Juneteenth

by Susan Zehnder, Education Director
On June 19^th in 1865, two months after the last significant battles of the Civil War had ended, the Union General Gordon Granger and his troops arrived in Galveston, Texas. 

They had traveled 460 miles from Mobile, Alabama covering just eight miles a day. The usual mileage for troops of that era ranged from 15-30 miles per day. However, the news they delivered that day was immediately life changing. Word spread quickly that two months earlier the confederate leader of the Army of Northern Virginia had surrendered, the American Civil War was now over, and all enslaved people were to be freed.

Two years earlier, Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation which had minimal impact on the institution of slavery. Under his presidential order, “all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states “are and henceforth shall be free” and the proclamation encouraged all rebellious states to rejoin the Union. Lincoln intended to win the war and preserve the Union. Not only did no southern states join the Union, the proclamation did not free any enslaved people. It allowed slave states fighting on the side of the Union to retain slaves, hoping these states would not be tempted to switch sides, and it did not require areas held by the Union to free enslaved people. It did allow freed slaves to join the Union army, an army desperately short of soldiers.

In history, the Emancipation Proclamation is considered an important catalyst in changing the US Constitution, and in passing the 13^th (1865), 14^th (1868), and 15^th (1870) Constitutional amendments. In black and white, these address the abolishment of slavery; the granting of citizenship to former slaves; and prohibition of states from denying citizenship to former slaves.

In 1861 Texas had declared secession from the United States and joined the Confederate States of America. Soldiers fighting for Texas headed east and few battles were fought on Texas soil. The two years between Lincoln’s proclamation and Granger’s news in 1865 saw little change in the state of slavery for Texas. When the official word arrived in Galveston, it also had restrictions including not permitting formerly enslaved people to “travel on public thoroughfares unless they had passes or permits from their employers.” The realization of the release of 246 years of chains must have been something. Reactions ranged from shock to pure joy, and overwhelmingly, Black people fled without a look back. So people left, many historians have called this “the scatter.” Heading to find family members in neighboring states, or to strike out on their own.

The word Juneteenth comes from the combination of June and nineteenth. It is also sometimes called Freedom Day, Jubilee Day and Cel-Liberation Day. Observed on the 19^th of June, it has been celebrated ever since in communities all over the nation. 

Juneteenth festivities, Texas, 1900

Early years were difficult and growing segregation laws prohibited access to public places and parks. In 1870 formerly enslaved people in Houston raised $800 to purchase 10 acres of land they could use. In 1980 Texas was the first state to declare Juneteenth an official state holiday, and in 2004, it was recognized as Juneteenth Freedom Day by New York State, but only as a commemorative day. Over the years the level of celebrations has varied. During the Jim Crow days, many felt there was little to celebrate. Things picked up in the 1960s with the Civil Rights Movement. Today it has some recognition in most states. It is a day for all to promote and cultivate knowledge and appreciation of African American history and culture through education, prayer, history, and the arts. It is a day for recognizing Black excellence in all forms of expression.

Local celebrations started here in 1993, led by Anthony Fedd. In 1994 Earl Derry took over Elmira-Corning’s NAACP Juneteenth planning, and the event has been held ever since. For many years, celebrations have taken place in Elmira’s Ernie Davis Park and included a central stage, vendors and food. The tradition of barbeque pits and strawberry soda date back over a hundred years. Events include prayers led by Black ministers, patriotic demonstrations, Juneteenth history, and exhibitions by local groups including choral, step and dance teams, poetry readings, drill teams, music, rap groups, and a fashion show by Black designers. The mood is festive, celebratory, and patriotic.

See more at www.facebook.com/ElmiraJuneteenth

This year’s local events will be virtual, from June 13-19th. Centering on the theme Cooperation over Competition, events will include daily TV informational spots, and social media activities. Check out the community leaders recorded short messages on history, faith, voting, health, music, Black love, business mentoring and inequities in our society, on the Economic Opportunity Program’s website. On the 19^th, ethnic foods will be available from food trucks parked at EOP, 650 Baldwin Street, Elmira, NY.

 Juneteenth statue in Emancipation Park, Houston

It has been 155^th years since General Granger delivered the news to Galveston, a city just 50 miles south east of Houston, Texas. Recently, national attention turned to Texas again with the tragic murder of George Floyd. Floyd was buried in Houston, his hometown. Protests, vigils and rallies for justice were held in Houston’s oldest park, Emancipation Park, the one purchased by formerly enslaved people back in 1870.
Juneteenth is an opportunity for all to celebrate Black Lives, African American history and culture, and some of the tremendous contributions to the crazy quilt of American history.

Freedom Rider

By Rachel Dworkin, archivist

On May 4, 1961, thirteen members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) boarded busses in Washington, D.C. with plans to travel south to New Orleans. The mixed-race group consisting of seven African Americans and six whites planned to flagrantly violate local segregation laws in order to challenge the non-enforcement of the Supreme Court decisions Morgan v. Virginia (1946) and Boynton v. Virginia (1960). In both cases, the court had found that segregation in interstate public transportation and associated terminals was unconstitutional. The Riders hoped provoke a reaction that would raise awareness of the on-going problem. And boy, did they ever. 

As the Freedom Riders headed further south, they came under increasing attack. Several were arrested in the Carolinas and Mississippi for violating segregation laws. Their bus was attacked by multiple mobs in Alabama. By the time they reached Birmingham, Alabama, the Kennedy administration was urging them to stop. Instead, members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) set out on another bus, this time from Nashville, on May 17. Over the course of the summer, some 450 people from across the country would join the movement. 

A white mob burned the Freedom Riders' bus outside Anniston, Alabama on May 14, 1961

 

One of those people was Patricia Bryant, a 20-year-old Elmiran and EFA graduate. She’d just finished up her sophomore year studying social work at Central Ohio State College in Dayton, Ohio when she told her father she was going south to test segregation. On June 9^th, she and four fellow CORE members took a train down the Illinois-Central Railroad to Jackson, Mississippi. Bryant was the only African American in her group. All five of them were arrested for breaching the peace after refusing to leave the whites-only waiting room at the station. 

Patricia Bryant

 

Bryant and her friends were given the harshest sentence of any of the Freedom Riders to date at that point: a $200 and 4 months in jail. By that point, the city and county jails were filling up as Riders intentionally got themselves arrested and prisoners were being transferred to Mississippi State Penitentiary where they were subject to abuse. Isaac Bryant was understandably worried about his daughter’s safety and turned to the local NAACP for help and advice. The same day Patricia Bryant was arrested, the NAACP asked the U.S. District Court to intercede on the Freedom Riders’ behalf and protect them from arrest.  The local NAACP could do little to help Bryant, but promised to back her if she attempted to appeal her conviction. They also planned a welcome home party to celebrate her scheduled release in October.

Luckily for her, Patricia Bryant didn’t serve her full sentence. She was released on June 16^th on $500 bond. A large crowd was on hand to greet her at the Chemung County Airport when she flew home after a brief stay with her mother in Long Island. In September, she transferred to Ithaca College where she received her degree in social work. No word on if the local NAACP ever threw her that party.

The Freedom Rider movement continued to build throughout the summer even as the violence against the Riders escalated. By September, leaders from CORE and SNCC began planning a mass demonstration in Washington, but their plans were interrupted by a ruling from the Interstate Commerce Commission. Effective November 1, 1961, all interstate transportation lines and terminals would be forced to desegregate everywhere. Black passengers could sit where they wanted, eat at the station lunch counters, and use what had once been whites-only bathrooms. The alliances formed between Southern and Northern activists became the backbone of the later civil rights movement and many individual Riders went on to participate in subsequent campaigns.  

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Patricia Bryant’s story is just one of those profiled in our up-coming on-line exhibit The Color of Change. The exhibit looks at the 100-year history of the local branch of the NAACP. It will go live on February 15^th. Come check it out at: https://cchsonlineexhibits.wixsite.com/naacp

Eclipse and Rebirth

By Rachel Dworkin, archivist

In the spring of 1942, with World War II raging, Elmira’s factories were all hands on deck. Or at least, they would have been if not for American’s oldest and most persistent foe—racism.

During the war, the Eclipse Machine Division of the Bendix Aviation Corps of Elmira Heights was involved in crucial war production. They made, among other things, airplane parts, starters for tanks, and mechanical delayed bomb fuses. With their male workers headed for the military, they found themselves dangerously short staffed. In January 1942, they began hiring every woman who filled out an application. Every white woman that is. Black applicants, on the other hand, were given the run around. They were given applications upon request, but never called back.

Call for more workers from Elmira Star-Gazette, December 5, 1944

A group of women from the Negro Women’s Progressive Club took a course in defense training at Elmira Free Academy and applied in mass to work at Eclipse. The company initially told them they would be hired if they found 25 Black women to work an all-Black shift. When the group showed up for their interview with twice that many though, they were told that there was “no place for Negroes” at the company.

The ladies of the Negro Women’s Progressive Club didn’t take it lying down. In June, shortly after the meeting with Eclipse, club president Grace Mann wrote to the legal department of the NAACP asking for advice. They were told to have each woman write an affidavit describing what happened to be submitted as evidence and to form a local branch of the NAACP. There had already been a branch here in Elmira back in the late 1910s and 1920s, but it had ceased operation sometime after 1927. The new Elmira branch of the NAACP was officially chartered on September 14, 1942 with Grace Mann as president. It continues to this day. 

The problem of anti-Black discrimination in war production was not isolated to Eclipse. Repeated complaints from across the state forced the New York War Council to launch an investigation of the problem in the spring of 1942. They found that Blacks were consistently barred from employment and that this posed a huge problem for war production, especially in upstate areas where there was a shortage of white laborers. In September 1942, New York state established a special unit of the State Labor Department for prosecuting employers who discriminated in hiring based on race, creed, color, or nation of origin. 

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find out what happened to affidavits submitted by the Negro Women’s Progressive Club or what, if any, legal action was taken against Eclipse. What I can tell you is that shortly after the complaint was filed, Eclipse started hiring Black men for positions on mixed-race shifts. No word though on whether anyone from the Negro Women’s Progressive Club was ever hired. 

Eclipse gun range crew (r-l):

 William Pint, Earl Palmer, Erwin Wasson, Richard G. Weeks, Alfred Spellman, Fred Jones, &  Wesley Fretz

Foundations of the NAACP Elmira-Corning Branch

By Rachel Dworkin, archivist

For the last 100 years, the Elmira-Corning Branch of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) has worked to improve the lives of African Americans within our community. The local chapter recently donated their history collection to the Chemung County Historical Society in order to ensure that the stories of the men and women involved in their struggle are accessible to the wider community.  Over the coming months, CCHS will be sharing some of those stories here and in an up-coming on-line exhibit. Stay tuned. The entire collection is available for viewing during our regular research hours.

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Mrs. Cornelia F. Stewart Matthews, daughter of Thomas Stewart, was the local branch of the NAACP’s first president in 1917, as well as its fourth in 1925. Heavily involved in politics, she served as the Republican Committeewoman for Elmira’s First District, Fourth Ward. She was not only the first Black woman in the county to serve in such a role, she was the first Black person to do so. An active member in the A.M.E. Zion Church, she often represented the Christian Endeavor both regionally and nationally. 

Mrs. Cornelia F. Stewart Matthews

Locally, she worked hard to help uplift the Black community. In 1918, she was involved in a lawsuit against a real estate company which refused to rent or sell property to “colored people or undesirable foreigners.” In order to obtain an official charter from the national organization, the local NAACP needed 100 members. Matthews arranged for Mrs. Addie W. Hutton, an NAACP leader from New York City, to come and give a presentation on the organization and its aims at the Bethal A.M.E. Zion Church. Although few people attended, they were able to get the membership they needed to be chartered in 1918. 

Elmira Star-Gazette, November 4, 1924

 

The woman could not stop founding clubs. On February 14, 1924, she established the Nannie Borroughs Club at the local YWCA. Named for a nationally known Black activist and educator who was apparently a personal friend of Matthews, the club was intended to be a safe space for Black girls to socialize and discuss the issues of the day. A few years later, she established the CFM women’s book club, also at the YWCA. The CFM Club lasted well into the 1950s, twenty years after Cordelia Matthews’ death in 1936. The Nannie Borroughs Club eventually became more of a women’s support group before ending in the late 2000s.