A search on cartoon also provides examples of political humor including, "Real Chore" and "History Repeats Itself" (1921).

"Real Chore."

• How effective is wit and humor in conveying a message?
• How does "Humor Like This is the Spice of Life" use humor to discuss serious social issues? Try writing a definition of satire.
• What contemporary issues might be effectively discussed through humor and satire?
• Use the examples above as a basis for writing a fable, satire, or humorous essay of your own.

Literature and Literary Reviews

In the 1893 article, "Literature as a Pillar of Strength," John Hawkins discusses the importance of literature to earlier civilizations and he calls on African Americans to create their own great works:

America’s greatness is already measured more by the ability of her statesmen and the profound thought, the sublimity, grandeur and purity of her scholars, than by the number of her cities or the strength of her army. And the general verdict is that a country, a nation, a people, without a high standard of literature, is yet void of one of the strongest pillars on which to build a character.

Page 9 [Transcription]

A search on literary reviews provides newspaper and magazine critiques as well as advertisements for some of Hawkins’s most esteemed contemporaries while a general survey of African-American writers including Phillis Wheatley, Benjamin Banneker, and Frederick Douglass, is available in T.G. Steward’s 1913 article, "Some Glimpses of Ante Bellum Negro Literature."

• Why does Hawkins feel that it is important for African Americans to have their own literature?
• Which African-American authors of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries might agree with Hawkins?
• Did literature become "a Pillar of Strength" among African Americans during the twentieth century? Discuss.
• Can literature actually have a tangible effect upon people's lives? Why or why not?

Poetry

A search on poem yields a number of pieces on subjects such as temperance ("Don't Send Your Child For Beer"), war (a "shape poem" entitled, "Beneath the Cross"), and civil rights ("The Negro as He Is").  Katherine Davis Tillman’s 1898 essay, "Afro-American Poets and Their Verse" provides a comprehensive survey of African-American poets and includes some examples of their work as she makes the case for the value of the art: Let no man who loves the Negro race then decry poetry, for it is by this and other proofs of genius that our race will be enabled to take its place among the nations of the earth. Then, let the poem of rudest construction not pass unnoticed, lest we throw away a diamond of precious thought . . . For poets thrive rapidly in a congenial atmosphere, and if we wish the best of which our poets are capable, we must inspire them to greater efforts by our appreciation of what they have already accomplished. . . . Page 2 [Transcription]

"Beneath the Cross."

Phillis Wheatley, an eighteenth century slave and writer is considered the first major African-American poet, and is well represented in this collection. A search on Wheatley yields a number of newspaper articles, and poems. For example, the discovery of Phillis Wheatley’s copy of Paradise Lost in the Harvard Library prompted an 1893 biographical piece in the Cleveland Gazette.

• Why was Phillis Wheatley so highly regarded?
• Who was Wheatley’s audience?
• What emotions do her poems convey?
• How does her work compare to that of poets who followed her?
• In a 1974 essay, entitled "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens," Alice Walker discusses the influence of Phillis Wheatley. How does her account compare with the biographical information in this collection?

Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1890.

A search on Dunbar also provides a good deal of biographical information about Paul Laurence Dunbar, an esteemed nineteenth-century poet. Accounts of Dunbar’s life are available in another 1893 Cleveland Gazette piece and a 1914 booklet, while his 1894 poem about a Thanksgiving turkey, "Signs of the Times" provides an example of his dialectical voice. Other poets followed Dunbar’s lead in making African-American dialect a standard in their work. What is the purpose of dialect in poetry? Why does Dunbar use dialect? Who was Dunbar’s audience? What messages does Dunbar relate in his work? How does his work compare with African-American poets from the early twentieth century?

Persuasive Writing

Frederick Douglass's speeches provide a number of excellent examples of persuasive writing and public speaking that lend themselves to dramatic reading and imitation. A search on Douglass speech results in examples of addresses ranging in topics from labor to freedom to the strangeness of birthdays: Birthdays belong to free institutions. We at the South never knew them. We were born at times—harvest times, watermelon times and generally hard times. I never knew anything about the celebration of a birthday except Washington’s birthday, and it seems a little strange to have mine celebrated. I think it is hardly safe to celebrate any man’s birthday while he lives. Page 1 Speech by Fred Douglass

Drawing of Frederick Douglass.

• Why does Douglass speak about birthdays? What other topics does it allow him to speak about? Why doesn't he speak directly about these topics?
• Are Douglass's speeches effective? Why or why not?
• What emotions does Douglass invoke while making an argument?
• How does Douglass use humor in these addresses?
• According to Douglass, what are the prospects for the advancement of African Americans?

A search on editorial yields a number of other examples of persuasive writing in this collection, but two particularly interesting examples are available with a search on Emancipation Proclamation.  Two essays from 1913, "Fifty Years of Freedom," written by a fourteen-year-old girl, and "The New Emancipation" view contemporary social struggles through the lens of emancipation:

Within the next fifty years there must come to the Negro a new emancipation, so that he may celebrate, coincident with the centenary of his emancipation from physical slavery, his emancipation from social degradation, industrial and commercial exclusion, political inequality and all discrimination based on race or color.

Page 3 [Transcription]

• Where do these essays position African Americans in 1913?
• What have African Americans achieved?
• What must African Americans pursue?
• Why do these authors discuss contemporary struggles in relation to the Emancipation Proclamation? What does this juxtaposition add to their arguments and the power of their appeals?

Symbolism in Song

Two nineteenth-century newspaper articles attest to the power of symbolism in song in their accounts of two groups of African Americans refusing to sing the songs "America" and "Dixie." In 1892, African-American members of a church were assembled to discuss how to improve their condition in the South when the pastor tried to lead them in singing "America." Many in attendance refused to join in and, as the Cleveland Gazette article, "Refused to Sing ‘America’" explained, one man objected, "I don’t want to sing that song until this country is what it claims to be, a ‘sweet land of liberty.’" The congregation did, however, join the pastor when he started a new song.

• What are the values and interests underlying the song, "America"?
• Why was the notion of a "sweet land of liberty" objectionable?
• Might the lyrics of "America" still be objectionable to some? Why or why not?

Nine years later, the Cleveland Gazette article, "Refused to Sing 'Dixie'" described a group of African-American school children who refused to participate in a Memorial Day activity of singing "Dixie". The article reported that one child:

could not see his way clear to celebrate the memory of the fallen soldier and patriot, who died on the battlefield fighting for liberty, by singing a song which means the mingling of the praises of those who fired upon the flag with that of the heroes who gave their lives for their country, and they refused to sing.

Page 1

• What are the values and interests inherent in the song "Dixie"?
• Why might some people, particularly African Americans, object to this song?
• Are there similar instances today of songs or other types of symbols being contested?
• How does singing a song such as "Dixie" differ from flying a Confederate flag?
• Upon what grounds might one defend the singing of "Dixie" or flying of a Confederate flag?
• What slant did the newspaper take when reporting this event?
• Does the article represent the thoughts of the children or the writer?
• What might the students and/or the teacher have done differently?
• How does this incident regarding the singing of "Dixie" differ from that of the church members asked to sing "America"? What is the difference between the objections to these two songs?
• What are the expectations of adults in a church and children in a school? How do these expectations impact the significance of the act of singing in these cases?

Newspapers

With more than 15,000 articles from eleven Ohio newspapers, this collection provides an excellent opportunity to investigate the role of newspapers to communities in general and to the early-twentieth-century African-American community in particular. Browse the Subject Index to this collection in order to examine the different issues discussed in African-American newspapers and answer the following questions.

• What resources does the paper provide its community? What roles does it play?
• Does the newspaper provide a political voice? Explain.
• How do these newspapers compare with other publications of the era?
• How do they compare to contemporary African-American newspapers?
• Has the mission of these publications changed over time?