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Jack Pierce agrees. His family origins are on the south side of Bays Mountain, but his dad later moved to what is now considered Old Kingsport, just west of the Netherland Inn to raise his family. Pierce has lived in Riverview most of his life, at the center of Kingsportâs African-American community.
âRiverview is a good place to live,â he says. âThe quality of life here is great. Everybodyâs kids in the neighborhood have all turned out great for the most part, but then many of the kids move away and raise their own children in the bigger cities. Thatâs not good for business and itâs not good for Kingsport.â
He says over the years itâs always been all about jobs and social activities for African-Americans, and it still is.
âJobs and a social life are the answer.â
1910 census
Sullivan County, 24,935; African-American, 1,535
Long before Kingsport became a city and since the Civil War, people of color have been part of what was then Kingâs Port on the Holston River. Bristol had its black population, and so did the Kingâs Port area.
âBack in the late 1800s and early 1900s,â Pierce says, âa company called Quillen and Blair decided to sell property at Rotherwood. They cut it up into lots and sold them to black folks. My dad lived out there â also the Burdines, the Lyles, the Manises, the Dickersons and at one time the Rays had homes out there, among others. Blacks and whites got along well back then,â he says. âEverybody was just middle-class working folk during those times, who came and stayed here because so many companies were hiring.â
Ellis remembers hearing about that as well. She was raised in the Rotherwood Mansion, where her parents worked for John B. Dennis, one of Kingsportâs founding fathers.
1920 census
Kingsport, 5,692; African-American, 454
Three years after Kingsportâs incorporation, the African-American population began growing, although the largest increase was still decades off. Still, Old Kingsport found that it could not hold the influx of new black residents.
The availability of good jobs back then convinced the black workforce to want to live better. Pierce says one company had more of an influence than others.
âPenn-Dixie Cement had more of an influence in moving African-Americans from Old Kingsport into the Sullivan, Dale, Maple, Oak and Walnut (Sevier) Avenue areas because their black workers could get more affordable housing there,â Pierce says.
âThe cement plant was hard, labor-intensive work that paid well. Blacks from Old Kingsport who had settled on Cement Hill above downtown got better homes in the new area between Sullivan and Center Streets. Eventually, all of the African-Americans moved to that area from Old Kingsport and Cement Hill, and thatâs when the overcrowding began. Folks began calling their out-of-town relatives, saying, âYou need to come to Kingsport, there are jobs hereâ with one family-based proviso: âyou can stay with us until you find a place.â â
Although many of the alleys in the Dale, Maple, Oak and Walnut area are still there, the homes and shacks that lined the alleys are long gone. There was no indoor plumbing, sparse electricity and sometimes cardboard for walls.
Riverview resident William (âMr. Budâ) Hickman remembers that time.
âThere were a lot of undesirable homes that people were living in,â he says. âOld Man Dykes built little old cardboard houses, and he would rent to people, and you could almost see the floor, it was so shabby.â
âThat was the only place for blacks to live,â Pierce says. âIt was there or nothing. At one point, people from Alabama, Georgia, Carolina and the Virginias were coming in at a pretty good clip. The jobs were plentiful, but the living conditions were not.â
Pierce says that while many black workers continued to get hired at the cement plant, the Press, Mead, Borden Mills and eventually Eastman, there were other jobs available. âThe black people that didnât work in the factories got on as maids, butlers and drivers in the white folksâ homes,â he remembers. âIn most of the restaurants, blacks were cooking and serving the meals. It was honorable work for a dayâs wages, and most everybody was proud to at least be working.â
And the largest employer of African-American women in Kingsport? The Holston Valley Community Hospital, Pierce remembers. âAll of the maids in the hospital were black,â he says. âBut all of the orderlies were black, too. The hospital employed a lot of African-Americans back in the day.â
Kingsport always provided education for its African-American children, albeit âseparate, but equal.â According to historical records at the Kingsport Education Association and the Sons and Daughters of Douglass Alumni website, when the city vacated the building at Oklahoma Grove in 1913 (where the location of the former Lee Elementary School, now the Cora Cox Academy is now, named after the former Douglass teacher later named a Tennessee Teacher of the Year and a National Teacher of the Year finalist), the cityâs black children were educated at Oklahoma Grove. The first principal was Professor H.L. Moss, and he found the Oklahoma Grove School in bad shape … slumping floors and holes in the walls. African-American parents requested the city build their children a new school.
In 1919, the Kingsport Board of Education heard recommendations to build two other white schools at the same time, the future Jackson Elementary, the future Lincoln Elementary, and the âColoredâ Childrenâs School.
The Lincoln and Jackson schools were eventually built, but the new school for âcoloredâ children was never built; as a result, African-American children continued to attend the Oklahoma Grove School. Their parents never gave up hope, and after a new black school was built near Sullivan and Center Streets near the railroad âY,â eventually the Board of Education funded a new, larger school at the intersection of Walnut and Myrtle Streets.
In 1928, through the help of Sears, Roebuck and Companyâs Julius Rosenwald and his private school fund, a seven-room concrete and mortar school building was built on East Walnut (now Sevier) Avenue and the Bristol Highway (now East Center) Street. The Rikki Rhoten Insurance Agency sits on the site now.
The new school was named the Frederick Douglass School (also known as the Douglass-Rosenwald School), after the great African-American orator, statesman, and journalist.
1930 census
Kingsport, 11, 914; African-American, 595
The years between 1930 and 1940 saw the largest increase in Kingsportâs African-American population ever. With almost 400 new black residents, overcrowding in the Dale-Oak-Maple-Sevier Avenue area in a segregated society exploded. Although jobs continued to flourish, the ramshackle homes and shanties in the alleys of the Sullivan-Dale-Oak-Maple-Sevier Street area that blacks were crowded into were simply falling apart.
Toward the end of the â30s, black leaders were forced to demand the city provide them a new area to live.
Editorâs Note: Calvin Sneed grew up in Kingsportâs Riverview community. He has compiled a comprehensive history of African-Americans in Kingsport that is to be added to the Model Cityâs official history. Segments of his work will be published in the Times News every Sunday in February in honor of Black History Month.
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KINSHASA âÂ
A renegade Congolese colonel who had threatened to depose President Joseph Kabila has been extradited from Tanzania and will be prosecuted for rebellion, Congo’s defense minister said on Monday.
In a video circulated on social media last month, John Tshibangu, who had been based in the east of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), gave the president a 45-day ultimatum to leave or “we are going to take Kabila down.”
But Tshibangu was then detained by authorities in Tanzania towards the end of last month.
“John Tshibangu is in Kinshasa. We are going to leave him to face justice for rebellion, a crime catered for and punished by the Congolese penal code,”Defense Minister Crispin Atama Tabe told Reuters by text message.
Tshibangu used to be a military commander in the central Congolese region of Kasai. He defected in 2012 and moved to the lawless east, long a haunt of would-be Congolese rebels.
One of Tshibangu’s associates, a captain in the Congolese army called Freddy Ibeba, was also arrested in northern Congo on Monday and will be taken to Kinshasa for a hearing, justice minister Alexis Thabwe Mwamba told a press conference on Monday.
Of Tshibangu, he said: “I would like to reassure that he will be entitled to a fair and equitable trial.”
Kabila’s refusal to step down when his mandate expired in December 2016 has emboldened several armed groups, stoking violence and raising the spectre of the vast, mineral-rich nation tumbling back into the kind of wars that killed millions in the 1990s, mostly from hunger and disease.
Reporting Amedee Mwarabu.
MBINGO, CAMEROON âÂ
Tensions continue to climb in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon as separatist groups demand the release of their leader and 46 other prisoners extradited last month from Nigeria. The government has sought to reassure the population.
A woman and her husband cry at the Baptist Hospital mortuary in the English-speaking town of Mbingo, in northwestern Cameroon. The woman has just discovered the lifeless bodies of her younger brother and three others. She said they were arrested last Wednesday and accused of killing two gendarmes. She refused to grant an interview, but workers of the hospital told VOA the bodies were brought there by unidentified men.
The so-called Anglophone crisis began in Cameroon over a year ago, sparking bouts of deadly unrest and more recently, clashes between alleged separatist militants and security forces. The Anglophone community in Cameroon is protesting political and economic discrimination in the majority French-speaking country.
Joseph Banadzem, lawmaker from the northwest region, said the military is responding by violently cracking down on the population.
“The army who are supposed to maintain law and order, to protect property, to protect lives, [they] go on the rampage in villages, burning houses, burning food stuff, peopleâs stores and so. All ransacked. It is unbelievable. It is inacceptable. It is inhuman,” he said.
Colonel Didier Badjeck is a spokesperson for Cameroon’s military. He said the military is committed to preserving Cameroonâs territorial integrity.
He said the armed separatists are using mercenaries and carrying out abuses on the population, whom he said will very soon understand that they have to trust only the countryâs military.
Violence has escalated since January when Nigeria detained and then extradited separatist leader Ayuk Tabe Julius and the 46 other alleged separatists to Cameroon.
The separatist groups are demanding their leaders be released. At least four schools have been burned as of last Friday and at least 12 people have been killed, according to local media, which report unconfirmed casualties among both armed separatists and soldiers.
Many businesses remain closed in the two English-speaking regions amid fears of more violence.
The 47 detainees extradited from Nigeria have not been seen in public. International human rights groups warned against the extradition, saying the detainees could face torture or worse.
Nigeria is now also facing criticism from the U.N refugee agency, which said that most of those handed over to Cameroon had applied for asylum in Nigeria and their “forcible return” violated Nigeriaâs international obligations.
On Friday, Cameroon government spokesperson Issa Tchiroma issued a press release saying the detainees are safe and would be appearing in front of the law courts soon. He did not comment on the charges they would answer.
JERUSALEM âÂ
Israel has begun issuing deportation notices to thousands of African migrants.
Some 40,000 African migrants are facing an uncertain future after Israel began issuing deportation orders that amount to an ultimatum: The migrants can take an offer of 3,500 dollars and a one-way plane ticket to Rwanda within 60 days, or face imprisonment.
Most of the migrants came from war-torn Sudan and Eritrea over the past decade and entered Israel illegally. Many say that going back to Africa is not an option, so they will choose the lesser of the two evils.
âI will go to prisonâ in Israel, said Katir Abdullah who came from Darfur. He said Rwanda is not his country, and the only things waiting for him there are persecution, unemployment and poverty.
Israel is sending the migrants to Rwanda after assessing it as a safe country with a growing economy. Rwanda denies Israeli claims that it has agreed to take the migrants in.
Adam Ahmad, who is from Sudan, says paying people to leave is a betrayal.
âNow it is so sad that Israeli people put African people, or African asylum seekers, for sale; and thatâs so sad,â he said.
Israel refuses to grant the Africans asylum, saying that they are economic migrants and not refugees. Officials say Israel was created as a refuge for the Jewish people and not for the masses fleeing poverty in Africa.
Interior Minister Aryeh Deri said Israelâs first obligation is to its own people. He described the Africans as âinfiltratorsâ who have brought crime and misery to the streets of South Tel Aviv.
But human rights activists here say Israel should be the first to assist the Africans because the country was built by Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust.
âWe have always asserted that the world was silentâ during World War II, said Colette Avital, who heads the Center of Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel. She warned that Israel must not be silent and must lend a helping hand to those in need.
Credit
Patricia Wall/The New York Times
Oprah Winfreyâs story, from her birth in a small, poor town in Mississippi in 1954, to her becoming a billionaire and having to address rumors about a possible run for president, is extraordinary. But perhaps even more remarkable were the lives of this countryâs first black millionaires, some of them born in the first half of the 19th century, decades before the Emancipation Proclamation. The journalist Shomari Willsâs new book, âBlack Fortunes,â tells the story of six of those millionaires, including the landowner Robert Reed Church, born into slavery, and the self-taught scientist Annie Malone, the daughter of slaves. Below, Wills talks about how stories he heard as a child about his own family helped to inspire the book, the surprising connections he found between his subjects and more.
When did you first get the idea to write this book?
Itâs kind of been with me since I was a kid, even though I didnât think of it as a book back then. My great-great uncle was John Drew, one of the first black millionaires in the Philadelphia area. I grew up hearing stories about him from my mother. He operated a bus line in Darby, Pa., in the mixed-race suburbs of Philly, in the early 1900s. He used the profits to invest in the stock market in the late 1920s. He rode the bull market pretty long, and pulled his money out right before the crash. He walked away with close to a million dollars.
When I was first starting out as a reporter, in Jamaica in 2012, for a Caribbean newspaper in New York, I went to Devon House, which is a Victorian mansion that belonged to George Stiebel, the first Jamaican millionaire. He was a shipping merchant with an incredible story. He invested a lot of money back into Jamaica. His mansion was so beautiful and ornate that they had to build a road that didnât go past it, because the British nobles would get mad driving by it, seeing this black guyâs great success. In 2013, when I was at Columbia Journalism School, I started researching the first black millionaires in this country.
Whatâs the most surprising thing you learned while writing it?
How much of their money these first black millionaires devoted to helping advance racial equality in the United States. Throughout their lives, they put themselves at risk and exposed themselves, funneling the money they were able to make into abolition, civil rights, anti-lynching. They had very good lives with beautiful houses, with all sorts of luxuries, but they devoted an incredible amount of their money trying to help the African-American community. Mary Ellen Pleasant made her money during the gold rush in California. She took $45,000 and gave it to John Brown.
They all had different arcs with that. They all battled with the fact that they were rich but that they werenât treated as a full human being sometimes. When they arrived at that realization, they started giving money to causes.
In what way is the book you wrote different from the book you set out to write?
Their lives ended up intersecting so much. I picked out six characters I thought would be representative of different types of businesses, different parts of the country, but even if they all didnât necessarily cross paths, there was so much overlap in their lives. One of the main ways that occurred was through civil rights luminaries. Most of them knew Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington, and later W.E.B. Du Bois. When Washington started the National Negro Business League in 1900, an organization to boost black business and entrepreneurship in the United States, they would meet each other through that.
My plan was just to tell their stories chronologically. But the black business community was so tight-knit back then, so small, they all had connections with each other.
Who is a creative person (not a writer) who has influenced you and your work?
Iâd have to say Bad Brains, which is a black punk rock band. I grew up in Washington, D.C., and they really inspired me because they were one of the only black punk groups in D.C. They embraced a different genre and did their thing.
Persuade someone to read âBlack Fortunesâ in 50 words or less.
It gives you a different perspective, not only on black wealth but also Americaâs history. It reveals people who worked behind the scenes to provide the means for abolition, civil rights and racial equality. And they were also rich people with just fascinating lives.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
For years, William Godwin toggled back and forth between Chicago and Gary, Indiana. In 2016, the 32-year-old black business owner decided to move full time to the quaint and artsy neighborhood of Miller Beach, a lakefront area in Gary.
âThe benefits of living here are the affordability. The slower lifestyle, the ease of getting around,â Godwin said.
Northwest Indiana is the place where most blacks from Cook County are moving. The Illinois county has the largest black population in the country, but over the past decade, some of those residents have been leaving. The latest U.S. Census shows that more than 12,000 African-Americans moved out of the area in 2016.
Godwin still does business in Chicago but has moved his real estate agency for a cheaper rent of $500 a month. Chicago residents sometimes drive to Indiana for cheaper gas, cigarettes and no taxes on items like plastic shopping bags.
âWhatâs happening is a lot of Chicagoans are seeing the value of Indiana, and itâs not this foreign country,â Godwin said.
Alden Loury, director of research and evaluation for the local Metropolitan Planning Council, has done research showing that many black families are moving to Northwest Indiana. He said people are leaving for a host of reasons. Although black Chicagoans account for about 29 percent of the city’s population, they make up 52 percent of the city’s unemployed, according to a recent study.Â
âWhatâs happening with the schools, whatâs happening in the stagnant job market for black folks. And what happened with housing,â Loury said, adding that most leaving are low income. There are groups working on reversing that trend.
The Greater Chatham Initiative is a new nonprofit looking at housing stability and economic development in black middle-class neighborhoods. Black families are snapping up rehabbed houses â the kind that have open concepts, snazzy kitchens and elements featured on HGTV. So one of the things the group is paying attention to is the housing stock, said Nedra Sims Fears, the nonprofit’s executive director.
âTo make the housing attractive,â Sims Fears said. Â
A video uploaded on Facebook shows African American products locked up in cabinets in one store.Facebook/Bombsquad
- Walmart is being sued by a customer alleging racial discrimination.Â
- The customer claims that the store is intentionally locking up certain products that are made for African Americans.
- Walmart told Business Insider that it does not tolerate discrimination of any kind and that the decision to lock up certain products is made on a “store-by-store” basis.
Walmart has responded to allegations that it is racially discriminating against its customers.
On Friday news broke that the store is being sued by a customer who claims that it is segregating products by the race of the people who use them.
The plaintiff, Essie Grundy, was shopping for a comb in her local store when she found it was locked in a cabinet:Â “That’s when I noticed that all of the African-American products were locked up under lock and key,” Grundy told reporters at a news conference on Friday.
Walmart immediately stamped out these allegations.
“We do not tolerate discrimination of any kind at Walmart,” a spokesperson for the company told Business Insider.
“Some products such as electronics, automotive, cosmetics and other personal care products are subject to additional security. Those determinations are made on a store-by-store basis using data supporting the need for the heightened measures,” the spokesperson said.Â
Despite this, some shoppers have called for a boycott of the store. In this video, a customer claims that all the African American products are locked up and Caucasian products aren’t.
“This is racial profiling at its best,” the customer says in the video.
Other shoppers have lept to Walmart’s defense.Â
A black woman in Southern California has filed a lawsuit against Walmart because the retailer locks up products that people steal. These often-shoplifted items happen to be black beauty products, so this woman is crying racism. https://t.co/DXatHpk840
â Patricia Dickson (@Patrici15767099) January 28, 2018
And claimed that it isn’t only African American products that are locked up.Â
Oh please, Walmart has a lot of items behind glass, in locked cabinets or with locked cables on them. Itâs in my neighborhood too and Iâm not crying about it.
â Denise AuBuchon (@denise_aubuchon) January 28, 2018
Here is Walmart’s full statement to Business Insider:
“We do not tolerate discrimination of any kind at Walmart. We serve more than 140 million customers weekly, crossing all demographics, and are focused on meeting their needs while providing the best shopping experience at each store. Weâre sensitive to this situation and also understand, like other retailers, that some products such as electronics, automotive, cosmetics and other personal care products are subject to additional security. Those determinations are made on a store-by-store basis using data supporting the need for the heightened measures. While weâve yet to review a complaint, we take this situation seriously and look forward to addressing it with the court.”
Â
CLOSE
Black history in Opelousas on display at the Opelousas Museum and Interpretive Center
Freddie Herpin
Museum exhibit recalls black history in Opelousas
Opelousas was once the playground of Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, B. B. King, Etta James and countless blues and R&B legends. Their stage was Bradfordâs White Eagle, a Blanchard Street club that pulled in fans from as far as New Orleans and Houston.
The building still stands, even though the music inside died more than 30 years ago. Stories of the countless good times never stopped and prompted Marie Marcel to search for pictures.
Photos were few until Marcel connected with Lou Anna Donatto, a longtime waitress at the club who had a scrapbook. Pearlie May Veazie, a Bradfordâs regular, came forward with color photos.
Pictures of The Foxes and Ivory Knights, social clubs that held formal balls at the club, arrived. A photo of a rare appearance by jazz great Duke Ellington trickled in from California.
âI never stopped asking,â said Marcel. âIâve been doing (genealogy) research for 30-odd years. I know everybody in Opelousas and they know me.
âPeople would say they didnât have any pictures, or they would give me a name. Then people started coming forward with pictures.â
Good times at Bradfordâs is part of âExploring Historic Opelousas â African American Business Owners and Innovators,â a Black History Month exhibit on display through March 31 at the Opelousas Museum and Interpretive Center. A preview reception will be held at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at the museum.
The exhibit features photos and memorabilia highlighting the cityâs black business pioneers from the past century and beyond. A history of the Donatto family is detailed, along with the cityâs first black physicians, Rapheil F. Donato and Benjamin Donato.
A wall clock and a press clipping from The New Yorker about Dideeâs, a Market Street restaurant famous for its baked duck, are on display. A photo of John Ezekiel Claiborne, an educator renowned for his scientific patents, is on display.
Family photos tell the story of Williams Funeral Home, which opened in 1932 and grew into Williams Progressive Life and Accident Insurance, one of the nationâs largest African-American companies. Richardâs Club in nearby Lawtell, the first stage for several Grammy-winning zydeco musicians, is represented.
Descendants of these pioneering families are expected to attend Thursdayâs reception.
âWe have many people coming forward to share stories,â said Marcel. âWeâre going to have a lot of fun.â
The exhibit is a high point for Marcell, a Leonville native who admits an obsession for history and genealogy. After Marcel moved to Houston 50 years ago, she began to get questions, from her siblings, about a grandmother whose name they never knew.
Marcel made regular bus trips back to Opelousas to do family research at the St. Landry Parish Courthouse. The buses often left Houston at 1 a.m. and did not reach Opelousas until eight hours later. She researched until 3:20 p.m., the boarding time for the bus back to Houston.
Her endless journeys had a major payoff.
âWhen I got to that courthouse and I saw my grandmotherâs name, I flooded that basement with tears,â said Marcel. âFrom that day forward, I was hooked on genealogy.
âFor 35 years, I went back and forth from Houston to Opelousas researching.â
Marcel hopes the exhibit sparks others to dig into their own family and community roots.
âI hope everybody comes with love and care. This is something that can live on. People can share it with their children and grandchildren.â
Want to go?
What: âExploring Historic Opelousas â African American Business Owners and Innovatorsâ
A Black History Month exhibit
When: 5:30 â 7:30 p.m. Thursday
Where: Opelousas Museum and Interpretive Center
315 N. Main St., Opelousas
Admission: Free
Information: 337-948-2589
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