Birmingham Revisited

I received a galley of Rosalie Turner's March with Me from her publicist who knew my interest in history.

March With Me
© 2013 Rosalie T. Turner
Cypress Creek Publishing
ISBN 978-0-979237553
~ 215 pages

The story and timeframe of March with Me could be called near history. It starts in 1963, 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Fifty years ago in May 1963 the city of Birmingham, Alabama became a focal point in the ongoing Civil Rights Movement. The Movement hoped to implement what were merely words on legislative papers into realities for the hundreds of thousand United States citizens who were still without equal rights. This is near history, because many of the people who were involved in the events, so meaningfully described by Turner, are still living.

Yet in the U.S., most people younger than sixty years old, no matter their ethnicity, are sorely lacking in knowledge of this pivotal time. Blacks and whites less than thirty years old quite often take for granted the social structures of today (still flawed, but immensely improved over 1963) without an inkling of what it took to reach this state. Rosalie Turner's book March with Me is a fine attempt to open eyes and minds to the realities.

Through the thoughts and activities of two Birmingham residents, the story begins in that volatile May of '63 and extends into the 1970s to show the long-term emotional affects of the Civil Rights Movement. Turner's writing is fluid and the language well thought out to portray the vitality, despair and hope of the times. The main protagonist is Letitia, idealistic and naive, as she becomes involved in the historic Children's March. She and her older brother are eager for confrontation, while their parents and most adults are fearful of repercussions from any overt action against white authority. At this time, bombings of black facilities—particularly churches--and lynchings of black citizens were still facts of life in Alabama.

While Letitia gets battered by fire hosing and the Birmingham Police riot squad, Martha Ann, her white, privileged contemporary, hears the news and wonders what it is all about. Her family doesn't live in the city, her father is a bigot, her mother doesn't work and has hired help...Letitia's mother who does day work for this family several times each week.

The aftermath of the Children's March, compounded by the 16th St. Baptist Church bombing a few months later in which four girls were killed, garnered national and international support for the Movement. But author Turner doesn't delve the politics; she continues her focus on the emotional element of the events: how Letitia's attitude changes, how Martha Ann harbors questions, how families proceed with their lives. This is one of many strengths of the book.

I would have liked more reaction from Letitia regarding the lackadaisical (unprofessional) medical care provided for her grandmother and most blacks. It is mentioned, but not explored in Letitia's thoughts. In the '50s and through the '70s, I was incensed by this discrimination, and I expected it to have more impact in this story than it did. I also wanted a bit more about Letitia's college years at a black institution; it is only mentioned in passing toward the end of the book. Likewise, I wanted to know Martha Ann's reasoning in her employment decisions; after showing the volatile reactions of her father in other parts of the book, I felt a lack of detail at this phase that could have expanded Martha Ann's character. It almost seemed as if Turner were rushing past these events to get to her very powerful ending.

For me, this 1975 ending to March with Me encompasses everything Rosalie Turner hoped to convey with this book. Letitia and Martha Ann are face-to-face and talk about those years gone by. To tell how it happens would be a spoiler, so I won't. :-) Suffice it to say the circumstance is dramatic and the interaction is poignant.

Of twelve Discussion Questions at the end of the book, I was particularly drawn to two: How do our attitudes toward race develop? and What can an individual do toward racial and ethnic understanding an reconciliation? These seem to be the questions that shaped Turner's story. They are profound and will be answered differently by nearly every person who takes time to contemplate them. After reading March with Me people will contemplate, and through Turner's insightful presentation, they just might come up with positive answers.

Rosalie Turner has published five previous books.
Turner and her husband have homes in Birmingham, Alabama and Angle Fire, New Mexico. Learn more about Turner and this title at her web site and her blog.

Historical information can be found at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

On Promised Land Now in Print

The American historical fiction, On Promised Land now available in print.

OVERVIEW:
This novella is set in the 1840s at the end of the Second Seminole War, and details the great American dream of all pioneers who settled the western lands. But these are black pioneers. Black-Seminole: Tru, free-born in the Everglades and recently orphaned; his two younger siblings, Toby and Kate and his teenage Calusa wife, Tall Deer.

These stalwart, industrious folk have been driven West and are caught up in politics and expansion in Indian Territory. They strive and survive in what we think of as the "American Way" even when they aren't recognized as Americans--or Seminoles--or free. Yet they persist.

Electronic versions of the title are available for Kindle and Nook

Cover and layout for print and eBook by GITP.

Black Women in the West

© 2001 Kae Cheatham and mostly published in The Portland Observer, 7 Feb. 2001

"Go West, young man, go West." Horace Greeley popularized this John B.L. Soule phrase in 1851, and Greeley also insisted that the western lands should be "reserved for the benefit of the white Caucasian race." But at the time he was calling for white men to go west, the West contained a sizable population of men who were black, and a growing population of black women.

Black women inhabited farms, towns and cities from the Gulf coast to northern California. The beginning of the 19th century saw Mississippi river towns, such as St. Louis, which had been under French rule, with significant populations of free French-speaking blacks. From 1817 and into the 1840s, untold numbers of blacks, slaved and free, emigrated to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) when the Five Civilized Tribes were forcibly removed from the southeastern states. During this time of westward expansion, black women also trekked along in servant capacity to entrepreneurs and pioneers moving to Arkansas, Texas and the western Territories. Texas was home to thousands of black women. Most were slaves, some were also free--former Spanish slaves. Wherever military forts were established, officers moved west with their families and domestic servants. By the 1870s, black women nurses, wives and teachers, mostly connected with the black military, joined this population, while black women from southern states lead the way to Kansas as "Exodusters" to escape the persistent backlash of the Reconstruction South.

History information, however, followed the sentiments expressed by Greeley and for more than a century, the mystique of carving out a niche in the massive western landscapes was restricted to white males. It has only been in the last thirty years that blacks have begun to appear in western history. Texts have bloomed with information about the black soldiers who served on the western frontier. Then came the admittance that black cowboys also existed--not just a few, but many. It is estimated that more than 5,000 black cowboys worked the cattle drives from the 1860s to 1890s.

As the renaissance of history continued, women have been credited for their part in settling the West. At first only white waifs, wives and bawdy girls were mentioned, but recent presentations have begun exploring the broader aspects of women's role in the westward expansion. The information about women now includes women of color.

The west coast has a particularly proud heritage as black women aided the region's spectacular rise of culture and wealth. In 1859 California (just eight years after Greeley's narrow-focused urging), the women of Sacramento's black community began a school--a school whose pupils won medals of achievement from the Sacramento Board of Education. The majority of the twenty-five to thirty students were black and female.

Where did this black community come from? More than 2,000 free black men had hurried to Old California to take part in the Gold Rush, and some sent for their families. California, like Texas, had a small population of former Spanish slaves and mixed-blood blacks from before the arrival of Americans. Again, the whites who came west brought their slaves. Many of those servants took advantage of territorial laws and sought their freedom.

One such person was Biddy Mason who, as a slave, had herded her master's cattle West. Her three daughters were with her, and when their owner planned to return to Virginia in 1856 (presumably to sell his slaves), Mason and her family won a legal battle for their freedom and stayed in southern California. Mason, a skilled midwife and herbalist, built an empire by investing in real estate. She was one of the first women of color, under American rule, to own a home. By the 1870s, she was a wealthy woman, but never forgot the hardships she had suffered. Her home was always open to people who needed shelter, no matter their race; she helped found the First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles; she established charitable operations during the 1880 flood.

Biddy Mason died in the 1890s, but nearly a century later, her good works were remembered by Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who dedicated a large tombstone to her memory. Many of her descendants still live in the Los Angles area, and Biddy Mason Day began in 1989.

Philanthropists and rags-to-riches stories usually get recorded, and there are several black women who fill this category. Among them, along with Biddy Mason, is Clara Brown, who made several fortunes in Colorado Territory real estate in the mid-19th century and helped hundreds of blacks settle in the Central City region. Businesswoman-activist Mary Ellen Pleasance was co-founder of the first Bank of California, developed shelters for abused women and aided fugitive slaves.

Several black western women did not amass a fortune, but created such a unique impression, they are remembered even today. Elvira Conley started her western life as a successful laundress in rough-and-tumble Sheridan, Kansas. Among her friends were Wild Bill Hickok and other notables of the late 1860s. Cathey Williams moved West as a girl with her mother and sisters. Lured by military pay and adventure, she changed her name to William Cathey, and for two years served as a Buffalo Soldier, earning a medal for bravery. And no one could forget Stagecoach Mary Fields, who stood at over six feet tall. She traveled West in 1884 to aid Ursuline nuns and settled in Cascade, Montana Territory, where she became a driver for Wells Fargo, one of the state's first postmasters, and was noted for her ability to hold her liquor.

Many of the intrepid souls who ventured West, no matter their color, are remembered only because western culture thrives today from their effort. Horace Greeley's bigoted ambition for the western territories was thwarted even as he spoke, and the strength of character, inventiveness and vision that formed the West can be credited to blacks as well as whites, to women as well as men.

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I came across this article while going through some files. Most of it was published in the Portland Observer, and I think it's in the Articles section of the GITP Web site. It's worth another run-out, especially since the two books I've published in print this month (Hammer Come Down: Memoirs of a Freedman and On Promised Land) both deal with blacks in the Old West.


Several excellent nonfiction books have been published in the last decade that offer an in-depth look at black women in the west. Just typing those words into a search engine provides abundant information.