Falmanac: The Fallston Almanac of American History
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(Wikipedia) The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (usually referred to as the Freedmen's Bureau) was a U.S. federal government agency that aided distressed refugees of the American Civil War.
(Wikipedia) Harold Norwood "Barney" Ewell (February 25, 1918 – April 4, 1996) was an American athlete, winner of one gold and two silver medals at the 1948 Summer Olympics.
(Wikipedia) - Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 14, 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American abolitionist, women's suffragist, editor, orator, author, statesman and reformer. Called "The Sage of Anacostia" and "The Lion of Anacostia", Douglass is one of the most prominent figures in African-American and United States history. In 1872, Douglass became the first African American nominated as a Vice Presidential candidate in the U.S., running on the Equal Rights Party ticket with Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for President of the United States.
(Wikipedia) Lucille Clifton (June 27, 1936 Depew, New York – February 13, 2010 Baltimore, Maryland) was an American writer and educator from Buffalo, New York. ... In 1967, they moved to Baltimore, Maryland. Her first poetry collection Good Times was published in 1969, and listed by The New York Times as one of the year's 10 best books. From 1971 to 1974, Lucille Clifton was poet-in-residence at Coppin State College in Baltimore. From 1979 to 1985, she was Poet Laureate of the state of Maryland. Continued
(Wikipedia) The Race Riot of 1908 in Lincoln's hometown of Springfield, Illinois had highlighted the urgent need for an effective civil rights organization in the U.S. This event is often cited as the catalyst for the formation of the NAACP. Mary White Ovington, journalist William English Walling and Henry Moscowitz met in New York City in January 1909 and the NAACP was born. Solicitations for support went out to more than 60 prominent Americans, and a meeting date was set for February 12, 1909. This was intended to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the birth of President Abraham Lincoln, who emancipated enslaved African Americans. While the meeting did not take place until three months later, this date is often cited as the founding date of the organization. Continued
(Wikipedia) Daniel Hale Williams (January 18, 1856 – August 4, 1931) was an American surgeon. He was the first African-American cardiologist, and is attributed with performing the first successful surgery on the heart. He also founded Provident Hospital, the first non-segregated hospital in the United States. Continued
(NYTimes) As dawn broke across a cloudless New Year's Day sky over the South Carolina Sea Islands, Charlotte Forten, a black Pennsylvania missionary who had come south to teach local freed people, set out for Camp Saxton, a waterside settlement on Port Royal Island, near the town of Beaufort. After a short ride on an old carriage that was pulled by "a remarkably slow horse," Forten boarded a ship for the trip up the Beaufort River.
A band entertained the white and back passengers on the warm winter morning as they steamed toward the headquarters of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, a regiment made up of former slaves. By midday a crowd of thousands - comprising not only teachers like Forten but also Union soldiers, northern ministers and ex-slaves - had gathered in the largest live-oak grove Forten had ever seen. Located on a plantation a few miles outside of Beaufort, Camp Saxton was, according to Thomas D. Howard, another Northern missionary teaching in the Sea Islands, "ideal for the occasion."
Why had they come? It was the first day of 1863, yes, but more important, it was the day that Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was scheduled to take effect. Continued
(Wikipedia) Cabell "Cab" Calloway III (December 25, 1907 – November 18, 1994) was an American jazz singer and bandleader.
Calloway was a master of energetic scat singing and led one of the United States' most popular African American big bands from the start of the 1930s through the late 1940s. Calloway's band featured performers including trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Adolphus "Doc" Cheatham, saxophonists Ben Webster and Leon "Chu" Berry, New Orleans guitar ace Danny Barker, and bassist Milt Hinton. Calloway continued to perform until his death in 1994 at the age of 86. Continued
(Wikipedia) Howard Ellsworth Rollins, Jr. (October 17, 1950 – December 8, 1996) was an American television, film, and stage actor. He is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Coalhouse Walker, Jr. in the film Ragtime, and for his portrayal of Virgil Tibbs in the NBC/CBS television series In the Heat of the Night. The youngest of four children, Rollins was born in Baltimore, Maryland where he studied theater at Towson State College nearby. Continued
(LoC) Joseph Jenkins Roberts declared Liberia,
formerly a colony of the American Colonization Society, an independent republic
on July 26, 1847. He was elected the first president of the republic in 1848. A
native of Petersburg, Virginia, Roberts immigrated to Liberia in 1829 at the age
of twenty under the auspices of the American Colonization Society. The Society
was organized in late December 1816 by a group which included Henry Clay, James
Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Francis Scott Key, Bushrod Washington, and Daniel
Webster. The colonization scheme, controversial from the outset among blacks and
whites alike, was conceived as an alternative to emancipation. Continued
(NYTimes) On July 12, 1862, Abraham Lincoln met privately in the White House, for the second time, with most of the senators and congressmen from the loyal slave states – Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri. It wasn’t the most relaxed of meetings: most of these delegates were Democrats; some grudgingly supported the war effort, while others were more enthusiastic about the Union cause, as long as the conflict was solely for the purpose of restoring the Union.
Many of them were slave owners, and virtually all supported slavery — like the Confederates, they believed that the proper status of blacks was as slaves, or, where circumstances warranted, as free people with limited rights. Most agreed with Chief Justice Roger B. Taney’s conclusion in the 1857 case Dred Scott v. Sandford that blacks could never be citizens of the United States. Except for the handful of Republicans in the gathering, the delegation undoubtedly hoped to see Lincoln defeated in the 1864 election. Continued
(Wikipedia) John Hunn (June 29, 1849 – September 1, 1926) was an American businessman and politician from Camden, in Kent County, Delaware. He was a member of the Republican Party who served as Governor of Delaware.
... Hunn's father, also John Hunn, was a noted abolitionist and chief engineer of the Underground Railroad in Delaware. Shortly after the younger John's birth, the family lost their New Castle County farm, "Happy Valley," in a sheriff's sales because of fines assessed for helping runaway slaves. They then went to live with family at Magnolia, Delaware. Continued
(Disunion) In the minds of many Southerners, the capture of New Orleans on April 25, 1862, by Union forces was more than simply a troubling military loss. It also raised the disturbing possibility that divine punishment was being inflicted on a spiritually wayward and sinful Confederacy.
The loss of the South’s most important port and largest city had followed on the heels of the loss of Tennessee’s Fort Henry and Fort Donelson in February and the ignominious retreat from Shiloh in early April. These setbacks, after the virtually uninterrupted Southern successes of 1861, caused many across the Confederacy to wonder, in the words of the South Carolina diarist Pauline DeCaradeuc Heyward, if “these reversals and terrible humiliations … come from Him to humble our hearts and remind us of our total helplessness without His aid.” Continued
Photo: E. P. Alexander
(LoC) On April 16, 1862, President Lincoln signed an act abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia, an important step in the long road toward full emancipation and enfranchisement for African Americans. ... Before 1850, slave pens, slave jails, and auction blocks were a common site in the District of Columbia, a hub of the domestic slave trade. Continued
(NYTimes) ... Three days later, Lincoln wrote to Henry J. Raymond, the editor of The New York Times, pointing out that “one half-day’s cost of this war would pay for all the slaves in Delaware, at four hundred dollars per head.” Indeed, “eighty-seven days cost of this war would pay for all in Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Kentucky and Missouri at the same price.” The Times subsequently editorialized that the words of Lincoln’s message “will echo round the globe. They will recover us the respect once felt for us in the Old World. In dealing with this vexed subject we think he has hit the happy mean upon which all parties in the North and all loyalists in the South can unite.” Continued
(Andrea Wulf) In August 1827, a 33-year-old slave named James F. Brown ran away from a plantation in Maryland. Before he escaped, he wrote a letter explaining his actions and vowed that once he had earned enough money he would reimburse his owner, Susan Williams, to prove “that I dont mean to be dishonest but wish to pay her every cent that I think my Servaces is worth.” Brown’s letter reveals much about his character. He was orderly and moderate. He hated to do something that was “criminal” but felt he had no choice. His had not been a hasty or unreasonable decision. He was only taking the freedom that had rightfully been given by his previous master, who had promised it before his death. Continued
