African American River Baptism

USA TODAY, "Outdoor baptisms dwindling," by Rick Jervis, on 4 August 2009  --  LAKE PROVIDENCE, La. — The Rev. Michael Owens says nothing compares with dunking someone toward salvation.

Owens, the pastor at New Hope Baptist Church in this small church-crowded hamlet in northeast Louisiana, recently joined a dozen other pastors in leading outdoor baptisms in Lake Providence. They baptized 40 white-robed children, ages 4 to 15, plus three adults who waded in unannounced.

"Spirit's in that water," Owens said after the ceremony, his white robe still drenched from the waist down.

Outdoor baptisms are rapidly disappearing in America. Once prevalent in the rivers and deltas of the South, the ritual has been nearly extinguished by indoor pools, mega-churches and modernization, researchers and ministers say.

Only a handful of churches keep it alive.

"It's a feature of American Protestantism that is vanishing," says David Daniels, professor of church history at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago.

No one keeps statistics on outdoor baptisms, which are performed predominately by Baptists and Pentecostals. But officials at the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest grouping of Baptist churches in the USA, say of the 342,000 baptisms performed last year by its member churches, the vast majority were done indoors.

"Most churches, even small ones, have indoor baptisteries," says Rob Phillips, a spokesman for LifeWay Christian Resources, the SBC's publishing and research arm. "That's culturally the way folks do it these days."

The tradition of submerging someone in a river to wash away their sins began in Europe, came to America in the 18th century and spread across the South by Baptist ministers, Daniels says. The Christian tradition replicates Jesus' baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist 2,000 years ago.

African slaves on plantation churches in the South quickly adopted the tradition, says Shayne Lee, an assistant professor of Sociology and African Diaspora Studies at Tulane University. The slave who walked down to the river for his baptism was publicly embracing Christianity while shedding his African religious beliefs, Lee says.

"For slaves in particular, it was not only a statement of faith, but a political statement," he says. "It was a statement to the world: 'I am now connected to Christianity.'"

In the 1950s, churches modernized to draw more parishioners and began constructing indoor pools for baptisms, Lee says. Later, as thousand-seat mega-churches began replacing smaller, rural churches, outdoor baptisms further dwindled, he says.

"We now have a whole generation of churchgoers who grew up in mega-churches, where indoor baptisms are the norm," Lee says. "Outdoor baptisms just don't resonate anymore."

A few decades back, weekend outdoor baptisms were as common in northeast Louisiana as Sunday school — at Galilee Baptist Church in Madison Parish, at Pine Hill Baptist Church in Rayville, at St. Joe's out on Highway 15, says Annie Staten, a retired librarian in Monroe, La., who documents and studies outdoor baptisms.

Staten says she vividly remembers her own baptism in the Boeuf River near Monroe on a clear Sunday morning 54 years ago. She remembers how the other children on the riverbank were scared but she wasn't, because her father was the minister. She remembers how her father pinched her nose to keep the water out before pushing her under. She remembers the sound of women singing, "Take Me to the Water," when she was brought back up.

"It's something you never forget," says Staten, now 60.

Pine Hill and St. Joe's stopped performing their river baptisms years ago, she says. Galilee was on a plantation which sold, closing down the church. Dozens of others ceased performing the ritual.

"It's a very sacred tradition in the Baptist church," Staten says. "Our children are hurting because they don't have that tradition anymore."

Once every summer, Progressive Baptist Church in Lake Providence joins with other churches to lead a two-week revival, where parishioners sing, pray and decide whether they're ready for salvation, says Glenn Dixon, a church deacon. On the revival's last day, they march to the lake for the baptisms.

At exactly 8:30 a.m. Sunday, under a gray, cottony sky, 15 pastors and deacons, garbed in white ceremonial robes, joined hands and waded waist-deep into the lake's murky water. On the banks, more than 100 bystanders — aunts, grandmothers, cousins, random passersby — watched and sang hymns as the children and adults were escorted into the water, four at a time. The mayor showed up to watch. The police chief was among those saved.

After a quick sermon, each candidate was pushed backward underwater. The little ones cried. Relatives cheered and snapped pictures with their mobile phones as, one by one, the children were returned to a tangle of outstretched hands, kisses and The Lion King-emblazoned towels.

"I was so nervous, I thought I was going to cry," says Valerie Thompson, 9, still wrapped in a towel. "But I didn't. I just felt happy." (source: USA Today)

The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861

The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861: A History of the Education of the Colored People of the United States from the Beginning of Slavery to the Civil War By C.G. Woodson. 1919

Brought from the African wilds to constitute the laboring class of a pioneering society in the new world, the heathen slaves had to be trained to meet the needs of their environment. It required little argument to convince intelligent masters that slaves who had some conception of modern civilization and understood the language of their owners would be more valuable than rude men with whom one could not communicate. The questions, however, as to exactly what kind of training these Negroes should have, and how far it should go, were to the white race then as much a matter of perplexity as they are now. Yet, believing that slaves could not be enlightened without developing in them a longing for liberty, not a few masters maintained that the more brutish the bondmen the more pliant they become for purposes of exploitation. It was this class of slaveholders that finally won the majority of southerners to their way of thinking and determined that Negroes should not be educated.

The history of the education of the ante-bellum Negroes, therefore, falls into two periods. The first extends from the time of the introduction of slavery to the climax of the insurrectionary movement about 1835, when the majority of the people in this country answered in the affirmative the question whether or not it was prudent to educate their slaves. Then followed the second period, when the industrial revolution changed slavery from a patriarchal to an economic institution, and when intelligent Negroes, encouraged by abolitionists, made so many attempts to organize servile insurrections

that the pendulum began to swing the other way. By this time most southern white people reached the conclusion that it was impossible to cultivate the minds of Negroes without arousing overmuch self-assertion.

The early advocates of the education of Negroes were of three classes: first, masters who desired to increase the economic efficiency of their labor supply; second, sympathetic persons who wished to help the oppressed; and third, zealous missionaries who, believing that the message of divine love came equally to all, taught slaves the English language that they might learn the principles of the Christian religion. Through the kindness of the first class, slaves had their best chance for mental improvement. Each slaveholder dealt with the situation to suit himself, regardless of public opinion. Later, when measures were passed to prohibit the education of slaves, some masters, always a law unto themselves, continued to teach their Negroes in defiance of the hostile legislation. Sympathetic persons were not able to accomplish much because they were usually reformers, who not only did not own slaves, but dwelt in practically free settlements far from the plantations on which the bondmen lived.

The Spanish and French missionaries, the first to face this problem, set an example which influenced the education of the Negroes throughout America. Some of these early heralds of Catholicism manifested more interest in the Indians than in the Negroes, and advocated the enslavement of the Africans rather than that of the Red Men. But being anxious to see the Negroes enlightened and brought into the Church, they courageously directed their attention to the teaching of their slaves, provided for the instruction of the numerous mixed-breed offspring, and granted freedmen the educational privileges of the highest classes. Put to shame by this noble example of the Catholics, the English colonists had to find a way to overcome the objections of those who, granting that the enlightenment of the slaves might not lead to servile insurrection, nevertheless feared that their conversion might work manumission. To meet this exigency the colonists secured, through legislation by their assemblies and formal declarations of the Bishop of London, the abrogation of the law that a Christian could not be held as a slave. Then allowed access to the bondmen, the missionaries of the Church of England, sent out by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Heathen in Foreign Parts, undertook to educate the slaves for the purpose of extensive proselyting.

Contemporaneous with these early workers of the Established Church of England were the liberal Puritans, who directed their attention to the conversion of the slaves long before this sect advocated abolition. Many of this connection justified slavery as established by the precedent of the Hebrews, but they felt that persons held to service should be instructed as were the servants of the household of Abraham. The progress of the cause was impeded, however, by the bigoted class of Puritans, who did not think well of the policy of incorporating undesirable persons into the Church so closely connected then with the state. The first settlers of the American colonies to offer Negroes the same educational and religious privileges they provided for persons of their own race, were the Quakers. Believing in the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God, they taught the colored people to read their own "instruction in the book of the law that they might be wise unto salvation."

Encouraging as was the aspect of things after these early efforts, the contemporary complaints about the neglect to instruct the slaves show that the cause lacked something to make the movement general. Then came the days when the struggle for the rights of man was arousing the civilized world. After 1760 the nascent social doctrine found response among the American colonists. They looked with opened eyes at the Negroes. A new day then dawned for the dark-skinned race. Men like Patrick Henry and James Otis, who demanded liberty for themselves, could not but concede that slaves were entitled at least to freedom of body. The frequent acts of manumission and emancipation which followed upon this change in attitude toward persons of color, turned loose upon society a large number of men whose chief needs were education and training in the duties of citizenship. To enlighten these freedmen schools, missions, and churches were established by benevolent and religious workers. These colaborers included at this time the Baptists and Methodists who, thanks to the spirit of toleration incident to the Revolution, were allowed access to Negroes bond and free.

With all of these new opportunities Negroes exhibited a rapid mental development. Intelligent colored men proved to be useful and trustworthy servants; they became much better laborers and artisans, and many of them showed administrative ability adequate to the management of business establishments and large plantations. Moreover, better rudimentary education served many ambitious persons of color as a stepping-stone to higher attainments. Negroes learned to appreciate and write poetry and contributed something to mathematics, science, and philosophy. Furthermore, having disproved the theories of their mental inferiority, some of the race, in conformity with the suggestion of Cotton Mather, were employed to teach white children. 

Observing these evidences of a general uplift of the Negroes, certain educators advocated the establishment of special colored schools. The founding of these institutions, however, must not be understood as a movement to separate the children of the races on account of caste prejudice. The dual system resulted from an effort to meet the needs peculiar to a people just emerging from bondage. It was easily seen that their education should no longer be dominated by religion. Keeping the past of the Negroes in mind, their friends tried to unite the benefits of practical and cultural education. The teachers of colored schools offered courses in the industries along with advanced work in literature, mathematics, and science. Girls who specialized in sewing took lessons in French.

So startling were the rapid strides made by the colored people in their mental development after the revolutionary era that certain southerners who had not seriously objected to the enlightenment of the Negroes began to favor the half reactionary policy of educating them only on the condition that they should be colonized. The colonization movement, however, was supported also by some white men who, seeing the educational progress of the colored people during the period of better beginnings, felt that they should be given an opportunity to be transplanted to a free country where they might develop without restriction.

Timorous southerners, however, soon had other reasons for their uncharitable attitude. During the first quarter of the nineteenth century two effective forces were rapidly increasing the number of reactionaries who by public opinion gradually prohibited the education of the colored people in all places except certain urban communities where progressive Negroes had been sufficiently enlightened to provide their own school facilities. The first of these forces was the worldwide industrial movement. It so revolutionized spinning and weaving that the resulting increased demand for cotton fiber gave rise

to the plantation system of the South, which required a larger number of slaves. Becoming too numerous to be considered as included in the body politic as conceived by Locke, Montesquieu, and Blackstone, the slaves were generally doomed to live without any enlightenment whatever. Thereafter rich planters not only thought it unwise toeducate men thus destined to live on a plane with beasts, but

considered it more profitable to work a slave to death during seven years and buy another in his stead than to teach and humanize him with a view to increasing his efficiency.

The other force conducive to reaction was the circulation through intelligent Negroes of antislavery accounts of the wrongs to colored people and the well portrayed exploits of Toussaint L'Ouverture. Furthermore, refugees from Haiti settled in Baltimore, Norfolk, Charleston, and New Orleans, where they gave Negroes a first-hand story of how black men of the West Indies had righted their wrongs. At

the same time certain abolitionists and not a few slaveholders were praising, in the presence of slaves, the bloody methods of the French Revolution. When this enlightenment became productive of such disorders that slaveholders lived in eternal dread of servile insurrection, Southern States adopted the thoroughly reactionary policy of making the education of Negroes impossible.

The prohibitive legislation extended over a period of more than a century, beginning with the act of South Carolina in 1740. But with the exception of the action of this State and that of Georgia the important measures which actually proscribed the teaching of Negroes were enacted during the first four decades of the nineteenth century. The States attacked the problem in various ways. Colored people beyond a certain number were not allowed to assemble for social or religious purposes, unless in the presence of certain "discreet" white men; slaves were deprived of the helpful contact of free persons of color by driving them out of some Southern States; masters who had employed their favorite blacks in positions which required a knowledge of bookkeeping, printing, and the like, were commanded by law to discontinue that custom; and private and public teachers were prohibited from assisting Negroes to acquire knowledge in any manner whatever.

The majority of the people of the South had by this time come to the conclusion that, as intellectual elevation unfits men for servitude and renders it impossible to retain them in this condition, it should be interdicted. In other words, the more you cultivate the minds of slaves, the more unserviceable you make them; you give them a higher relish for those privileges which they cannot attain and turn what you intend for a blessing into a curse. If they are to remain in slavery they should be kept in the lowest state of ignorance and degradation, and the nearer you bring them to the condition of brutes the better

chance they have to retain their apathy. It had thus been brought to pass that the measures enacted to prevent the education of Negroes had not only forbidden association with their fellows for mutual help and closed up most colored schools in the South, but had in several States made it a crime for a Negro to teach his own children.

The contrast of conditions at the close of this period with those of former days is striking. Most slaves who were once counted as valuable, on account of their ability to read and write the English language, were thereafter considered unfit for service in the South and branded as objects of suspicion. Moreover, when within a generation or so the Negroes began to retrograde because they had been deprived of every elevating influence, the white people of the South resorted to their old habit of answering their critics with the bold assertion that the effort to enlighten the blacks would prove futile on account of their mental inferiority. The apathy which these bondmen, inured to hardships, consequently developed was referred to as adequate evidence that they were content with their lot, and that any effort to teach them to know their real condition would be productive of mischief both to the slaves and their masters.

The reactionary movement, however, was not confined to the South. The increased migration of fugitives and free Negroes to the asylum of Northern States, caused certain communities of that section to feel that they were about to be overrun by undesirable persons who could not be easily assimilated. The subsequent anti-abolition riots in the North made it difficult for friends of the Negroes to raise funds to educate them. Free persons of color were not allowed to open schools in some places, teachers of Negroes were driven from their stations, and colored schoolhouses were burned.

Ashamed to play the role of a Christian clergy guarding silence on the indispensable duty of saving the souls of the colored people, certain of the most influential southern ministers hit upon the scheme of teaching illiterate Negroes the principles of Christianity by memory training or the teaching of religion without letters. This the clergy were wont to call religious instruction. The word instruction, however, as used in various documents, is rather confusing. Before the reactionary period all instruction of the colored people included the teaching of the rudiments of education as a means to convey Christian thought. But with the exception of a few Christians the southerners thereafter used the word instruction to signify the mere memorizing of principles from the most simplified books. The sections of the South

in which the word instruction was not used in this restricted sense were mainly the settlements of Quakers and Catholics who, in defiance of the law, persisted in teaching Negroes to read and write. Yet it was not uncommon to find others who, after having unsuccessfully used their influence against the enactment of these reactionary laws, boldly defied them by instructing the Negroes of their communities. Often opponents to this custom winked at it as an indulgence to the clerical profession. Many Scotch-Irish of the Appalachian Mountains and liberal Methodists and Baptists of the Western slave States did not materially change their attitude toward the enlightenment of the colored people during the reactionary period. The Negroes among these people continued to study books and hear religious instruction conveyed to maturing minds.

Yet little as seemed this enlightenment by means of verbal instruction, some slaveholders became sufficiently inhuman to object to it on the grounds that the teaching of religion would lead to the teaching of letters. In fact, by 1835 certain parts of the South reached the third stage in the development of the education of the Negroes. At first they were taught the common branches to enable them to understand the principles of Christianity; next the colored people as an enlightened class became such a menace to southern institutions that it was deemed unwise to allow them any instruction beyond that of memory training; and finally, when it was discovered that many ambitious blacks were still learning to stir up their fellows, it was decreed that they should not receive any instruction at all. Reduced thus to the plane of beasts, where they remained for generations, Negroes developed bad traits which since their emancipation have been removed only with great difficulty.

Dark as the future of the Negro students seemed, all hope was not yet gone. Certain white men in every southern community made it possible for many of them to learn in spite of opposition. Slaveholders were not long in discovering that a thorough execution of the law was impossible when Negroes were following practically all the higher pursuits of labor in the South. Masters who had children known to be teaching slaves protected their benevolent sons and daughters from the rigors of the law. Preachers, on finding out that the effort at verbal education could not convey Christian truths to an undeveloped mind, overcame the opposition in their localities and taught the colored people as before. Negroes themselves, regarding learning as forbidden fruit, stole away to secret places at night to study under the

direction of friends. Some learned by intuition without having had the guidance of an instructor. The fact is that these drastic laws were not passed to restrain "discreet" southerners from doing whatever they desired for the betterment of their Negroes. The aim was to cut off their communication with northern teachers and abolitionists, whose activity had caused the South to believe that if such precaution were not taken these agents would teach their slaves principles subversive of southern institutions. Thereafter the documents which mention the teaching of Negroes to read and write seldom even state that the southern white teacher was so much as censured for his benevolence. In the rare cases of arrest of such instructors they were usually acquitted after receiving a reprimand. 

With this winking at the teaching of Negroes in defiance of the law a better day for their education brightened certain parts of the South about the middle of the nineteenth century. Believing that an enlightened laboring class might stop the decline of that section, some slaveholders changed their attitude toward the elevation of the colored people. Certain others came to think that the policy of keeping Negroes in ignorance to prevent servile insurrections was unwise. It was observed that the most loyal and subordinate slaves were those who could read the Bible and learn the truth for themselves. Private teachers of colored persons, therefore, were often left undisturbed, little effort was made to break up the Negroes' secret schools in different parts, and many influential white men took it upon themselves to instruct the blacks who were anxious to learn.

Other Negroes who had no such opportunities were then finding a way of escape through the philanthropy of those abolitionists who colonized some freedmen and fugitives in the Northwest Territory and promoted the migration of others to the East. These Negroes were often fortunate. Many of them settled where they could take up land and had access to schools and churches conducted by the best white people of the country. This migration, however, made matters worse for the Negroes who were left in the South. As only the most enlightened blacks left the slave States, the bondmen and the indigent free persons of color were thereby deprived of helpful contact. The preponderance of intelligent Negroes, therefore, was by 1840 on the side of the North. Thereafter the actual education of the colored people was largely confined to eastern cities and northern communities of transplanted freedmen. The pioneers of these groups organized churches and established and maintained a number of successful elementary schools.

In addition to providing for rudimentary instruction, the free Negroes of the North helped their friends to make possible what we now call higher education. During the second quarter of the nineteenth century the advanced training of the colored people was almost prohibited by the refusals of academies and colleges to admit persons of African blood. In consequence of these conditions, the long-put-forth efforts to found Negro colleges began to be crowned with success before the Civil War. Institutions of the North admitted Negroes later for various reasons. Some colleges endeavored to prepare them for service in Liberia, while others, proclaiming their conversion to the doctrine of democratic education, opened their doors to all.

The advocates of higher education, however, met with no little opposition. The concentration in northern communities of the crude fugitives driven from the South necessitated a readjustment of things.

The training of Negroes in any manner whatever was then very unpopular in many parts of the North. When prejudice, however, lost some of its sting, the friends of the colored people did more than ever for their education. But in view of the changed conditions most of these philanthropists concluded that the Negroes were very much in need of practical education. Educators first attempted to provide such training by offering classical and vocational courses in what they called the "manual labor schools." When these failed to meet the emergency they advocated actual vocational training. To make this new

system extensive the Negroes freely coöperated with their benefactors, sharing no small part of the real burden. They were at the same time paying taxes to support public schools which they could not attend.

This very condition was what enabled the abolitionists to see that they had erred in advocating the establishment of separate schools for Negroes. At first the segregation of pupils of African blood was, as stated above, intended as a special provision to bring the colored youth into contact with sympathetic teachers, who knew the needs of their students. When the public schools, however, developed at the expense of the state into a desirable system better equipped than private institutions, the antislavery organizations in many Northern States began to demand that the Negroes be admitted to the public schools. After extensive discussion certain States of New England finally decided the question in the affirmative, experiencing no great inconvenience from the change. In most other States of the North, however, separate schools for Negroes did not cease to exist until after the Civil War. It was the liberated Negroes themselves who, during the Reconstruction, gave the Southern States their first effective system of free public schools. (source: The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861, "Introduction," )

How Roots Captivated an Entire Nation

From the Washington Post, "30 Years Later, 'Roots' Remains a Stirring Story," by Curt Fields , a Washington Post Staff Writer, on 5 October 2007  --  With hundreds of television channels to choose from today, it's hard to imagine a program truly capturing the attention of the nation. Yes, there are moments from the tragic (Sept. 11, 2001) to the ridiculous (O.J. in the white Bronco) that rivet us, and the Super Bowl has become a national religious service for the country's secular denomination. But when it comes to scripted shows, even the most hyped ones reach only slices of the population.

But from Jan. 23 through Jan. 30, 1977, the nation collectively turned its eyes to a 12-hour miniseries called "Roots." The drama, based on the book by Alex Haley, traced several generations of a slave family, beginning with Kunta Kinte, a young West African man kidnapped by slave traders and shipped to America. Now, in connection with the show's 30th anniversary, Warner Home Video is releasing "Roots: The Complete Collection" (available Tuesday, $119.98), which includes "Roots: 30th Anniversary Edition" plus the sequels, "Roots: The Next Generations" and "Roots: The Gift" (a Christmas-themed movie). "Roots: The Next Generations" also will be available by itself ($59.98).

Previous miniseries such as "Rich Man, Poor Man" (1976) were successful but ran over several weeks. So it was a ratings gamble for ABC to schedule "Roots" on eight consecutive nights, particularly considering its frank depiction of slavery and the fact that the black characters were the story's heroes and the white characters its villains. The gamble paid off beyond anyone's most optimistic hopes. "Roots" earned higher ratings than any entertainment program before it, averaging a 44.9 rating and a 66 audience share. The final night's single-episode ratings record wasn't broken until 1983, with the finale of "M*A*S*H."

The show had an impact far beyond mere numbers, though. For a while at least, it made race and racial history a topic of conversation in America. More than 200 colleges and universities developed courses built around it. Genealogy became a fast-growing hobby as Americans decided that they, too, wanted to know the story of their families.

Among the collection's extras are featurettes ("The Struggle to Make Roots," "Connecting With the Past") and an interview with Haley by British journalist David Frost. Also included is the informative documentary "Crossing Over: How Roots Captivated an Entire Nation" and "Roots: One Year Later," a program from 1978 that, while a tad self-congratulatory, is nonetheless interesting.

The original story feels timeless. Even 30 years later it engrosses. That's in part due to its cast. The lengthy roster includes LeVar Burton, who was one of more than 150 actors who auditioned for the role of Kunta Kinte, John Amos, Cicely Tyson, Moses Gunn, Ed Asner, Ralph Waite, Louis Gossett Jr., Lorne Greene, Robert Reed, Leslie Uggams, Chuck Connors, Scatman Crothers, Georg Stanford Brown, Ben Vereen, Richard Roundtree, Vic Morrow, Maya Angelou and O.J. Simpson.

More important, the main characters are well-rounded. They're not symbols but human beings in whom you can invest emotion. And the themes of family and the quest for freedom are relatable, no matter the era or the viewer. (source: The Washington Post, © 2007 The Washington Post Company)

How Roots Captivated an Entire Nation

Alex Haley Statue: The Weather Vane of Annapolis, Maryland

According to the Maryland Capital Gazette, "Alex Haley statue is city’s unofficial storm gauge," by Staff Writer Elisha Sauers, on 5 November 2012  --  As the tide spilled over the bulkhead at Annapolis Harbor, water pooled at the ankles of the bronze statue seated on the seawall.

The three unnamed children gathered at the statue’s feet, also cast in metal, waded in deeper. One bathed up to her waist during Hurricane Sandy last week; the boy lying on his belly needed a kickboard.

As if it were a rain gauge, the Kunta Kinte-Alex Haley Memorial has become the unofficial yardstick for flooding at City Dock.

When Harbormaster Flip Walters said the water could rise 4½ feet during the storm, it conjured up little more than blank stares from landlubbers. But Monday morning, when Walters said, “Alex Haley will have to change his socks,” we knew what he was talking about.

The dockside statue has become iconic. Photographs of the statue submerged in high water and snow drifts proliferate on the Internet during major Chesapeake Bay weather events.

At the height of Sandy, a picture snapped by an Associated Press photographer went global when it landed in a slideshow for The New York Times.

An international audience has always been curious about Haley.

Since 2002, a Web camera anchored on the second floor of the Historic Annapolis Foundation’s museum store has shown a live feed of tourist traffic around the sculptural group. About 100,000 viewers check up on Haley every year from a website for the sculptures.

On Monday and Tuesday, people from hundreds of thousands of miles away could log onto their computers and watch Sandy dousing Haley, wetting the pages of his open book.

Greg Stiverson, president of the Kunta Kinte-Alex Haley Foundation, said every time the camera requires rebooting, he gets far-flung email urging him to fix it.

“It’s always someone from England or Italy — never someone from Annapolis,” Stiverson said. “It’s just astonishing how many of those people are from Europe. Wouldn’t you think they had something better to do?”

The $750,000 sculptural group, dedicated in 1999, commemorates “Roots” author Alex Haley and his African ancestor, Kunta Kinte, who came to America on a slave ship almost 250 years ago. That ship, the Lord Ligonier, docked in Annapolis.

The memorial shows Haley reading stories about his heritage to three children of different ethnicities.

More than 1,700 miles away, in Denver, Ed Dwight paused from work in his art studio Thursday to think about how the Haley sculpture weathered last week’s hurricane.

“You’re lucky this time,” he said. “One time it covered his head.”

Dwight, America’s first African-American astronaut trainee, has spent two decades creating monuments of notable black figures for places in the United States. Among his works are tributes to Martin Luther King Jr., Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman.

But the Haley statue — the one he carefully aged to encourage a green patina in the creases of Haley’s clothes and knuckles — has a special place in his heart.

Dwight grew up across the street from Haley’s brother, George Haley. Dwight was eager for the the opportunity to immortalize the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and create a piece of art that would heal racial wounds.

Dwight sometimes gets photographs of the Annapolis statue in the mail. One day it’s of a child sitting in Haley’s lap; the next it’s a picture of him almost completely underwater.

“It does kind of freak you out, and you have a sense of loss for a minute or two,” Dwight said. “But then you come around and say, ‘Well, the thing is still there.’”

Funny photos of the statue give Dwight a feeling of satisfaction. He remembers residents complaining at City Council meetings a few years ago that the statue would destroy the waterfront view and crowd the dock. Now it’s a landmark woven into the city’s fabric, with real children sitting cross-legged beside the ones in bronze.

Chris Haley, Alex Haley’s nephew, works at the Maryland State Archives in Annapolis as the research director for the state’s slave history. He remembers a time an orange life vest was strapped onto the statue before a storm.

“I know he was thankful,” Chris said.

Earlier this year, the state gave the foundation a $36,000 grant to clean the statue. The brackish water in Spa Creek leaves crusty bits on the sculptures and accelerates their discoloration. The restoration was completed last month.

After Hurricane Isabel in 2003, the foundation received a $20,000 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to restore the damaged sculptures. For a few hours during that devastating storm surge, as the tide crept up Main Street, the statues were completely underwater.

Many people remember the photos taken of Haley with only his head showing.

Although locals may be used to seeing the statue sitting in a pool, consultants working on redevelopment plans for the harbor area say there’s no reason it has to be like this.

Chris Jakubiak, one of the consultants, said backflow preventers on the main drainage pipes, a pumping station onsite and a taller seawall would shore up the infrastructure. If Annapolis already had those in place, the bulkhead might not have overflowed at all during the hurricane, Jakubiak said.

Some have casually discussed elevating the statues or relocating them so they’re not in the path of flooding. For many Annapolitans, however, the idea is ludicrous.

Janice Hayes-Williams, a local African-American historian, said the landmark is part of Annapolis culture.

During the storm on Tuesday, Hayes-Williams watched a TV station provide live pictures of the tide rising at City Dock. What she saw annoyed her.

“They kept showing Annapolis at the end where the Harbor Queen sits, and I’m yelling at the TV, ‘You idiots! Don’t you know how we measure the water in Annapolis?’” she said. “That’s how you know the people who aren’t from around here.”

Stiverson agreed. Many maritime towns have a building or a post that benchmarks the tide rolling in, but the Haley statue is unique.

“We’ve always said, when it’s lapping on his lap, you know you’re in trouble,” he said.
[http://m.capitalgazette.com/news/annapolis/alex-haley-statue-is-city-s-unofficial-storm-gauge/article_3aefb519-c87f-5ff0-93cb-939d7d186c3a.html?mode=jqm]

Philly's President House and Slave Quarters

The Wall Street Journal reported in an article, "All the President's Men," by Julia M. Klein, on 4 January 2011 -- Philadelphia -- With temperatures in the mid-20s, the mid- December dedication of the President's House was an occasion for celebration (that the site, after eight years of controversy and delays, was finished), thoughtful rumination (about the entanglement of liberty and slavery in Federalist America) and incipient frostbite.

Abutting the Liberty Bell Center in the heart of Independence National Historical Park, the $11.9 million project combines architecture and archaeology, memorial and exhibition, in an open-air setting. The exhibition, "The President's House: Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation," touches on the uses and abuses of federal power, the spread of slavery, Philadelphia's 18th- century free-black community—and, most tellingly, the occupants of the house itself.

The original President's House was the seat of U.S. executive power from 1790 to 1800—the home of President George Washington and his successor, John Adams. Built in the late 1760s at what is now the corner of Sixth and Market Streets and mostly demolished in the 1830s, the gracious Georgian mansion was at various times the residence of British Gen. William Howe, the traitor Benedict Arnold (who hatched his treason here) and Revolutionary War financier Robert Morris.

But not only dignitaries called this place home. During Washington's presidency, nine "enslaved people" (in the exhibition's vernacular) also lived and worked here, just a block from Independence Hall.

Washington periodically rotated his slaves back to his Mount Vernon, Va., plantation to circumvent Pennsylvania's Gradual Abolition Act of 1780, which would have freed them after six months of residency. Two of the nine eventually escaped and were never recaptured, despite Washington's signing of the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act.

Situated within a deliberately fragmentary re-creation of the house, the exhibition provides an intriguing sketch of this complex story. But its nonlinear, mosaic-like narrative—essentially, another set of fragments—would work better in a more sheltered space. The blustery winter weather made absorbing lengthy texts and watching five videos something of an ordeal. A simple, elegant memorial—supplemented by an exhibition in the Independence Visitor Center, across the street—would have been a smarter design choice.

Yet there is no gainsaying the power of the history. That this place was all but forgotten for so long—and its site used for a public restroom—is amazing. In the January 2002 issue of the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, the historian Edward Lawler Jr. pinpointed the house's precise location and features, and lit an intellectual conflagration by declaring that "the last thing that a visitor will walk across . . . before entering the Liberty Bell Center will be the slave quarters that George Washington added to the President's House."

Grass-roots organizations —including the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, Generations Unlimited and the Ad Hoc Historians—agitated for recognition of the site, and especially its significance to African-Americans.

After initial resistance, the National Park Service and the city of Philadelphia embraced the memorial project. But the development process was contentious. The first interpretive team, the Brooklyn-based American History Workshop, was replaced by Eisterhold Associates of Kansas City, Mo. Rhetorical battles were waged over design and interpretation, including how to balance the mansion's presidential history with its connections to slavery. (That battle seems to have been fought to a draw.)

An archaeological dig in 2007 uncovered the house's 18th-century foundations—the remains of the kitchen and corridors where slaves toiled and of a bay window addition that may have inspired the design of the Oval Office. The electrifying finds drew more than 300,000 visitors and were incorporated into the final design.

That design, by Kelly/Maiello Architects and Planners, owes more than a little to Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown's Franklin Court, which commemorates Benjamin Franklin's razed dwelling a few blocks away. Like that memorial, the President's House is not a reconstruction, but an evocation of a house, using red-brick walls, granite flooring, and white door and window frames to mark its footprint. Fireplaces interrupt the walls, and videos are set above them like paintings. The focal point of the design is a rectangular glass box that both protects and highlights the archaeological fragments below.

While the Franklin memorial is a pendant to an underground Franklin museum, now being renovated, the President's House structure itself provides the backdrop for text panels, illustrated glass panels, distracting ambient sound and informative, visually crisp but dramatically inert videos (written by Lorene Cary and directed by Louis Massiah).

The exhibition mentions the Whiskey Rebellion, the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, the migration of Haitian slave owners to Philadelphia, the yellow fever outbreaks of the 1790s, and the formation of Philadelphia's first two black churches. It suggests that contact with Philadelphia's free black community, as well as white abolitionists, heightened the restlessness of Washington's slaves.

But restoring those nine people to history is the project's signal accomplishment. In the moving finale of his dedication address, Philadelphia Mayor Michael A. Nutter recited their names, etched on a granite wall on the structure's east side. The nine (and all the victims of slavery) are also commemorated by an uninspired box-like memorial-within-the-memorial.

Videos sum up the little that is known of their lives, describing the escapes of Oney Judge, maid to Martha Custis Washington, and Hercules, George Washington's gifted chef. Learning she was about to be given to Martha's grandchild, Judge fled, in 1796, to New Hampshire, where she married and had three children. Washington apparently never stopped pursuing her. Under his steward's name, he placed an advertisement for a "light Mulatto" fugitive and offered a reward of $10 or more for her capture.

Hercules, shipped back to Mount Vernon to make bricks, snuck away from the Virginia plantation in 1797, on Washington's 65th birthday. He left behind at least three children and virtually no documentary trail.

Washington was, we now know, conflicted about slavery. As the exhibition relates, his will freed the 123 slaves he owned, with emancipation to occur after his wife's death. She liberated them herself in 1801. But she did not emancipate her own 153 "dower" slaves, from the estate of her first husband; she left them instead to her grandchildren.

That created a conundrum on the plantation: mixed marriages between enslaved and free spouses. A video asks just how this would have played out in human terms—and whether Washington and his wife ever discussed the differing fates of their workers. These are provocative questions—portals to yet more dark, intricate corridors of history.  (source: The Wall Street Journal )

Slave Life In North Carolina

From Learn North Carolina, The life of a slave: From Slavery in North Carolina," provided by the University of North Carolina (UNC) Libraries.  --  Daily life for a slave in North Carolina was incredibly difficult. Slaves, especially those in the field, worked from sunrise until sunset. Even small children and the elderly were not exempt from these long work hours. Slaves were generally allowed a day off on Sunday, and on infrequent holidays such as Christmas or the Fourth of July.

During their few hours of free time, most slaves performed their own personal work. The diet supplied by slaveholders was generally poor, and slaves often supplemented it by tending small plots of land or fishing. Many slave owners did not provide adequate clothing, and slave mothers often worked to clothe their families at night after long days of labor. One visitor to colonial North Carolina wrote that slaveholders rarely gave their slaves meat or fish, and that he witnessed many slaves wearing only rags. Although there were exceptions, the prevailing attitude among slave owners was to allot their slaves the bare minimum of food and clothing; anything beyond that was up to the slaves to acquire during their very limited time away from work.

Goose Creek Plantation in North Carolina.

Shelter provided by slave owners was also meager. Many slaves lived in small stick houses with dirt floors, not the log slave cabins often depicted in books and films. These shelters had cracks in the walls that let in cold and wind, and had only thin coverings over the windows. Again, slave owners supplied only the minimum needed for survival; they were primarily concerned with keeping their financially valuable slaves alive and working rather than providing for their comfort, health, or safety.

One area of their lives in which slaves were able to exercise some autonomy from their masters was creating a family. Slave owners felt it was to their advantage to allow slaves to marry, because any children from the marriage would add to their wealth. According to law, a child took on the legal status of its mother; a child born to a slave mother would in turn become a slave, even if the father was free. Slaves usually had to ask permission from their masters to marry, however, and slave marriages had no legal protection. Masters could break up marriages and separate families as they wished.

The slave trade in North Carolina separated countless husbands, wives, parents and children. On the whole, slaveholders cared little about the kindred bonds of slaves, and tore families apart by selling slaves for profit.

Because the large plantations of the Lower South needed more slaves than the smaller farms of North Carolina, it was not uncommon for slaves in the state to be sold to slave traders who took them south to Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana or Alabama. Once a family member was sold and taken to the Deep South, they became almost impossible to locate or contact.

New Bern, North Carolina

Slaves had no way to legally protest their masters’ harsh treatment and abuse. A black person had no means of bringing a complaint to court, and could not even testify against a white person who had committed a crime against him or her. In fact, before 1774 it was not a crime in North Carolina to assault or even kill a slave. After 1774, a white person who murdered a slave would receive only 12 months in prison if it was their first offense. However, according to the 1774 law, if the slave was killed while the white person was using “moderate correction” to punish him or her, there would be no criminal charge.

Slaves themselves could be brought to trial in a slave court, which was separate from the regular court system. This court had the authority to try, sentence, and even execute slaves without trial by jury. The accused slaves had no representation, and could not call witnesses to defend themselves. During the colonial period, about 96 percent of slaves tried in these courts in North Carolina were convicted.

In addition to these public courts, each plantation or farm had its own private system of justice in which individual slaveholders dealt out the punishments they felt were appropriate. Slaves were usually only brought to the slave courts for what were considered the most serious crimes, such as murder, theft from a white person, or assault on a white person.

One of the few escapes from the severity of slave life was participation in religion. During the early 1700s, few North Carolina slaves converted to Christianity. Many held on to the religious traditions they had brought with them from Africa. Christian missionaries feared and misunderstood these traditions, and wanted to convert the slaves, who they considered “heathens”. Anglicans were the first group to try to convert slaves in North Carolina, but didn’t achieve much success. The early colonial slaves were reluctant to give up their familiar and meaningful traditions, and saw no reason to adopt the religion of those who enslaved them.

By the early 1800s, slaves were converting to Christianity in increasingly large numbers. Protestant groups like the Baptists and Methodists were more successful at recruiting new members than the Anglicans had been. They approached African Americans on a more equal footing, and held joint revivals for whites and blacks. Slaveholders were uneasy with this religious fervor. They worried that converting to Christianity would encourage their slaves to think of themselves as spiritual equals and demand better treatment or even freedom. Slave owners also resented the time slaves spent at religious services as time not spent working. Despite these objections from their masters, many slaves enthusiastically participated in religious services, which provided them some relief from work, time for fellowship with other slaves, and a way to express their spiritual faith.  (source: Learn North Carolina, The life of a slave: From Slavery in North Carolina," provided by the University of North Carolina (UNC) Libraries. )

Christmas at George Washington's Mount Vernon Plantation

Mount Vernon: 3200 Mount Vernon Memorial Highway, Mount Vernon, Virginia 22121

As reported by the Washington Times, "Get Out: Christmas at Mount Vernon," by Samantha Sault, on 22 November 2012  --  There’s no better place across the nation’s capital to get in the holiday spirit than the lavishly decorated Mount Vernon, George Washington’s expansive estate on the Potomac River. George and Martha knew how to celebrate the holidays — in 1787, in fact, the soon-to-be president surprised his guests with a live exotic camel for the Christmas festivities. Starting Friday, Mount Vernon continues the Washington’ holiday traditions with festive celebrations through January — and yes, Mount Vernon’s resident camel, Aladdin, will be in attendance. The mansion will be decorated with a dozen Christmas trees and hand-cut greenery, providing the perfect backdrop for Colonial Christmas activities, including character-led tours of the home, storytelling, chocolate-making demonstrations, and 18th-century dancing and music. The estate also boasts more special guests on the grounds: recently pardoned national Thanksgiving turkeys. Visit the gift shop for unique holiday gifts, or enjoy dinner by the fire at the Mount Vernon Inn after the candlelit evening programs. Through Jan. 6 at Historic Mount Vernon, 3200 Mount Vernon Memorial Highway, Alexandria. Phone: 703/780-2000. Web: christmas” href=”http://www.mountvernon.org/christmas” target=”_blank”>www.mountvernon.org/christmas.  (source: Washington Times)

As reported by WTOP, "Candlelight Christmas tours at Mount Vernon delight for a decade, by Kathy Stewart, on 1 December 2013  -- WASHINGTON - Mount Vernon has been offering the popular candlelit tours of the mansion for 10 Christmas holidays now, and spokeswoman Melissa Wood calls the tour a special experience.

"We ask visitors to take a step back in time and learn more about what the holidays would have been like in 1798 at a presidential home. You sort of get the feeling of what it would have been like walking on the estate as one of the Washington's," she says.

Wood says visitors hear stories of how the Washington family celebrated the holiday.

"This is the only time of year that you can tour the mansion and meet characters from George Washington's world in costumes," she says.

Characters include Martha Washington and Nelly Custis, Martha's granddaughter and George's step-granddaughter, who lived at Mount Vernon.

Wood says visitors love talking to Martha Washington: "They love learning more about her life, what she's doing to get ready for the holidays. And they always love taking home her great cake recipe. She seems to be the highlight of the tour."

The tours are offered Dec. 1, and from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays from Dec. 7 to 22. The tickets are different from regular admission to Mount Vernon - $22 for adults and $15 for children 11 and under.

Wood strongly suggests that people reserve tickets in advance: "When you go to our website to purchase a ticket you can select a timed ticket. That will give you a specific time you can be inside the mansion." (source: WTOP)

From the Mount Vernon website, "Christmas at Mount Vernon," --  Mount Vernon decks the halls throughout the estate with themed Christmas trees and festive holiday touches. Traditional boughs of hand-cut greenery will adorn doorways in the Mansion, which will be staged with an elaborate holiday course in the formal dining room.

Each Christmas, Mount Vernon welcomes special guests including Aladdin the Camel. In 1787 George Washington paid 18 shillings to bring a camel to Mount Vernon to delight his visitors. In recent years, Mount Vernon has also proudly displayed the National Thanksgiving Turkey after its official "presidential pardoning" at the White House.

Holiday visitors will also enjoy extra daytime treats. Tour the rarely-open third floor of the Mansion, where Martha Washington retired after her husband's death and learn how chocolate was made in the 18th century with live demonstrations. (Mount Vernon)

CLICK HERE for More Information: Tickets to Mount Vernon Daytime Admissions

George Washington's Slave Quarters

According to Voice of America, "Harsh Life of Washington's Slaves Revisited: Refurbished Mount Vernon quarters shed new light on the slaves of America's first president," by Faiza Elmasry, on 29 November 2010 --  George Washington was born into a world where slavery was an accepted part of life. When his father died in 1743, Washington - at the age of 11 - inherited 10 slaves.

When the nation's first president died in 1799, more than 300 slaves lived in quarters on his Mount Vernon estate. This year, those slave quarters, first opened to the public in 1962, went through an extensive archaeological analysis and restoration.

These refurbished quarters shed new light on the story of the slaves who lived and worked at Mount Vernon.

Hard life

The renovated quarters are two one-story wings added to the Mount Vernon greenhouse shortly after Washington became president. Each one is divided into two small workrooms, and two sleeping areas, one for men and another for women. Most of Washington's married slaves did not live in the same household as their spouses. Each room had a fireplace and was accessed by a single doorway.

"We have a lot of archaeological materials that we excavated from the slave quarter site," Archeologist Dennis Pogue says. "And from that, we know the kinds of things that they were actually using; the ceramics that they were eating from, the food remains. We found a lot of animal bones, so we know that they were eating lots and lots of wild animals-- that they were augmenting the rations that they were getting from the Washington's."

Pogue says documents written by George Washington, his family and white employees, and other plantation owners provided information about the quarters and the slaves who lived there.

"I mean we have some descriptions of what these quarters look like and they describe them as huts and they say 'They are more miserable than anything that you can imagine,'" Pogue says. "We don't want to whitewash this part of the story. These folks were owned by other people. They had no rights of their own and they were doing hard work."

Bringing history to life

The actual restoration of the site took almost 10 months. In addition to restoring the living quarters, clothing, tools, furniture, cookware, toys and personal accessories used by the slaves were reproduced. These items help bring to life the living conditions and experiences of the maids, cooks, servants, skilled craftsmen and laborers who worked on the five farms that made up the Mount Vernon property.

The renovated quarters include two one-story structures added at Mount Vernon shortly after George Washington became president.

The renovated quarters include two one-story structures added at Mount Vernon shortly after George Washington became president.

"It's a culmination of over 20 years of research. So it's wonderful to see this brought to the public's attention," he adds.

A number of descendants of George Washington's slaves attended the opening celebration of the restored quarters. Among them was Rohulamin Quander, a senior administrative judge in Washington, D.C. and founder of the Quander Historical Society.

"Sukey Bay was an 18th century Quander ancestor who lived at the River Farm," Quander says. "She had several children: Nancy Carter Quander and Rose, both were Sukey Bay's daughters. Nancy was a spinner. She lived up to 1850s. We have records for her working around in landscaping right here at Mount Vernon and other Quander family ancestors worked here. We have a long history of involuntary and presumably uncompensated servitude."

Last summer, the Quanders celebrated their 85th family reunion at Mount Vernon. Quander says renovating the slave quarters is a significant gesture of recognition for the hundreds of enslaved African Americans - men and women - who lived there.

"For many years, their names were forgotten,Quander adds. "The roles that they had played were forgotten. If the man they worked for, George Washington, is glorified, we want to give these men and women their just due because they were the ones who toiled from sunup to sundown, six to seven days a week, who made it possible for him to go off to do many, many great things that benefited all of us."

Learning opportunity

The chance to see what life was like for slaves by visiting the renovated slave quarters is a great opportunity for teachers like Beth Cayer. She's brought her 5th grade students on a field trip to Mount Vernon as part of their history class.

"It's beautiful. I hadn't seen it last year, so I was really excited for the kids to see it this year, because we've done a big unit about colonial America and we did a 4-day-lesson on slavery," Crayer says. "So it was a real eye-opener to a lot of the kids, the conditions that they lived in here. Of course some of the kids have the ancestors that came over that way. So it was a real eye-opener for them to see the contrast in life styles. It made a real impression on them."

Giving visitors a better understanding of the nature and harshness of slavery was one of the reasons for restoring the buildings. The point was not lost on Gloria Alice Holmes, another of Sukey Bay's descendants who came to Mount Vernon for the dedication ceremony.

"It's raining today," Holmes says. "I'd like to say in my opinion, the rain- that's the tears of the slaves saying thank you, thank you for not forgetting us."

Mount Vernon officials expect more than one million visitors to tour the restored slave quarters next year.  (source: Voice of America)