Savannah Black History

11/15/2024

The transatlantic slave trade (The Middle Passage) in 2 minutes…(Video)

The Atlantic passage, or Middle Passage, usually to Brazil or an island in the Caribbean, was notorious for its brutality and for the overcrowded unsanitary conditions on slave ships, in which hundreds of Africans were packed tightly into tiers below decks for a voyage of about 5,000 miles (8,000 km) that could last from a few weeks to several months.

They were typically chained together, and usually the low ceilings did not permit them to sit upright. The heat was intolerable, and the oxygen levels became so low that candles would not burn. Because crews feared insurrection, the Africans were allowed to go outside on the upper decks for only a few hours each day. Historians estimate that between 15 and 25 percent of the enslaved Africans bound for the Americas died aboard slave ships. Death rates, which were directly proportional to the length of the voyage, declined as the time of the voyage was reduced significantly between the beginning of the 16th century and the end of the 19th century.The autobiographical account of the West African Olaudah Equiano, published in 1789, (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Olaudah-Equiano) is particularly well known for its graphic descriptions of the suffering endured on the transatlantic voyages.

Atrocities and sexual abuse of the enslaved captives were widespread, although their monetary value as slaves perhaps mitigated such treatment. Ship captains could not ignore the health of their human cargo, because they were paid only for enslaved persons delivered alive. Moreover, the death rates among the European captains and crew engaged in the trade of enslaved people were at least as high as those among their captives on the Middle Passage. In an infamous incident on the slave ship Zong in 1781, when both Africans and crew members were dying of an infectious disease, Capt. Luke Collingwood, hoping to stop the disease, ordered that more than 130 Africans be thrown overboard. He then filed an insurance claim on the value of the murdered enslaved persons. Occasionally, the African captives successfully revolted and took over the ships. The most famous such incident occurred when in 1839 a slave named Joseph Cinqué led a mutiny of 53 illegally purchased enslaved people on the Spanish slave ship Amistad, killing the captain and two members of the crew. The U.S. Supreme Court eventually ordered the Africans to be returned to their homes.

At the time of the American Revolution (1775–83), there was widespread support in the Northern American colonies for prohibiting the importation of more enslaved people. However, after the Revolution, at the insistence of Southern states, Congress waited more than two decades before making the importation of enslaved people illegal. When Congress did so, in 1808, the law was enacted with little dissent, but Caribbean smugglers frequently violated the law until it was enforced by the Northern blockade of the South in 1861 during the American Civil War.

After Great Britain outlawed slavery throughout its empire in 1833, the British navy diligently opposed the trade of enslaved people in the Atlantic and used its ships to try to prevent slave-trading operations. Brazil outlawed the trade of enslaved people in 1850, but the smuggling of newly enslaved persons into Brazil did not end entirely until the country finally enacted emancipation in 1888.

11/15/2024

In April 1766, the Mary Brow arrived in Savannah. One of the first ships to bring enslaved African people directly from the African continent. It departed from the island of Saint-Louis, off the coast of present-day Senegal, with 106 captive Senegalese people in its hold. During the two-month-long voyage across the Atlantic, 28 kidnapped Africans died.

Over the decades that followed, more than 100 slave trafficking ships arrived in Savannah to meet the growing demand for Africans skilled in rice and grain cultivation to work on Georgia’s rice and grain plantations. So many people were trafficked to Savannah that, by 1790, enslaved people made up three-quarters of Chatham County’s population.



https://eji.org/report/transatlantic-slave-trade/savannah/ -in-savannah

11/15/2024

11/15/2024

Savannah’s Atlantic trade may have begun with the Bance-Island, the earliest port-to-port importation for which record survives. James Hay was the captain of the Bance-Island, it arrived in May of 1766 and is noted in the May 28, 1766 Georgia Gazette seeking clearance for a return to Africa.
… the lives of 245 people arbitrarily book-ended between “sugar” and “flour.”

In just one day 245 Africans were registered at the custom house, three times the number imported during the entire calendar year of 1762. Just four weeks later, on June 25, another ship, this one with the innocuous title of the Dove, arrived with its cargo of enslaved individuals from “Sierraleon in Africa.” On July 29 the Antelope entered port, commanded by Thomas Paley, and on that same day 246 more Africans were registered at the custom house. By October 22, 163 more had arrived, via two vessels in from Gambia: the Woodmanston and the Granada, Benjamin Mason and William Robinson their respective captains. In all, the second half of 1766 saw five clearly documented slave ships.

The records show that, for the entire year of 1762 there had seen 82 enslaved persons…
1766 saw the arrival of 1100.

The floodgates had opened.

By 1774, the Georgia colony, which had attempted to ban slavery just forty years before, was already 45% slave… most of which occurred in just the eight-year span between 1766 and 1774. Savannah’s prosperity of the late 18th and early 19th centuries piggybacked on the cotton industry… and the toil of enslaved people.



https://savannahhistory.home.blog/2019/08/22/the-18th-century-slave-trade-and-the-savannah-port/

11/15/2024

In 1865, American blacks emerged from the aftermath of the Civil War and slavery. Likewise, the people in West Africa had to endure tremendous social hardships, the continuing
slave trade, and other deprivations found in a pre-industrial society. The question of slavery, with its inherent evils and legacies, troubled men and women of conscience on both continents. Yet two blacks, a man with ties to West Africa and a free-born American woman, overcame growing racial prejudice in the United
States to become doctors, and they would offer their skills to the people in both Africa and America.
Cornelius McKane and his wife Alice Woodby McKane made American medical history only twenty years after Reconstruction ended in the South.
Against tremendous odds, these two blacks
earned medical degrees: McKane at the University of Vermont Medical College, and Woody at the State Medical College for
Women of Pennsylvania.
The couple met in Augusta, Georgia, in the 1890s, shortly after they completed their medical education Although they came from different continents, cultures, and training, they worked to better medical care for blacks in Georgia and Liberia before the turn of the century.

Alice Woodby McKane, was the only black female physician in the state at that time.
After the Two marrying in 1893, the couple established McKane Training School for Nurses – one of the first such schools in the region.

11/14/2024

I am honored to preserve and share…
I love taking visitors on a journey to discover our rich history. It’s icing on the cake, when they give rave reviews!

Voted “Best Tour in Savannah”!

SavannahBlackHistoryTours.com

11/14/2024

11/13/2024

As we celebrate 134 years since the founding of SSU, join us in-person or virtually for the annual observance of Founders Day.
This year we will recognize Dr. Marilyn S. Taylor, '73 and Dr. Thomas "Teddy" Adams, '80. Happy Founders Day to the entire Tiger family!

11/13/2024

11/13/2024

Savannah, Georgia 1867



Launey & Goebel Photographers

11/13/2024

Grace Wisher, a free-born Black girl from Baltimore, Maryland, helped stitch the Star-Spangled Banner during the six-year apprenticeship she began with white flag-maker Mary Pickersgill around 1810.

In the conventional telling of the story, Pickersgill, her daughter Caroline, and one of her nieces all receive recognition for sewing the most popular flag in U.S. history—the flag that would later inspire Frances Scott Key, a slaveholder and colonizationist, to write the national anthem. But that banner’s famous backstory has unfortunately erased Grace’s contribution.

To tell the full history of the United States, we must reintroduce Grace Wisher into historical conversations of the Star-Spangled Banner’s creation. Recalling her role in forging the very image of the “Land of Liberty” can help us to better grasp how Black women and girls have been at the heart of the nation’s story since its creation.

Three years into Grace’s apprenticeship, Pickersgill was commissioned to create the Star-Spangled Banner in celebration of the United States’ victory against Great Britain in the War of 1812. It was not the original flag of the United States, but it was the one that would instill love and loyalty among countless American citizens for their homeland. Before the creation of the Star-Spangled Banner, many Americans did not hang the flag to showcase their national pride.

In 1820, there were approximately 10,326 free Black Baltimoreans and as the years progressed, Baltimore would boast of the largest free Black population in the country. They dwelled and worked around the harbor and Fell’s Point, which were in close proximity to shipyards, docks, and warehouses.

A significant number of free Black Baltimoreans also lived in small houses on narrow alleys, including those like Happy Alley, Dutch Alley, and Apple alley. Considering that Grace was free until her mother Jenny Wisher apprenticed her, it is fair to assume she would have lived in such areas along with her family.

According to Sally Johnson and Pat Pilling in their book Mary Young Pickersgill: Flag Maker of the Star-Spangled Banner, Grace’s mother received $20 at the signing of the contract. She was guaranteed another $12 at the end of her daughter’s six years of service.

There are speculations as to why Grace was sold into an apprenticeship. During this time, children of impoverished households worked to contribute to the family income and many white and Black working-class populations sold their children as apprentices to offset some of the expenses of rearing multiple children.

Many Black women were heads of households either because they were widowed, their husbands were enslaved, or their husbands could not find work. Working as laundresses or domestic servants did not contribute sufficiently to the family income, so Black mothers had to make difficult decisions to survive.

Only ten at the time of the apprenticeship, Grace was not yet old enough to work for wages. The most she could have contributed to the household was to assist her mother with domestic responsibilities. It is likely that Grace’s mother decided to apprentice her to receive instant economic assistance and to absolve the financial burden of providing for her.

Pickersgill reassured Grace’s mother that she would teach her the “art and mystery of housework and plain sewing,” which explains why Grace assisted in creating the Star-Spangled Banner. But why has her contribution been absent in history books?

Without illuminating the impacts of their labor, the history of the United States remains incomplete. Historians assert that, “Black girls and women like Grace have literally stitched themselves into our nation’s history,” but mainstream historical accounts continuously overlook their contributions.



https://origins.osu.edu/read/grace-wisher-black-girl-who-helped-stitch-star-spangled-banner

11/13/2024

Standard Oil Station at 625 West Broad Street Savannah. (Demolished in 1960)

Although “Standard Oil” was Broken up due to it being considered a Monopoly by the US government in 1911, it began operating under various names across the country. One such name was Esso. (the phonetic pronunciation of Standard Oil's initials, 'S' and 'O')

In 1934, Esso Standard Oil, hired James A. Jackson as a special representative to research the role and impact of the Black consumer in America.

At the time, Esso was one of the largest companies in the world, and Victor Green saw an opportunity. Through a savvy business strategy, Green and Jackson devised a plan to distribute the guide called the Negro Motorist and Travel Guide, better known as the “Green Book”

Standard oil would sponsor and distribute the green book from its Esso stations across the country. The Green Book became "the bible of black travel during Jim Crow", enabling black travelers to find lodgings, businesses, and gas stations that would serve them along the road.

It was little known outside the African American community.



https://negromotoristgreenbook.si.edu/virtual-exhibit/traveling/

https://www.savannahga.gov/3083/Autos-in-the-Archives

11/13/2024

Between 1936 and 1967, the Negro Motorist Green Book was essential for the survival of thousands of Black Americans in an era of segregation cemented into the American legal system through Jim Crow laws, sundown towns where African Americans were under threat of violence after sunset, and a sharp increase in lynchings and other forms of hate crimes.

Victor Green worked as a postal carrier in Hackensack, New Jersey, and lived with his family in Harlem. Allegedly, Green was frustrated with his own experiences attempting to travel the United States as an African American and heard similar stories from friends and family. In 1936, he decided to publish the first edition of the Negro Motorist Green Book, based on similar guides for Jewish travelers. The first issue of the Green Book was limited to black-owned and non-discriminatory businesses in New York City.

The first edition of the Green Book was so popular, Green expanded it the following year to include more states and distribute it nationally. Green eventually opened a publishing office in Harlem to support the Green Book and in 1947, he established Vacation Reservation Service, a travel agency that booked reservations at black-owned establishments. In its heyday, the Green Book sold 15,000 copies per year. Green died in 1960, but his widow, Alma, published the books until 1962. Subsequent issues of the books were published by Langley Waller and Melvin Tapley until 1967three years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The places listed in Green Books range from hotels and restaurants to night clubs, grocery stores, gas stations, and even "tourist homes," where homeowners welcomed weary travelers to spend the night when they had nowhere else to go. The longest groups of listings are in large cities with significant African American populations, in contrast to small towns in Midwestern states, most of which only include a few listings in later editions of the Green Book.

11/13/2024

William Samuel McTier, born in Thomson, Georgia, in 1898, is better known as the ragtime and blues musician Blind Willie McTell. His use of the 12-string guitar and his smooth and laid-back vocal style made a lasting impression. Performing in the streets of Georgia cities, McTell was first recorded in 1927 by Victor Records. Although a prolific recording artist, McTell never achieved a hit record. However, his influence manifests in the Allman Brothers Band’s cover of his song, Statesboro Blues, and Bob Dylan’s song, Blind Willie McTell. In 1959, while passing through the Milledgeville area, McTell died of a stroke at Central State Hospital, the only hospital in town willing to admit a Black man. McTell is buried in Thomson, Georgia.



https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/ea1c2bead6894d42b923ab332f3eb92e

11/12/2024

We welcome all of the runners this weekend for the Every Woman's Marathon! While in town we hope you’ll join us for an amazing tour! SavannahBlackHistoryTours.com

11/12/2024

On August 1873, the congregation of First Bryan Baptist Church, in conference, decided to tear down the original building built by Rev. Andrew Bryan and erected a new and modernized edifice for worship. The draft of the plan made by John B. Hogg (white), a civil engineer and city surveyor, free of charge, was shown to the congregation. The plan was accepted on September 29, 1873.

The cornerstone for the building (present edifice) was laid on October 13, 1873, by the Grand Lodge of Colored Masons in the State of Georgia, attended by two subordinate Lodges. The cornerstone contained a copper box presented by the Sunday School at a cost of $22 dollars. In the box are artifacts given by the members (jewelry, coins, etc.) and receipts, newspaper clippings and other church records.

The labor on the building was done exclusively by black mechanics under the supervision of the architect. The style of architecture is almost pure Corinthian and is similar in design to that of Wesley Chapel in London, England and the Trinity Methodist Church in Savannah, the plans for which were also made by Mr. Hogg and completed in 1850.

The outer dimensions are: length, 75 feet; breadth, 56 feet; height from the foundation to the peak of the roof, 45 feet; with a belfry above containing a bell. A spacious gallery occupies three sides, which with the lower audience room, provide a seating capacity of 1500 persons. On the inside the distance from the floor to the ceiling is 26 feet. The cost of this building was about $30,000 not including furnishings. A pipe organ was purchased from the Independent Presbyterian Church at a cost of $1, 350. This organ was built by H. Knauff Company of Philadelphia in 1856 and was brought by the Presbyterian Church. It was damaged by fire in 1889 and was sold to First Bryan in the early 1890’s. It is not in use now but remains as a beautiful showpiece in the sanctuary. Plans are now underway to restore this instrument. The building was completed, and on the evening of January 20, 1888, one hundred years after the organization of this first black baptist congregation, special services marking this occasion were held for the first time.

In October 1940, the Yamacraw community became Yamacraw Village when the cornerstone was laid for this well-known federal housing project. First Bryan Church is in this project and extends its services community-wide to serve the population. In 1956, the Educational Building was dedicated. This building contains classrooms, offices and an assembly hall, named for Dr. M. P. Sessoms, who served as superintendent for many years, and under whose leadership the church school was highly organized and functioned effectively as a Christian education center.

The present edifices, built in 1888, and the educational center, are modern and updated in all aspects – physical and program wise. The site, buildings, and furnishings are estimated to be approximately one and a half million dollars. This church is now listed in the National Register of Historic Places.



https://fbbcsav.org

11/11/2024

Yamacraw Village

11/11/2024

Thank you for your service!