The Prince of Jockeys

by Pellom McDaniels III

  48. Butchart, Schooling the Freed People, 17–51.

  49. I believe Isaac Murphy may have attended school at First African Baptist Church for two reasons: first, he lived in Jordan's Row in downtown Lexington, near where First African Baptist was located; second, Murphy's ten-year-anniversary wedding ceremony in 1893 was presided over by the Reverend S. P. Young, minister of First African Baptist, who would also officiate at Murphy's funeral in 1896.

  50. See letter from Mary Colton to George Whipple, October 10, 1865, in Sears, Camp Nelson, 271.

  51. Ibid.

  52. W. D. Johnson, Biographical Sketches of Prominent Negro Men and Women of Kentucky (Lexington: Standard Print, 1897), 18–19. The Brittons lived on Mill Street between Second and Third sometime between 1859 and 1866. Lexington 1859–60 City Directory (Lexington: Hitchcock and Searles, 1859), 37.

  53. Johnson mentions that Henry Britton was a member of the Colored Fair Association's inaugural board of directors and was elected secretary. However, the official ledger containing the board's minutes and a list of officers does not mention Britton. This can probably be attributed to the absence of the August 11, 1869, minutes. Shortly after the association's creation, Henry Scroggins took over as secretary and remained in the position until 1875. Johnson, Biographical Sketches of Prominent Negro Men and Women of Kentucky, 75–89.

  54. See Richard D. Sears, A Utopian Experiment in Kentucky: Integration and Social Equality at Berea, 1866–1904 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishers, 1996), 77; Harrison and Klotter, New History of Kentucky, 57; James T. Haley, Afro-American Encyclopedia; Or Thoughts, Doings, and Sayings of the Race, Embracing Lectures, Biographical Sketches, Sermons, Poems, Names of Universities, Colleges, Seminaries, Newspapers, Books, and a History of the Denominations, Giving the Numerical Strength of Each (Nashville: Haley and Florida, 1895), 563.

  55. Colton to Whipple, October 10, 1865.

  56. Parrish, Golden Jubilee, 83–85.

  57. Lucas, History of Blacks in Kentucky, 239.

  58. Marjorie H. Parker, “Some Educational Activities of the Freedmen's Bureau,” Journal of Negro History 23, no. 1 (Winter 1954): 10.

  59. See DuBois, Black Reconstruction in America, 645–48.

  60. One example of whites’ response to the changing legal status of blacks was reported in “Freedmen's Affairs,” Cincinnati Daily Gazette, January 8, 1866, 3. An officer from the Freedmen's Bureau wrote:

  Although much opposition is manifested towards the free labor system, as a general rule men of intelligence in [South Carolina and Georgia] express their determination to cooperate with the Freedmen's Bureau in its efforts to elevate the condition of the Negro, and preserving harmony between the races. In Florida, however, the same good feeling does not seem to exist, a number of whites having notified General Foster by letter that unless they were allowed to whip and shoot Negroes whenever it suited their fancy, they would leave the State. Their request not being acceded to, large numbers of the planters are immigrating to Texas, where they hope to enjoy unrestricted liberty in the exercising of the harmonizing efforts in behalf of the African.

  61. In Black Reconstruction in America, DuBois discusses the conflicting ideas whites had to process about human nature and self-discovery. In the foreword he writes:

  It would be only fair to the reader to say frankly in advance that the attitude of any person toward this story will be distinctly influenced by his theories of the Negro race. If he believes that the Negro in America and in general is an average and ordinary human being who under a given environment develops like other human beings, then he will read this story and judge it by the facts adduced. If, however, he regards the Negro as a distinctly inferior creation, who can never successfully take part in modern civilization and whose emancipation and enfranchisement were gestures against nature, then he will need something more than the sort of facts that I have set down. But this latter person, I am not trying to convince. I am simply pointing out these two points of view, so obvious to Americans, and then without further ado, I am assuming the truth in the first. In fine, I am going to tell this story as though Negroes were ordinary human beings, realizing that this attitude will from the first seriously curtail my audience.

  62. John Watson Alvord, Bureau Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands 1867: Third Semi-Annual Report of Schools for Freedmen (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1867), 33.

  63. Howard, “The Struggle for Equal Education in Kentucky,” 307.

  64. See John Cox and LaWanda Cox, “General O. O. Howard and the Misrepresented Bureau,” Journal of Southern History 19, no. 4 (November 1953): 433–34.

  65. Ibid., 436.

  66. In February 1866 a distinguished group of black men met with President Johnson in the White House: George T. Downing, William E. Mathews, John Jones, John F. Cook, Joseph E. Otis, A. W. Ross, William Whipper, John M. Brown, Alexander Dunlap, Frederick Douglass, and Douglass's son Lewis. Among other pressing matters, the delegation asked the president about his policy regarding black suffrage. Johnson explained that, in his opinion, giving the black man the vote would create the perfect conditions for a race war. Frederick Douglass responded with a question: “You enfranchise your enemies and disenfranchise your friends?” He continued: “My own impression is that the very thing that your Excellency would avoid in the Southern states can only be avoided by the very measure that we proposed…. I would like to say a word or so in regard to that matter of enfranchisement of the blacks as a means of preventing the very thing which your Excellency seems to apprehend—that is a conflict of races.” Quoted in DuBois, Black Reconstruction in America, 298–99.

  67. John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967), 304–6.

  68. Howard, “Struggle for Equal Education in Kentucky,” 307.

  69. In A History of Blacks in Kentucky, Lucas accounts for the cost of purchasing Ladies Hall and reveals that one of the key figures in securing the building was James Turner, a plasterer. Turner was also a board member of the Colored Fair Association.

  70. See Lucas, History of Blacks in Kentucky, 239–41; American Missionary Association, Twenty-Third Annual Report, 44.

  71. “Report of Schools; State of Kentucky, from Month of September, 1866,” Records of the Field Officers for the State of Kentucky, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865–1872, roll 49, Monthly and Other School Reports, Kentucky, April 1866–July 1870, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC.

  72. Joe M. Richardson, “Francis L. Cardozo: Black Educator during Reconstruction,” Journal of Negro History 48, no. 1 (Winter 1979): 78.

  73. S. C. Hale, “Kentucky: Howard School Lexington,” American Missionary (September 1867): 198–99.

  74. T. K. Noble to J. W. Alvord, January 13, 1869, and T. K. Noble to J. W. Alvord, July 1, 1868, Records of the Education Division of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865–1871, roll 21, Monthly and Other School Reports, Kentucky, April 1866–July 1879, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC.

  75. “The Hottest Day of the Season,” Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, July 14, 1869, 1; “Speakers for the Colored Educational Convention,” Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, July 13, 1869, 1.

  76. In his personal reports to the Freedmen's Bureau, Runkle includes his observations of the Colored Educational Convention: “The Convention proved satisfactorily that the colored man know[s] how [to] transact business and demonstrate[d] that there are colored men whose oratorical powers compare favorably with any of the white race, and Kentucky, who boasts of her orators, has seldom had within her borders men who speak more sensibly and more effectively that Peter Clark or John Mercer Langston.” B. P. Runkle, “Narration Report of Schools for Six-Months Ending July 1st, 1870,” Freedmen's Bureau papers.

  77. “Colored Educational Convention,” Courier Journal, July 15, 1869, 1.

  78. “Second Day's Proceedings of Their Educational
Convention,” Courier Journal, July 16, 1869, 1.

  79. “The Colored Educational Convention in Louisville,” Baltimore Sun, July 20, 1869, 4.

  80. Johnson, Biographical Sketches of Prominent Negro Men and Women, 77; Lucas, History of Blacks in Kentucky, 288–89.

  81. Johnson, Biographical Sketches of Prominent Negro Men and Women, 77.

  82. The Colored Fair Association's ledger, which records board attendance, financial decisions, and revenues, is missing information from the initial planning meeting. For additional information about the Colored Fair Association, see Lucas, History of Blacks in Kentucky, 289.

  83. “The Great Colored Fair,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 3, 1891, 3.

  84. R. C. O. Benjamin, Negro Business Directory Fair Souvenir for Lexington, KY, 1899 (Lexington: Standard Printing Company, 1899), 1.

  85. The living accommodations at 17 Jordan's Row have been identified as the place Isaac Murphy lived with his grandfather, Green Murphy.

  86. Online database, Civil War Pension Index: General Index to Pension Files, 1861–1934, Ancestry.com; original data from General Index to Pension Files, 1861–1934, T288, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC.

  87. Huntley Dupre, Rafinescue in Lexington, 1819–1826 (Lexington: Bur Press, 1945), 53.

  88. For a discussion of Jeremiah Murphy's early business life in Lexington, see Charles R. Staples, The History of Pioneer Lexington (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996), 288. According to Staples, Jeremiah Murphy's first job was as custodian of the first courthouse constructed in 1788. See also Epes Sargent, The Life and Public Services of Henry Clay (New York: Greenley and McElrath, 1844), 23; Evert Augustus Duyckinck, Portrait Gallery of Eminent Men and Women of Europe and America (New York: Johnson, Wilson, 1873), 235.

  89. Ranck, History of Lexington, 130–31.

  90. Lexington 1859–60 Directory. http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~kyfayett/1859_directory.htm.

  91. Kellogg, “Formation of Black Residential Areas in Lexington,” 49.

  92. Ibid.

  5. The New Order of Things

  1. Lewis Collins and Richard Henry Collins, Collins’ Historical Sketches of Kentucky, vol. 1 (Covington, KY: Collins and Company 1878), 199.

  2. The visible occurrence caused magnetic disturbances and disrupted telegraph transmissions for more than sixteen hours. Scientists at the Kew Observatory witnessed eruptions on the surface of the sun; some were rather large in diameter and grouped with others. These sunspots, scientists later correlated, precede solar flares that eject massive amounts of radioactive material. Carried by the solar winds, this material travels at more than a million miles per hour, and the earth is in its direct path. Fortunately, the earth's magnetic poles act as a force field, diverting much of the radioactive material around the planet. The relatively little that gets through is trapped at the North and South Poles, where the combination of magnetism and charged particles causes the sky to glow bluish green or red.

  3. George W. Ranck, History of Lexington, Kentucky: Its Early Annals and Recent Progress (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke, 1872), 130.

  4. Ibid., 131–32.

  5. Thomas D. Clark, A History of Kentucky (Ashland, KY: Jesse Stuart Foundation, 1988), 186.

  6. Suzanne Marshall, Violence in the Black Patch of Kentucky and Tennessee (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1994), 60.

  7. Frederick Douglass, “Appeal to Congress for Impartial Suffrage,” 1867, in Selected Addresses of Frederick Douglass: An African American Heritage Book (Radford, VA: Wilder Publications, 2008), 31–37.

  8. On January 24 the African American community of Frankfort, Kentucky, called a meeting to discuss the best way to motivate the “colored people” of the state to take responsibility for their political interests and contest the Democrats’ claim that they were “ignorant and incapable of self-government.” Instead, the black leadership of Frankfort proposed a state convention “to discuss and prosecute means appertaining to the political issues of the day, and to the vital interest of our race throughout the State.” In the convention's preamble, the Committee of Arrangements stated: “Whereas, We, the colored people of the State of Kentucky, as in other States, as a class, since the organization of the government, have been unjustly deprived of our natural born rights, we now do hail with profound gratitude to God the new order of things appertaining to our status and inevitable approachment of our enfranchisement manhood by the enactment and ratification of the Fifteenth Constitutional Amendment.” Kentucky Statesman, February 1, 1870, 3.

  9. John Kellogg provides an excellent description of Lexington as a distinctly Southern city: “Although located in what is generally considered a border state, Lexington itself, as well as the surrounding Bluegrass Region, was distinctly southern in terms of racial composition, antebellum extent of slaveholding, and attitude of the white population towards Negroes and their place in society. The Bluegrass was a traditional stronghold of slaveholding interests in the state, and Lexington itself was an important slave market.” John Kellogg, “The Formation of Black Residential Areas in Lexington, Kentucky, 1865–1887,” Journal of Southern History 48, no. 1 (February 1982): 25.

  10. Kellogg discusses the establishment of the Lower Street cluster of homes as happening as early as 1844. Ibid.

  11. Rev. C. H. Parrish, ed., Golden Jubilee of the General Association of Colored Baptists in Kentucky (Louisville: Mayes Printing Company, 1915), 249–52; Marion B. Lucas, A History of Blacks in Kentucky: From Slavery to Segregation, 1760–1891 (Frankfort: Kentucky Historical Society, 2003), 239.

  12. Advertisement for the Lexington branch of the National Savings Bank and Trust Company, Kentucky Statesman, November 8, 1870, 3.

  13. After Bush was convicted and sentenced to death, Tarleton argued that his client had not received fair treatment because the jury did not represent a body of his peers: Kentucky law excluded “colored men” from serving on juries, which, Tarleton claimed, violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The initial guilty verdict was overturned by the U.S. Circuit Court, only to have that decision overturned in the Kentucky Court of Appeals. Finally, on January 29, 1883, Tarleton won his appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Justice John Marshall Harlan. However, the Kentucky court ignored the high court's opinion, convicted Bush of murder, and hanged him on November 21, 1884. See “Color Line in Juries,” Columbus Daily Enquirer, February 2, 1883, 1; “John Bush, after Six Years in Prison and Four Tedious Trials, Appeals, etc., Is Hanged—Was He Guilty?” Daily Evening Bulletin, November 22, 1884, 1.

  14. Lisa Materson discusses black women's power both before and after ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment: “At community rallies, women voted on issues and expressed their opinions, sometimes shouting them from the crowd. They made their politics known in other ways. In 1868, for instance, white employers in Mississippi were alarmed when cooks and maids showed up for work wearing campaign buttons with images of the Republican presidential candidate Ulysses S. Grant.” Lisa Materson, For the Freedom of Her Race: Black Women and Electoral Politics in Illinois, 1877–1932 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 4.

  15. Elsa Barkley Brown discusses the power black women wielded in and over their Southern communities, especially with regard to voting Republican. She suggests that African American women were not averse to using force to ensure that their “men folk” did their duty as major stakeholders in their communities. A black man who decided to vote Democratic would be subjected to the ire of the whole black community, especially the women. Elsa Barkley Brown, “To Catch the Vision of Freedom,” in African American Women and the Vote, 1837–1965 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997), 66–99.

  16. An article in the Kentucky Statesman reported some of the difficulties experienced by black Republicans: “On the morning of the election in Lexington at one of the precincts the polls were not opened till a late hour, and the poor excuse offered that the appointed clerk, Capt. Lindsay, ha
d failed to come and must be waited for. Again, the polls were closed an hour or two for breakfast, then about two hours for dinner, and all through the day the work ‘dragged its slow length along,’ with disgusting tardiness.” “The Election,” Kentucky Statesman, August 5, 1870, 3. See also “Our County Democrats and the Negroes,” Kentucky Statesman, July 14, 1870, 2.

  17. “Colored Meeting in Lexington,” Kentucky Statesman, February 18, 1870, 3.

  18. Kellogg's compelling article “The Formation of Black Residential Areas in Lexington” clearly describes the various neighborhood dynamics, based on who lived where. Directly south of the central district of Lexington was the black business district on Vine Street, which was also known as Hunt's Row, named after the John Wesley Hunt's son.

  19. “Colored Schools,” Kentucky Statesman, January 7, 1870, 3.

  20. “Colored Schools,” Kentucky Statesman, January 28, 1870, 3.

  21. Maydwell's 1867 Directory of Lexington (Cincinnati: Miami Print and Publishing Company, 1867).

  22. “The Great Colored Fair,” Indianapolis Freedman, October 3, 1891, 3.

  23. Kevin Gaines, Uplifting the Race: Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 19.

  24. The October 21, 1870, issue of the Kentucky Statesman broke down U.S. census data into categories based on gender, race, and location in the city's four wards. In the First Ward, where America lived, black women outnumbered black males almost three to two.

  25. Deed No. 89, Fayette County Deed Book 49, County Court April 1870–Oct. 1871, 640.

  26. Robinson would run for office as the Democratic Party's “colored” candidate in 1871. He was supported by other black leaders such as George Scroggins and Erasmus Wells, both of whom believed the Republicans were not sincere about advancing black men into power. The election of two blacks in 1870—Hiram Revels of Mississippi to the Senate on January 20 and Joseph Rainey to the House of Representatives on December 12—symbolized the dramatic changes taking place across the South. Robinson and colleagues recognized that the time was right for black men to claim the political power available through public office.