Central Pennsylvania's journey
from enslavement to freedom
“History is important. If you don't know history it is as if you were born yesterday. And if you were born yesterday, anybody up there in a position of power can tell you anything, and you have no way of checking up on it.”
― Howard Zinn
"Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train," Deb Ellis, Denis Mueller, directors, Documentary, 2004.
Year of Jubilee back in print
The Afrolumens Project book, The Year of Jubilee (2 volumes), is back in print and available on Amazon. Updated with new covers, the volumes are at the links below.
The Year of Jubilee: Men of God, available here
The Year of Jubilee: Men of Muscle, available here
New Items
What does "Country-born" mean? What are pantaloons, castor hats and pistoles? Why would a captured runaway be put in a goal?
Escape notices, documents and advertisements for enslaved people are filled with obscure and archaic terms. The Afrolumens Project has created a quick-reference glossary:
Afrolumens Glossary of Enslavement Terms..
Read the amazing story of
Enslavement in French Azylum, Pennsylvania..
On This Date
May events important to local African American history (see the whole year)May 1, 1837: The Friends of the Union Convention, also called the Integrity of the Union State Convention, opened at the Dauphin County Courthouse with about one hundred delegates. The purpose of the state convention appears to have been to ease the fears of slaveholders in the Southern states regarding the purpose and beliefs of Pennsylvania's citizens. (Read about how this state convention came about)
May 2, 1837: Anti-slavery activist Thaddeus Stevens attends the statewide anti-abolition Integrity of the Union Convention in Harrisburg with the intent to disrupt and mock the proceedings, which he does. (Read about how Stevens disrupted the convention here)
May 6, 1861: The Confederacy formally recognizes that a state of war exists with the United States of America. Arkansas becomes the ninth state to secede from the Union to join the Confederacy.
May 7, 1878: African American inventor Joseph Winters patents the wagon mounted fire escape ladder for the fire department of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, significantly enhancing the ability of firefighters to rapidly reach people in tall buildings.
May 9, 1800: John Brown is born at Torrington, Connecticut, the son of Owen and Ruth Mills Brown.
May 9, 1846: New England Abolitionist Charles T. Torrey dies in the Maryland Penitentiary of tuberculosis, just hours before a pardon from Maryland Governor Thomas G. Pratt reached the prison warden. In December 1844, Torrey had been convicted in Baltimore of aiding the slaves of Bushrod Taylor of Virginia and the slaves of William Heckrotte, of Baltimore, escape into Pennsylvania.
May 11, 1829: Patty Cannon, notorious kidnapper and leader of the Johnson-Cannon Gang, dies in a Delaware prison while awaiting trial for the murder of three people. (Read a detailed account of her gang's kidnapping operations here)
May 11, 1834: Thomas Morris Chester is born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the fourth child of George and Marie Chester. (More about the Chester Family here)
(In 2002, the cleaned tombstone of T. Morris Chester was unveiled in Lincoln Cemetery.)
May 14, 1838: Pennsylvania Hall opens in Philadelphia as a grand auditorium for anti-slavery and other social reform groups. It would be burned by a mob three days later.
May 17, 1838: Pennsylvania Hall, built by the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society as a meeting place for abolitionists, is burned by a mob incensed about whites and blacks meeting together at a female anti-slavery convention being held there.
May 17, 1954: U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education declares that the doctrine of "separate but equal" in public education is unconstitutional, setting the stage for the desegregation of American schools.
May 18, 1896: U.S. Supreme Court decision in Plessey vs. Ferguson establishes the doctrine of "separate but equal" public facilities for African Americans.
May 19, 1925: Malcolm X is born in Omaha, Nebraska.
May 20, 1861: North Carolina secedes, becoming the tenth state to join the Confederacy.
May 24, 1852: James Phillips, a longtime Harrisburg resident, is remanded south by U.S. Slave Commissioner Richard McAllister, causing an uproar not only in Harrisburg's African American community, but with local whites as well. Attorney Charles C. Rawn is dispatched to Richmond with $800 to buy Phillips' freedom. (Read a detailed version of this event here)
May 26, 1926: Jazz musician Miles Davis is born in St. Louis, Missouri.
May 28, 1866: William Justin Carter is born at Richmond, Virginia. A successful and prominent African American attorney in Harrisburg, W. Justin Carter was denied admission to the Dauphin County Bar on June 10, 1904 because of his race. Ninety-seven years later the Dauphin County Bar voted to admit him posthumously to correct an "egregious mistake." (Read more about W. Justin Carter here)
May 31, 1921: Beginning of a two-day race riot in Tulsa, Oklahoma that kills eighty-one people.
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