Ballad Health celebrates Black History Month: 10 facts to know about our region

We asked Anne G’fellers-Mason, executive director and historian at The Heritage Alliance of Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia, to share some Black history facts from our own region. How many of these stories have you heard?

Be sure to visit the Heritage Alliance website heritageall.org for more local history, and to access the “Social/Racial Justice Resource Sheet” created in collaboration with the Langston Centre and The McKinney Center at Booker T. Washington School. You’ll find links to regional initiatives and resources for parents, educators and the public about racial and social justice.

Did you know?

1. 1820: The Emancipator, published in Jonesborough, was the first periodical dedicated to abolitionism.

   

   The Emancipator, published and funded by Quaker Elihu Embree, began circulation on April 30, 1820, from the town of Jonesborough and was printed in Jacob Howard’s print shop. The Emancipator was the first periodical dedicated exclusively to the cause of abolitionism. Jacob Howard’s print shop, now destroyed, stood on the corner of Main Street and First Avenue in Jonesborough’s Historic District. The paper had seven editions and readership in Boston and Philadelphia. Elihu Embree passed away in December of 1820. His will manumitted, or set free from slavery, his enslaved woman Nancy and her five children. In stark contrast to his beliefs, Embree was an enslaver for most of his life. He was honest, to a degree, about his shortcomings in The Emancipator. Despite these shortcomings, his paper helped influence and champion the cause of abolitionism.

 

2. 1842: Before the Civil War, the Ford vs. Ford court case in Washington County, Tennessee, legally upheld Lloyd Floyd’s will to leave his estate to his enslaved children, rather than to his white children. When Washington County farmer Lloyd Ford, Sr., passed away in 1842, he left a large amount of his estate to his enslaved people and children, including Peggy, Rhoda and Edward. He also manumitted them in his will. His white children protested the will and the case went first to the Washington County Court before making it to the Tennessee Supreme Court. Ford’s enslaved heirs were not allowed to stand trial, so Phoebe Stuart, a white woman, agreed to be their “Next Friend” and testify on their behalf. In his final judgement, Supreme Court Justice Nathan Green upheld the decision of the Washington County Court and ruled in favor of Peggy, Rhoda and Edward saying, “A slave is not in the condition of a horse or an ox. His liberty is restrained, it is true … But he is made after the image of the Creator. He has mental capacities, and an immortal principle in his nature, that constitute him equal to his owner but for the accidental position in which fortune has placed him …” Finally, in 1850, Ford’s enslaved children gained their freedom and their rightful portion of the estate. Today, members of the Ford family, both black and white, gather for a family reunion.

 

3. 1874: The first African Americans ran for office in a Jonesborough town election.

   

   James C. Cousins and James A. Bailey ran for Trustee and Register in the local election as the first African Americans to run for office in Jonesborough. James C. Cousins was a barber and his barbershop was on Main Street near the courthouse. He also owned a candy store. The two men were ultimately defeated in the election, but the Herald & Tribune reported on their historic run, saying, “They are both industrious men and their claims are entitled to consideration.”

 

4. 1876: Following the Civil War, Yardley Warner opened the Warner Institute, a school for people recently manumitted from enslavement in Jonesborough.

   

   He worked with the Friends Freedmen’s Association to establish the school at the top of East Main Street where it was maintained until 1887 by teacher and principal Julia Bullard Nelson. Nelson was very firm in her beliefs, and she had an ongoing war of the words and opinions with the Jonesborough Journal. In one of her replies to them she stated, “I do believe that a black heart is infinitely worse than a black skin.” In 1895, Miss Cordy Bayless became the first alumnus from the school to teach there. The school continued to serve the African American community until 1917 when it was sold and became a private residence. The brick house still stands today beside the Old Jonesborough Cemetery.

 

5. 1893: Langston Normal School was founded by Dr. Hezekiah Hankal to provide secondary education opportunities for the African American Community in Washington County. Born enslaved, Dr. Hankal was a medical doctor, ordained minister and a civic leader. He was the first African American elected to the Johnson City Board of Aldermen in 1887.

 

6. 1896: African American nurse Ella Russell, a graduate of Howard Medical Training School in Washington, D.C., advertised herself as the only “hospital-trained nurse in East Tennessee.” At the time she was residing with James C. Cousins in his house on West Main Street in Jonesborough as his live-in nurse, but she was “ready, at any time to go when called upon.” She treated both black and white patients and was recommended by local physicians including Doctors J.S. Stuart, T.W. Whitlock and Niles N. Warlick. When James passed away, he left Ella his house as back payment for his medical debts. Ella sold the property on the corner of West Main and First Avenue, the same location of Elihu Embree’s historic paper all those years earlier, and moved to Washington, D.C. with her husband.

 

7. 1900: Former slave, Jonesborough native and Buffalo Soldier Alfred Martin Ray fought in the Spanish American War at the Battle of San Juan Hill and was credited with helping carry the American flag to the top of the hill. Alfred Martin Ray and his twin brother John were born enslaved to Dr. Joseph Rhea and were most likely his biological children. After the Civil War and emancipation, Alfred enlisted in the U.S. Army. They changed the spelling of his last name from Rhea to Ray. He was a part of the 10th U.S. Calvary known as the “Buffalo Soldiers.” In 1898, he married Etta Smith of Jonesborough, and when he retired after more than 20 years in the United States Army, he returned to Jonesborough, and the couple settled on West Woodrow Avenue. Alfred passed away on July 11, 1917, and is buried in College Hill Cemetery.

 

8. 1927/1928: African American musicians El Watson and duo Tater & Gay were among musicians recorded at the Bristol Sessions. When Ralph Peer of the Victor Talking Machine Company recorded country music in Bristol, African American musician El Watson brought his harmonica in 1927 and recorded songs including “Pot Licker Blues” and “Narrow Gauge Blues.” In 1928, the duo of Tater & Gay recorded such songs as “Unknown Blues” and “Brownie Blues.” Their music, and music recorded by other African American country and blues artists, was oftentimes labeled under “Race Records” in advertisements.

 

9. 1940: The Booker T. Washington School opened on Oct. 7, 1940, to first- through eighth-grade students from the African American community as a Works Progress Administration project. It replaced the Jonesborough Colored School, also known as the “School on the Rocks” on Spring Street. African American high school students were bussed to segregated Langston High School in Johnson City. Booker T. Washington School closed in 1965 when Washington County Schools were finally integrated. Today, the building belongs to the Town of Jonesborough and is an arts center for the entire community. It is named in honor of the McKinney family and their legacy. Ernest McKinney was a teacher and principal at the school from 1956-1957.

 

10. 

    1968: On the same day that Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in Memphis, Ernest McKinney became the first African American to be elected to the Board of Mayor and Aldermen in Jonesborough. His wife, Marion McKinney, was instrumental in the fight to desegregate Washington County Schools and worked as a guidance counselor within the system for a number of years. In 1988, their son Kevin McKinney was elected mayor of Jonesborough.