7
Leaders
We have men among us who would shine in any sphere, and shed lustre on any position, however high. We have orators who with words of fire can enchant and electrify an audience; divines, eminent for their virtues, piety, eloquence, and theological and scholastic lore; poets, who breathe their thoughts in harmonious numbers; writers, whose productions would grace the library of the most learned and refined; mechanics, inventors, merchants, men of scientific attainments, men of wealth, professional men, and in fact, representatives of every station, and every avocation and grade in life. . . . Some of these men were born under the influence of slavery; some may have been slaves themselves, all have felt the baneful effects of that prejudice which American slavery engenders; all! all!! have suffered that martyrdom of the soul which the colored American has to bear when he aspires to a higher status than that of a serf.
San Francisco Pacific Appeal, May 23, 1863
Despite the color barriers that hemmed it in, Black San Francisco's organized social life was rich. Sensitive, race-conscious Afro-Americans, roused by the social, economic, and political injustices leveled at their race, formed institutions, held offices, and worked with other Blacks to improve conditions; this stripped Blacks of their anonymity and gave them a sense of control over their lives. Meeting regularly at the state and local levels, the organizations interpreted the injustices from which Blacks suffered, recalled historical traditions, and provided values and the means to realize them. At the same time, the leaders developed valuable organizational
skills. The setting that produced the ethnic institutions was made up of many parts, each complex in itself. Among them were prejudice, the opportunities available to ordinary Black San Franciscans, and the backgrounds of those who founded and led the institutions.
For many Afro-Americans, the lack of a family was compensated for by membership in churches, fraternal lodges, benevolent societies, and literary and social clubs. These organizations provided valuable connections on the Pacific slope and in cities along the Atlantic coast. For five decades, San Franciscans dominated the Black world from British Columbia to southern California and east as far as Utah. Their influence, which belied their numbers, went unchallenged until the rise of Black Los Angeles shortly before World War I.
Before 1848, racial prejudice seemed virtually non-existent in California. In Hispanic California, cultural, class, and national differences were significant, but race was not foremost in the minds of settlers until large numbers of United States citizens arrived. Historian Eugene Berwanger claims: "White Californians and Indians accepted Negroes as equal individuals before 1848 and even intermarriage among the three groups was not frowned upon."[1]
The English-speaking newcomers who made California a state behaved according to the practices prevailing in the United States in the mid-nineteenth century; those practices included slavery and Jim Crow laws. Entrance to the union brought an end to the peculiar institution in California, although a few Blacks remained enslaved as long as their masters were temporary residents. California statutes excluded non-whites from voting, from serving in the militia, from testifying in court when whites were involved, and from marrying whites. Like several midwestern states, California also tried to exclude Negroes from settlement in the 1850s.[2] In addition to bondage and discriminatory legislation, American customs limited the work world of Black Californians. Afro-Americans were unpopular in the gold fields because of the belief that they were too lucky. In San Francisco they suffered various kinds of economic discrimination (see Chapter 3).[3]
Social restrictions also humiliated Afro-Americans. Discrimination in public places aroused protests and resulted in some court cases. At the turn of the century, the proprietor of the Baldwin Hotel, a leading San Francisco establishment, explained that the race issue was treated delicately by both the hotel management and Black customers. Although "it would be impolitic to discuss it in the press," he observed that "the colored people who travel are, as a rule, as intelligent as white folk and, being as sensitive, do not often place themselves or us in embarrassing positions." As a consequence, "happily the color line does not enter into
our calculation."[4] But a hotel clerk spoke more candidly: "It is a law in all first-class hotels throughout the country . . . never to give accommodation to negroes. Of course, the line is drawn in a delicate way, so as not to give offense or to render the manager liable to the law." The subtlety shown here makes it difficult to accurately assess racism in San Francisco's social life.[5]
Yet it is fairly clear that even the "better element" of Black pioneers suffered from discrimination. Peter Jackson, the prize fighter, figured in an incident at the Baldwin Hotel. He registered, went out, then returned to find that his registration and baggage had been switched to a room in the hotel annex. Jackson told reporters he had never encountered anything like this in his lifetime. A local bootblack also expressed the disbelief that Jackson and other Blacks must have felt. "'It's a shame,' said a colored bootblack at one of the hotels, 'to refuse to give a room to such a gentleman as Peter Jackson. Didn't he walk arm in arm with the Marquis of Queensberry in Picadilly? Didn't he shake the hand of the Prince of Wales? Ain't he the best fighter in the world?' And the bootblack expectorated in disgust. 'Some of these hotel men make me tired [!]'" By including prominent as well as anonymous Blacks, discrimination outraged and united Americans who otherwise shared very little.[6]
Clearly California was not as oppressive as the deep south. Southerners openly expressed their racist views-unlike the Baldwin Hotel proprietor. Before westerners viewed Black Americans as a threat, they victimized Asians, discriminating against the Chinese in the nineteenth century and the Japanese in the twentieth.[7] But there is not sufficient evidence to support James Weldon Johnson's comparison of San Francisco with the Jim Crow south and some northern cities. Traveling with a song and dance team a few years before the earthquake, Johnson found "no bar against me in hotels, restaurants, theaters, or other places of public accommodation and entertainment." He delighted in the freedom of the city, moving about "with a sense of confidence and security, and entirely from under the cloud of doubt and apprehension that constantly hangs over an intelligent Negro in every Southern city and in a great many cities of the North."[8]
Despite Johnson's opinion and the difficulty of assessing California's racial climate, it is certain that prejudice did humiliate and degrade Afro-Americans, even if only occasionally. Prejudice was mild compared to anti-Chinese sentiments or Negrophobia in the south, but it was still disturbing, partly because it was not as iron-clad as elsewhere. Blacks could never be sure if they would be evicted from a streetcar, assigned to the rear in civic parades, refused service in public accommodations, or, as in the 1940s, restricted to certain rows on the commuter train from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Informants who lived in the Bay Area before 1930 invariably
minimized the extent of race prejudice in public places before the 1920s, but they admitted its enormous effect on employment patterns.[9]
The leadership roles and organized activities of the Black San Franciscans stemmed as much from the city's unique opportunities as from race oppression. The booming economy of pioneer days provided funds for a vast array of social and cultural institutions, some of which survived more than a century. Although the economy's spectacular growth abated in the late nineteenth century, San Francisco and Oakland continued to sustain religious, cultural, and civic organizations. The social benefits of life in a remote worldly city appealed to the Black residents, as it did to other northern Californians. Chances for status, recognition, association, and elevation met important social needs and gave individuals an identity and self-esteem. It was only natural that being a church leader, newspaper columnist, Masonic officer, or guest at refined social affairs would be meaningful to former slaves and descendants of slaves. The Black cultural heritage also accounted for the desire to become involved in social activities. Like others, Blacks came to the Bay Area to improve their material condition, and American social institutions provided the means. As they had belonged to ethnic associations before migration, it was natural for Blacks to form independent or branch organizations in San Francisco.[10]
The Black newspapers wrote about Black needs. In 1862, the Pacific Appeal reminded its readers that, "notwithstanding the flippant doctrine of inferiority, . . . we are just like other men, in inclination, instinct and capacity, and can do whatever it is right and proper that other men should do, similarly circumstanced." Because of these basic similarities, "every project for his social well-being that attracts the attention of the white American should also attract the attention of the colored American."[11] But because of oppression, Blacks had "special duties to perform, a special work to accomplish, different and distinct from any other class in the community." In an editorial, "Special Work for Colored Men," the paper urged its readers to form political, religious, and moral organizations, because that was the American method of social improvement. Moreover, Blacks must organize to attain their legal rights. Clubs and societies should be formed "wherever there are half a dozen Colored people." Although they could accept aid from friendly whites, the principles of self-help were stressed: "As we are the parties most concerned, we should petition [for our rights] ourselves."[12] Winning the right to testify in court and to receive equal educational benefits required organization "in every town or precinct where there are Colored." The journal also emphasized the necessity of supporting a newspaper for the race, then concluded: "These things are a portion of the special work which Colored men have to perform, and they
are derelict to themselves, their country and their race, if they neglect them."[13]
Because oppressive conditions persisted, some Black pioneers held to this point of view for several decades, maintaining and enlarging their numerous institutions (with the exception of the Black schools, which were absorbed in the 1870s). But after the Civil War a different opinion emerged as one barrier after another fell before new legislation, constitutional amendments, and a growing optimism that Blacks would eventually become assimilated. Four California State Conventions of Colored Citizens (or Colored California Conventions) were held between 1855 and 1865; an attempt to convene a fifth failed during Reconstruction, indicating that many Afro-Americans no longer felt a need for such conventions.[14]
Meanwhile the Elevator reminded its readers that "in all our communities there are separate and distinct social relations which no law can rule or govern, nor is it desirable they should." This is "one of the attributes of our present high state of civilization, and it marks the progress of the human race." If Blacks abandon their separate institutions, "where will we go?" Black churches, newspapers, and associations reflect the fact that, despite common public and political interests, American "social interests are distinct, and on these grounds require separate organizations."[15] As long as Blacks are seen as members of a specific race, they should maintain their own institutions. "Until we can separate ourselves from the race with which we are identified, and each one can unite with the class with which we affiliate by education, fortune, and other adventitious circumstances, we must maintain our separate organizations; and to keep up a unity of thought, feeling, and interest, frequent deliberation is necessary." Many Afro-American leaders shared these views; the alternative was exclusion from influential positions in Bay Area society.[16]
Against the backdrop of urban growth, war and reconciliation, the pursuit of wealth, and continental and overseas expansion, a small core of dedicated Afro-Americans labored daily, though virtually unnoticed, for the cause of human rights. They lacked the advantages of birth and education, but felt as talented and as deserving of recognition as most citizens. These humanists formed institutions and supported causes with remarkable zeal and perseverance. The skills of the leading Black urbanites contrast sharply with our preconceptions of Afro-Americans. While many contemporaries held them in low regard, Blacks appreciated their own attainments, as reflected by their leaders. In a series of articles on California's "representative [Black] men," the Pacific Appeal observed: "We have men among us who would shine in any sphere, and shed lustre on any position, however high."
Many of these exemplars resided in San Francisco, and all were without the benefits of high birth or extensive formal education. Two San Franciscans, William H. Newby of the Mirror of the Times and William H. Hall, president of the 1857 Convention, were typical of the Californians described by the Appeal as "mostly self-made and self-educated men, . . . [without] the advantages of an early liberal education." A closer look at other leading Afro-Americans sheds light on their unusual qualities and their social contributions.[17]
Actual bondage and an antislavery tradition motivated William H. Yates to reform American society. A steamboat steward in the 1860s, Yates was president of the Colored Convention in 1855, indicating the high esteem in which he was held by Black Californians.[18] Born a slave in Alexandria, Virginia in 1816, Yates chafed from the cruelties inflicted by alcoholic relatives of his master. He eventually gained his freedom, but rather than leave the slave south he stayed to help runaways escape, and also worked to purchase his family from bondage. When local officials became suspicious, Yates moved to New York City. He migrated with his family to California shortly after the Gold Rush.[19]
In the east, Yates had learned leadership and organization while active in a benevolent and a moral reform society, forming a military band, and speaking out against the colonization of Blacks. As a porter of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1837-42, the former slave was said to have become "better versed in the political history of the country and the science of our government than many professional politicians." But prejudice forced him to earn a living as a porter, a steward, a keeper of a hackney stable, and later as a restaurant owner in New York City. His "knowledge of Congressional affairs, his legal acquirements and his personal influence made him the most fitting person to preside" at the First Colored California Convention.[20] Besides continuing to participate in the conventions, Yates served on the San Francisco Executive Committee, a steering organ which assumed political leadership when the conventions were not in session. Under the pen name "Amigo," he wrote letters to the Pacific Appeal and was responsible for starting the Elevator in 1865. Yates, a Mason, supported the religious activities of Black San Franciscans.[21]
The ex-slave shared these social responsibilities with other former bondsmen, including Reverend John J. Moore, James R. Starkey, and David Ruggles. T. B. Morton, founder of the Afro-American League in California, and J. C. Rivers were other former slaves active in various civil rights and social organizations at the end of the century. Despite their origins and the menial positions society reserved for them, these men held numerous prestigious offices in Black San Francisco. Their experiences as slaves naturally lent a strong abolitionist strain to their humanitarian
endeavors, and their personal fortunes often suffered because of this reformist impulse.[22]
Another leading pioneer, Henry M. Collins, a steamboat steward, exemplified the talented and organization-minded free-born individuals who served San Francisco. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, about 1820, he worked on the steamers plying the Ohio River and earned a reputation as a shrewd real estate speculator before he was twenty-one. In 1847 he established a newspaper, the Mystery, with Martin R. Delany, the colonizationist, Black nationalist, and military officer, and Alexander Ferguson, a barber who also migrated to San Francisco. Collins, moreover, was credited with discovering how to erect "an improved style of building." In 1852 Delany observed that Collins stood "among the men of note" in Pittsburgh.[23]
Besides migrating with his family to California and speculating in Cariboo, Canada, Collins actively promoted Black causes. When a savings fund and land association was formed in San Francisco in 1859, Collins was its president; he also played a leading role in the convention movement, helped launch the Mirror of the Times, worked in the petition drive to win the right to testify in court, and served on the Executive Committee. In 1864 he effected the A.M.E. Zion Church's purchase of the First Unitarian Church building on Stockton Street. His leading part in a variety of endeavors was typical of a number of race-conscious Blacks, particularly in pioneer days. In the twentieth century, the activities of such distinguished and prosperous lawyers as Oscar Hudson and Walter A. Butler were reminiscent of Henry Collins in an earlier age.[24]
Significantly, these Afro-San Franciscans might have abandoned their ethnic identity in the tradition of those white Americans who left the slums to become assimilated. Their dedication to improving Afro-American life shows that humanitarian strains and racial loyalties were frequently stimulated by personal experiences. Because middle-class Blacks are often thought to merely pursue creature comforts and engage in conspicuous consumption, it is impressive to see relatively affluent Afro-Americans with strong racial loyalties—especially when their status shielded them from some of racism's effects. The existence of pride in the heritage of a people close to slavery is also noteworthy.[25]
A few Black San Franciscans, the heads of churches and newspapers, known as "race men" in the early twentieth century, made institutional activities a life-long pursuit. Reverend T. M. D. Ward and Philip A. Bell exemplified those who remain unknown and unheralded. Ward's abilities as a minister and orator led to his selection as a "representative Californian" in 1863. As missionary elder for the Pacific coast in 1854, he took over the San Francisco A.M.E. Church, also known as Bethel or
Union Bethel. Other ministers helped in the services, but Ward was "the first regularly ordained [A.M.E.] minister" in the region. His successes in purchasing and remodeling a new building in San Francisco and in starting new churches along the Pacific coast resulted in his reappointment, "with additional powers," in 1861. In 1868 he became episcopal superintendent for the region before leaving to work in the south during Reconstruction.[26]
An eloquent orator, Ward was touted as "golden-mouthed," "the greatest preacher the [A.M.E.] church ever produced." Similarly, the Pacific Appeal described his voice as so "full-toned and sonorous, [that] at times its intonations [were] almost musical." A contemporary noted that Ward's speeches, always brief, were the "best short sermons (from twelve to fifteen minutes) of any one he ever heard." A white passenger on a steamship who heard Ward speak extemporaneously in 1868 left his impressions: "For beauty of conception, elegance of diction, and thorough comprehension of the task his Master had allotted him, [he] could not be surpassed by the most gifted prelates of the day." Afterwards, "all who could get near the modest Bishop did so, pressed his hand and offered congratulations."[27] A distant relation of Samuel Ringgold Ward, the distinguished abolitionist orator and Congregational minister, Thomas Ward was born in Hanover, Pennsylvania in 1823. His formal education was limited. Converted in 1838, licensed to preach at the age of twenty, and ordained an elder in 1848, Ward was associated with New England churches until his migration to California in 1854.[28]
Several other ordained ministers were prominent leaders. Reverend John J. Moore was born into slavery after his free-born mother was kidnapped by slavers; eventually they escaped. One of the founders of San Francisco's A.M.E. Zion Church, Moore also started the city's Black public school. He published a short-lived periodical, the Lunar Visitor, worked in the Colored Conventions, and wrote newspaper articles on Black politics. Interest in politics and freedmen eventually led both Moore and Ward to travel south during Reconstruction.[29]
A sojourn on the west coast was not uncommon for Black ministers and race leaders of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Talented and often eloquent, they met Blacks' spiritual and social needs at a time of severe discrimination. The leaders' anonymity stems from their race and their cause, rather than from their deficiencies. Neglect of the Pacific coast's role in Afro-American history compounds the problems. For example, the story of Bishop Alexander Walters's life is fairly well known, except for the Pacific slope phase. A bishop in the A.M.E. Zion Church, Walters presided over the first Pan-African Conference in London in 1900. His early years were spent as a minister on the Pacific slope; in the 1880s he was appointed to the San Francisco Zion Methodist Church.[30]
Other Afro-Americans, once well known on the east coast, dropped out of sight on the Pacific slope. For example, Philip A. Bell virtually disappears from eastern-oriented histories after his move west, and he has not been treated by contemporary historians, despite his journalistic and political accomplishments. At the time of his death in 1889, Black newspapers heralded Bell as "the Napoleon of the colored press." With his passing, they wrote, "the Negro race loses the oldest and one of the ablest" of American editors. For years the Elevator had been "the oldest secular Negro newspaper" in the United States, having outlived Frederick Douglass' Paper and other journals. It was not Bell's only attempt in the field of journalism.[31]
Born in 1808 and educated in the African Free School in New York City, Bell attended the first American Negro Convention in 1830, was secretary of the second, and was active in others. He organized a protest against the formation of a New York branch of the American Colonization Society, and helped draft a report on the social conditions of free Negroes. Moving into journalism, Bell was among the first New York agents for the Liberator, the abolitionist journal of William Lloyd Garrison. In 1837 he launched and sustained the New York Weekly Advocate, later the Colored American, "the chief organ of the colored people" until 1841. He was also head of an intelligence office in New York and in San Francisco. As a labor recruiter, Bell earned a reputation for his humanitarianism in the U.S. and in England.[32]
Bell developed a number of life-long associations with well-known and less famous Afro-Americans. In New York, he associated with such prominent Blacks as Frederick Douglass, James McCune Smith, Henry Highland Garnet, and other abolitionists and temperance leaders. Bell maintained these contacts after he migrated to California on the eve of the Civil War. His newspapers, first the Pacific Appeal and later the Elevator, were instrumental for maintaining contact with leading Blacks in the east coast cities. Thanks to Bell, Pacific coast Blacks were informed of major developments and new publications on the Atlantic shore.[33] Bell also aided the Black quest for equal rights and justice. Shortly after migration, he read selections from Shakespeare to help pay the court costs of the California fugitive slave, Archy Lee. He also served as recording secretary of the San Francisco Literary Institute and president of the San Francisco Executive Committee; he had a reputation for keeping "the colored voters in unbroken harmony, in state, municipal and national elections" for the Republican party. His political service won him the honorific but noteworthy office of assistant sergeant-at-arms of the California Senate in 1879.[34]
A life's devotion to the cause of his race brought Bell few material
rewards. His newspaper and political activities drew most of his energies and meager finances; simply keeping the Elevator solvent would have sorely tried a younger man. Its circulation was "about 800"—large for the population, but small in business terms. By the end of his career, Bell lived on meals donated by the Palace Hotel kitchen help and on funds raised by volunteers. Typically for a nineteenth-century Black who dedicated himself so fully to human rights, he died in relative obscurity—and in Bell's case, in the local almshouse.[35]
We might for a moment compare Bell to Frederick Douglass, the leading Afro-American spokesman from the 1840s until his death in 1895. Lacking Douglass's oratorical abilities, Bell dedicated himself more fully to journalism. After he stopped publishing his paper in 1863, Douglass held numerous high offices, while Bell struggled on in comparative obcurity, continuing the Elevator and attempting to galvanize Afro-Americans. Though Douglass's accomplishments are overwhelming, Bell's remain impressive. Bell's free-born status made his rise to prominence less dramatic than Douglass's, and the lack of an autobiography has also hindered appreciation of Bell's achievements. But the quality and longevity of Bell's newspapers, spanning five decades, offer valuable documentation of his thoughts on politics, race relations, and the Negro's progress in the nineteenth century. They are also invaluable for studying Black social and cultural life of that era.[36] Like Douglass, Bell kept the abolitionist heritage alive when the nation's thoughts were elsewhere. Unlike Douglass, a diplomat, confidant of presidents, and occupant of federal offices, Bell—like a number of Blacks—never reaped large rewards. Bell's poignant final years underline both American society's neglect of Black talent and the nation's appalling lack of interest in racial and humanitarian issues during the Gilded Age.
Bell was clearly the most talented Negro journalist in the United States in the nineteenth century. His rival, Peter Anderson of the Pacific Appeal, lacked Bell's experience, political following, and connections. Few newspapermen were able to surround themselves with capable writers, organizers, and orators, as Bell was; and Bell in turn gave his loyal following a number of opportunities to hold offices and serve as correspondents. While the Pacific Appeal closed with Anderson's death, Bell's journal continued under the leadership of James B. Wilson until it merged with the Pacific Coast Appeal, published by William H. Blake and George Watkins.[37]
In the late nineteenth century there were several Black-published journals in San Francisco. They lasted for only a few years, and not many issues remain, but their very existence in a city of a mere sixteen hundred Negroes highlights the importance Blacks placed on having an op-
portunity to plead their cause. James E. Brown, a pioneer resident and one of the few regular Democratic party supporters in the 1880s, edited the Vindicator . In the 1890s, Augustus A. Collins and R. C. O. Benjamin published the Sentinel .[38] As the twentieth century approached, racism and a felt need caused a number of leaders to emerge in the field. Beginning in 1894, J. S. Francis and J. L. Derrick published The Western Outlook, and noted that for Blacks, journalism was "a hazardous undertaking at best." But the publishers of the several organs in San Francisco and the East Bay were talented, and they had the support of their readers. The California Voice of E. A. Daly and his wife began in the 1920s and continued under their guidance for five decades, when new management assumed control.[39]
Although she did not have her own newspaper, Delilah Beasley established a reputation as a journalist in a field dominated by men. She wrote for the Cleveland Gazette and Cincinnati Inquirer before migrating west around World War I, and then for the Oakland Tribune . Besides playing a leading role in colored women's clubs, Beasley sought out the Black pioneers and their descendants, collected their nineteenth-century newspapers, interviewed aged residents, and wrote a history of California's Negroes. The first work of its kind, it remains the most important secondary source on the topic sixty years after its appearance.[40]
Focusing on leaders has some shortcomings. While Black people viewed these individuals as "representative," they mainly exemplified self-flattering qualities which were thought to be lacking in the group. This approach, often criticized as "elitist," can be said to throw little light on the average Black. Another criticism is that many leaders were only temporary residents who came when they were mature and often left after a few years. But the accomplished urbanites do help us understand the values, aspirations, and strategies of the group's institutional life. Yates, Bell, Collins, and Beasley were praised as leaders and were approved models for children. And transients-among them Reverends Moore and Walters (and the white journalist Samuel L. Clemens)—were common at that time. Newcomers, transient or otherwise, usually worked with existing leaders and institutions to galvanize members and concentrate the group's activities on a specific objective; they rarely launched a new organization in a different direction. Their ability to organize lasting institutions is an accomplishment that, besides justifying treatment of their origins and activities, requires us to examine their organizations.
The formation by Blacks of several organizations and a newspaper before 1860 indicates the dynamic energy of the less than two thousand citizens. The perpetuation and expansion of churches and Masonic orders, and the formation of new institutions in the East Bay and along the coast, reveals the love for associations that is frequently attributed to other
Americans. Continuation of the pioneer churches and fraternal organizations into the late twentieth century, despite fires, earthquakes, migration, and death, and support of two Black newspapers from the Civil War years, indicates the talents and abilities of the pioneer urbanites.
The number and variety of race improvement organizations from the 1850s indicate constant attempts by Afro-Americans to deal with the most frustrating aspect of their condition. They formed conventions and societies to combat injustice at the city, state, and national levels. San Francisco sent eighteen delegates (out of a total of forty-nine) to the 1855 Colored Convention in Sacramento; conventions were also held in 1856, 1857, 1865, 1873, 1880, and 1882. In what ranged from dignified formal affairs to tumultuous political caucuses, Afro-Americans formed committees, delivered speeches, introduced resolutions, issued reports, circulated petitions, organized local and state societies, launched newspapers, inveighed against gambling and immoral behavior, and urged citizens to struggle for their rights.[41]
In addition to working for the right to testify in court, supporting political candidates, and requesting jobs for their votes, Black city dwellers sent aid to freedmen and Black soldiers in the Civil War era. In late 1889, Bay Area pioneers met in A.M.E. Zion Church, along with "not a few" whites, to discuss the condition of the freedmen. They formed the California Protective League, "a political organization," to coordinate the state's Afro-Americans, to advance the interests of the race, to protest the outrages against southern Negroes, and to seek aid from the national government to secure the rights of their group. Its probable successor, the Afro-American State League (later Congress) of California, was formed shortly thereafter; continued interest in national affairs was indicated by its intent "to unite fraternally all persons of the Negro race," by its support of Booker T. Washington and Tuskegee Institute, and by its efforts to raise Black volunteers for the Spanish-American War. In later years the NAACP of Northern California concentrated on both local and national concerns.[42]
By seeking redress at the city, state, and national levels, San Francisco's Negroes showed their reformist as well as their humanitarian sentiments. Their efforts also indicated the close bonds among Afro-Americans wherever they resided and the breadth of their interests. The California Colored Conventions, for example, were concerned with forming educational institutions and collecting statistics, besides petitioning to overturn unjust laws. Similarly, the Afro-American League, headed by T. B. Morton and J. C. Rivers, undertook to improve the race's condition in several areas: to "give moral and material aid to its members," to educate them "socially, morally, and intellectually," to advance the
interests of its members politically, and interestingly, "to carry on and conduct a general merchandise business for the benefit of its members." Prejudice affected so many areas of life that Blacks thought a broad range of activities was necessary to halt its effects.[43]
The organizations collected statistical information on Black numbers, prosperity, and equality. For evidence of "thrift among our people," the California Conventions gathered data on Black-owned personal property and real estate in the Bay city and in various California counties. They pointed out the contrast between their political inequality and the fact that they were expected to pay California taxes. In 1865 the Colored Convention formed a Committee on Statistics to collect information on illiteracy, the number of children and the percentage of them enrolled in school, the proportion of individuals supported by benevolent societies, the assets of Black institutions and businesses, the holdings of libraries, and the occupations of workers. The convention published this data for several cities and counties, so the world could assess Black talent and compare the Black condition to that of other citizens. Like many modern scholars, Black Californians believed that racism could be stemmed with accurate information.[44]
The most durable institutions lasted over a hundred years, occupied impressive physical structures, and were also most indicative of Black pride. Besides illuminating the Afro-American religious impulse and doctrinal heritage, church life highlights other social facts. W. E. B. Du Bois, E. Franklin Frazier, and Melvin D. Williams all emphasized churches as social centers of primary importance. In San Francisco, as elsewhere, they were all-purpose, housing political and civic meetings, benefits, and fairs, besides providing a host of leadership positions.[45] The church structures themselves tell much about the pioneers' views of themselves, because church-building was an outlet for Black ambitions; church committees competed to raise funds and vied with one another to construct the most elegant temple. By examining attempts to build, remodel, and refurnish churches, we learn of the institution-founding objectives and organizational skills of Black San Franciscans.
When the Reverend T. M. D. Ward became pastor of the A.M.E. congregation, it occupied the St. Cyprian Church on Jackson Street. The parishioners moved to the Scott Street Church after Reverend Ward reorganized the sect in 1856. Six years later, the congregation paid $5,500 for the property known as Grace (or Powell Street) Church.[46] The A.M.E. parishioners desired a physical structure that matched their aspirations as the leading lights of the "Pacific Israel." The ornate temple symbolized the achievements of the devout urbanites. The "stately building, . . . with gothic piers and handsome gilding" inspired the small but energetic congregation to make an even more impressive showing of its religious
zeal. Ninety-two parishioners completed payment of the debt in 1864, and then undertook extensive repairs in early 1865.[47]
Over the next three years, Reverend Ward and his congregation held fund-raising affairs and collected $6,600 for remodeling. The bells, belfry, and organ contributed a refined quality to the religious services and surprised a visiting New Yorker, William P. Powell, who attended Sunday services in 1874. "Well, I never! In all my travels I never saw the like—colored worshipers rung to church and bell'd to prayers."[48] The energy, zeal, and organizational talents of the Bethel A.M.E. Church members were matched by the two other Black congregations. In 1864, the parishoners of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church purchased a "very commodious house," seating eight hundred, twice the size of the rival A.M.E. temple. "Either church is large enough for both congregations," a San Franciscan noted in 1869; and the Christian Recorder remarked, "The colored population of San Francisco is not destitute of abundant church accommodation."[49]
Besides the impressive physical structures, the interior furnishings and locations underlined Blacks' attachment to the symbols of a refined life. They installed carpets, bells, cushioned seats, and an artificial pool for baptism in the Third Baptist Church. The structures were located "in the most popular neighborhoods and thoroughfares." The small congregations did not limit the dimensions of the churches. The Black city folk, dreamers like many westerners, built temples to mirror their aspirations, which knew no limits.[50]
But by the time of the earthquake, the oldest churches were eclipsed in number and size of congregation by younger ones. In 1904 Los Angeles's two A.M.E. Churches had 400 members each, while San Francisco's one listed only 60. Oakland's A.M.E. Church also surpassed San Francisco's, with 150 members. In subsequent decades the new institutions continued to grow, as both Oakland and Los Angeles sustained large increments in Black population while San Francisco's contingent remained relatively small, despite substantial proportionate increases.[51]
Through the churches and newspapers, San Francisco's Black leaders worked to instill a sense of historical tradition and race pride in their followers. In Emancipation Day celebrations, speakers reminded audiences of their heritage. Particularly in the nineteenth century, slavery and the race barrier were usually presented as the causes of Blacks' unique situation and of their need to organize. In May 1862, the Pacific Appeal requested that its readers donate old copies of the Mirror of the Times "to make up a complete file." This would preserve the pioneer heritage. Along the same lines, the Appeal 's premier issue carried articles from the Mirror on the California Colored Convention of 1857, and the Elevator reprinted articles on Hannibal of Carthage and Martin R. Delany.[52]
Black orators, singers, and amateurs who gave recitations displayed their knowledge of Black history in the West Indies and in places as distant as Africa. At an Emancipation Day celebration the Reverend T. M. D. Ward spoke of a glorious African heritage, displaying an impressive knowledge of history. He discussed the uniqueness of the African heritage, its antiquity, and most significantly, its comparative superiority to the European traditions: "For ten successive centuries they [Africans] lifted along the torch of science to a darkened globe and philosophy traveled, awe struck pilgrims, to learn wisdom of the obelisks and temples." In the same vein, Ward reminded his audience of the importance of their heroes by recalling the contributions of John Quincy Adams, William Lloyd Garrison, Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, Abraham Lincoln, and John Brown.[53]
The leaders stressed history in order to cultivate race pride. Every ethnic institution promoted pride insofar as its successes were the result of the ambition, cooperation, and striving of Negroes. Besides stressing race pride in their speeches, Blacks marched en masse in Fourth of July parades and participated in other civic celebrations as a proud, distinguished group In 1894 a Colored American Day at the Midwinter International Fair in San Francisco allowed them to demonstrate appreciation of their historical and cultural tradition through speeches, songs, and a dance in the evening. The very names of such organizations as the "Drill Squad and Fancy Drill Corps D'Afrique" or the uniforms of the Lincoln Zouaves, modeled after the Corps D'Afrique of the French army, paid homage to the members' African heritage. The names of both the Sojourner Truth Club of the 1920s and the Phyllis Wheatley Dance of 1925 evoked the history and the race pride of these Americans.[54]
Despite this emphasis, some Blacks felt ambivalent about a separate identity. For example, Negro city dwellers objected to Colored American Day as a needless drawing of the color line. Similarly, Blacks debated the desirability of an appellation that set them apart from the general American citizenry.[55] But San Francisco still supported a surprising number and variety of ethnic organizations that afforded the opportunity to belong in a society that denied participation in politics, economics, and social life. The civil rights organizations promised the chance to participate as equals. The leaders provided examples of character and zeal that were needed to combat prejudice. Ministers, editors, and Masonic officers interpreted the historical and cultural tradition so as to inspire the descendants of slaves and support their self-esteem. Finally, the leaders and their institutions gave pioneers the opportunity to dominate Black social life.
Because of their numbers, wealth, and talents, Black San Franciscans
exercised considerable influence in Afro-American affairs on the west coast in the nineteenth century. In the Colored Conventions, for example, they always comprised the largest contingent of delegates. The city's leaders often headed state, as well as local, organizations. William Yates and William H. Hall were presidents of Colored Conventions. John A. Barber, a pioneer San Franciscan, held the highest California office among Prince Hall Masons in the nineteenth century. Reverend T. M. D. Ward was the first regularly ordained A.M.E. minister in the far west; at the end of his stay in California, he was episcopal superintendent for the region. In 1870, San Francisco's influence was so great that "whichever way . . . San Francisco decides, we believe that it will control, in a great degree, the colored citizens in every city and town in the State-because the largest body of colored citizens are [sic] concentrated here. The heads of the churches are in this city, or the controlling influence at least; as also every political movement that has ever been made among us has had its head centre [sic] here."[56]
The establishment of Black institutions in California cities and towns often depended on leading San Franciscans. Reverend A. B. Smith, of the San Francisco A.M.E. Zion Church, was credited with erecting a branch church in San Jose in 1862. In 1864 Reverend Ward raised $2,000 at the dedication of a Virginia City church, and also laid the cornerstone for an Oakland edifice. Reverend R. C. O. Benjamin traveled in the interior of the Pacific slope in 1890, attending to church business and establishing Afro-American Leagues.[57]
San Franciscans were frequently invited to cultural events to deliver speeches or promote interest in various projects. When Afro-American residents of Virginia City, Nevada, celebrated the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870, they invited William H. Hall, "California's eloquent orator" and a former San Franciscan, to deliver the key speech. When Stockton Negroes held a "Grand Cake Walk and Southern Jubilee," a Black San Franciscan came to arouse interest in the dance competition for a two-storied cake.[58]
But the power and influence eventually shifted to southern California. This was due in part to simple numbers: By 1904 Los Angeles's Blacks outnumbered San Francisco's two to one. Like the churches already mentioned, political and race improvement organizations came to find their power based in the south. This was indicated in 1906, when the Afro-American Congress met in Pasadena.[59] The noise and numbers of the recent arrivals finally overshadowed the history and achievements of the pioneer era.
The pioneers had managed to establish and maintain institutions with little outside interference. They had guided western affairs, and given aid to
slaves, freedmen, and the families of lynching victims in the south. Black leaders had extended their aid to whites as well, as in the recruiting and intelligence activities of Philip Bell. The conventions expressed regrets and commiseration for the failed revolutions in Hungary and Poland; and, despite Black competition with the Irish in America, they gave "cordial approbation" to the Irish effort to expel the British from their homeland.[60] Their error probably lay in stressing form, style, and proving Blacks were fit for civil rights, while whites were not required to do so; in fact, if anything, the enslavement of Blacks and the denial of the rights of the free Afro-Americans offered concrete evidence that whites lacked the qualities necessary to make democracy a reality.
The well-known San Franciscans left speeches, letters, and institutions that shed light on their democratic ideals, on their unusual abilities, and on the condition of the pioneers. The numerous institutions indicated that the leaders and their followers were as association-minded as the typical American. This inclination was heightened by three factors. First, the very rootlessness of life in a distant and new city encouraged the formation of churches, military societies, fraternal orders, and benevolent associations to give a sense of order and identity. Then the lack of ordinary familial relations heightened the social needs of urbanites. Finally, race prejudice served to draw together Negroes of different national, regional, cultural, and social origins. The leaders of Black society interpreted these factors and provided directions for the pioneers.
Race prejudice, frequently seen as the causal agent behind the behavior of Black folk, is only one among a number of variables. Although it has been important for Afro-Americans, its impact varies with time, place, and area of life. When it is the main causal agent, Blacks are often viewed as passive subjects incapable of responsibly initiating actions. But when we view discrimination as one variable among many—one that stimulates humanitarian sentiments in a highly individualistic and competitive society—we add a significant dimension to the lives of anonymous urbanites.
Because even the more noteworthy leaders are absent from traditional popular and scholarly histories, we must question conjectures about the lives of ordinary Negroes in the far west until considerable research is done. By combing written and other documents, we can ascertain contemporary popular opinions of Afro-San Franciscans and their place in the urban society, and compare the popular opinion to the Blacks' own conceptions of themselves.