If you find that you don't like what you hear this morning, blame it on NPR. My topic is their fault. Sort of. Let me explain. I can't really call myself a historian. I have a mild, rather casual interest in history. I accept the idea that it's important to know at least the rudiments - you know, those who don't are condemned to repeat it and all that. It seems important to know some things about how we got to be who we are. And every once in a while, I come across a historical person, event or time period that really catches my interest. That's where NPR comes in. I usually have my car radio tuned to KUOP and one day last December I heard an interview. It changed my plan.

You see each year during February, I try to schedule a sermon on Black History. Most of us know far too little about the history of African American. Those of you who are long-time attenders (with good memories) might recall my sermons on authors Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, on the events in Selma, Alabama and such. This year, I thought I might talk about Harriet Tubman. But NPR and its interview intervened.

David Blight, a Yale history professor specializing in the study of slavery, was talking about his new book. It's called "A Slave No More." Truthfully, the title would not have been enough to interest me - even with its author's fine credentials. But as I listened, I was caught by two other features. First, the book centers on two previously unknown narratives by men who escaped from slavery during the Civil War, which are quite rare. They were both handwritten manuscripts and had never been edited or published. And they came to light almost by accident.

Second, the program concluded with interviews of three descendants of one of the authors, John M. Washington. The three women - his grand-daughter, great grand-daughter and great-great granddaughter, had never known much about their ancestor - especially not that he had been a slave or had escaped. They talked about being contacted by Prof. Blight only recently, about learning this piece of their history and about what this all meant to them. One of them had been trying to research the family history, but seemed to come to a dead end with John Washington. She didn't know that an entry in the family Bible, added under John's birth date, had special importance. It read "Removed to Washington City, September 1, 1862." That was the date he had entered Washington DC and taken up residence as a free man.

Well! That sounded like quite a set of stories! I decided, right there in the car, that Tubman would have to wait. I got the book. I also checked the internet and found the interview - which I'd only heard in part - and played the whole thing. It is a great set of stories. Next I read Frederick Douglass' well known narrative.

Together the three accounts, the interview and Blight's extensive essay have me pondering a number of questions: questions I can only begin to answer. What does it mean that we as a nation know so little about these kinds of stories? What difference does it make when we learn them? How does the legacy of American racism permeate our ideas, assumptions and behaviors today - almost 150 years after slavery's official end in our country? How can we find the remnants and challenge them? How can we identify needed change in ourselves and in our nation? Why do we talk so little about these issues and why do they seem so risky? As you hear the stories, I hope you'll think about these questions. Maybe together we'll be able to approach a greater understanding.

So allow me to introduce our authors and heroes: John M Washington and Wallace Turnage. Each man has a remarkable story: quite different from each other, yet with a few common points. We'll start with those. Both men were rather young at the time of their escapes (this was also true of Douglass). Washington was 22 and Turnage only 18. Both had early experiences that were somewhat milder forms of slavery and then were confronted with significantly greater brutality. Despite the restrictions on the education of slaves, they each learned to read and to write. Both men described the ways they developed strategies of manipulation, lies and intrigue as they tried to protect themselves in an ever-threatening environment. And both managed their escapes from urban settings and amid the violence and chaos of the Civil War.

John Washington's narrative begins with his early years. Born in Fredericksburg, Virginia in 1838, he starts with his experiences on a farm about 35 miles away, where his mother had been sent to work. Here he enjoyed a great deal of freedom and describes days spent in fields of clover, of fishing and playing with the white children on the farm. He describes a trip to see the circus - when he got lost and was left behind - as well as church gatherings, harvest festivals and hog-killings.

At about 4 years of age, John's mother began to teach him the alphabet from the "New York Primer." He spent an hour or two at lessons each night. Even here, where he specifically states that "The slaves were treated kindly . . . " harsh realities were part of the picture. Washington describes one morning when he watched a coffle line - "a number of the `Plantation Hands' formed into line, with little Bundles straped (sic) to their backs, men women and children and all marched off to be Sold South away from all that was near and dear to them . . . I shall never forget the weeping that morning amounq (sic) those that were left behind . . . "

Everything changed when Washington was about 10. The farm was sold off and together with his mother, John and his siblings returned to Fredericksburg. John was kept as errand boy and attendant to their "Old Mistress." His mother Sarah and the other children were sent to a nearby house to fend for themselves, though still under ownership. After about two years, John's mother was sent away, hired to a man in Staunton, Virginia. In a touching scene, John describes the night before she left. " . . . mother came up to my little room I slept in the `White peoples house' and laid down on my bed by me and begged me for her own sake, try and be a good boy, say my prayers every night, remember all she had tried to teach me and always think of her. Her tears mingled with mine amid kisses and heart felt sorrow. She tucked the Bed cloths around me and bade me good night." They had no way to know if they would see each other again.

One of the puzzling things in Washington's narrative is his description of the way he learned to write. As I mentioned, he reports that his mother taught him the alphabet. Later, he says he decided he'd better learn to write for himself and made efforts to learn to spell. He read some magazines that he found in the house. Also, two young white men helped "very much in spelling only. For it positively forbidden by law to teach a Negro to Write." After some time, an uncle wrote out a model for the start of a letter that he could copy to write his mother. Still later another man, seeing his efforts to write, wrote out "a very good copy of the Alphabet from which I soon learned to write some kind of an intelligible hand . . . " I usually think of learning to spell after learning to write, but apparently this wasn't the pattern for Washington. His progress was disconnected and had to be opportunistic. Even years later, at the time he wrote the narrative, he felt the need to apologize for his writing, spelling and grammar and to explain that he had not had a real course of study.

Time passed in Fredericksburg, with "the usual routine of slave life, with its many sorrows and fears and fiting (sic) hopes of Escape to Freedom . . . I was kept unusually close, never permitted to pass the limits of the lot after sundown . . . " On Sundays he was permitted to attend church events - though he often slipped off to do something else. He attended the church fairs, however, and there met the Miss Annie Gordon, a free black woman, who he would later marry, despite the objections of her family.

The first chapters of Washington's narrative give clear pictures of slave life, but it was after this, specifically Jan 1, 1861, that John's life began to change rapidly. He was sent to Richmond and hired out to the owner of "an `Eating Saloon' . . . there was no liquors kept there." Washington notes that those he worked for were "low, mean and coarse, they treated their servants cruelly . . . " Still, the position of an urban slave was quite different from that of those in rural areas. In the cities, slaves and free Negroes mixed more frequently and slaves had more freedom of movement as they went about their tasks. Often they were hired out and sometimes allowed to work longer than their contracts required. While the owner received any earnings from the required work, the slave might be allowed to keep wages from the extra hours. For the first time, John Washington had money of his own.

In April of 1862, the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter. Washington wrote, "little did they then think, that they were Fireing (sic) the Death-knell of Slavery, and little did I think that my deliverance was so near at hand." John had returned to Fredericksburg and was hired as Steward and Barkeeper. When the Yankees approached the Rappahannock River, panic seized the white residents of Fredericksburg, who hurried to pack and leave for points South. John must have been competent and trusted, for the innkeeper told him the inn was closing because of the danger, gave him money to pay off the staff and instructed him to lock the place up safely. He clearly thought that John would soon follow. John played along.

When the innkeeper left, Washington called the staff together and took them up on the roof so they could see the Union lines across the river. Then they went back downstairs. John poured a round of drinks and toasted the Union army. The staff was paid and the slaves instructed to go where they would, but not too far from the Yankees and the possibility of freedom. John indeed locked the doors and faithfully turned in the keys. But shortly afterwards he walked upstream about a mile where he found a boat of Union soldiers who rowed him across the river. Soon he was in the Union Camp distributing the rebel newspapers he'd brought along and explaining the situation in Fredericksburg.

"A most memorable night that was to me," he wrote, "the soldiers assured me that I was now a free man and had nothing to do but to stay with. . . . Before morning I had began to feel like I had truly Escaped from the hand of the slaves master and with the help of God, I never would be a slave no more. I felt for the first time in my life that I could now claim Every cent that I should work for as my own. I began now to feel that life had a new joy awaiting me. I might now go and come when I pleased."

Washington chose to stay and work for the Union Army for a time. It was still early in the war and the slaves in Washington, DC had been freed only a few days before. A slave could not be sure of freedom anywhere else and Negroes were not yet welcome to serve in Union forces. John Washington's story grew more complex as he moved with the troops and even crossed back into Fredericksburg, where he visited his wife, who was pregnant with their first child. She could not travel, and he stayed with her until it became too dangerous. John left again, soon taking up residence in "Washington City" as noted in the family Bible. He was a free man.

In a short time, he would find ways to bring, not only his wife and son, but also his mother and siblings to freedom in Washington. Blight's further research showed that Washington became a house and sign painter, a founding member of the Shiloh Baptist Church and a leader of his community. He and Annie had five sons. Several attained college educations and the youngest, Benjamin, lived into the 1950s.

Wallace Turnage's story is much more brutal and harrowing. We know little of his early years because his narrative begins in 1860, when he would have been about fourteen years old. He explains that he had been sold first from his home in North Carolina to a Richmond slave dealer and then south to an Alabama plantation. On his first day in the fields, he witnessed the brutal whipping of a female slave. He couldn't believe that these hands could take such treatment and continue working, but they did. They told him there was no other choice. In the next few days, similar incidents convinced Wallace that he would make an escape before he'd be treated that way. He was as good as his word, and soon ran off to the woods.

Wallace Turnage's narrative recounts five escape attempts. The first one, started on impulse and with little local information was quite brief - not much more than 24 hours. He was fifteen. Each succeeding attempt was more sophisticated and lasted longer. In several ways, Turnage's experience matched the worst of Frederick Douglass' descriptions - both of his trials and of his fears. Over the next few years, Turnage was pursued and shot at, suffered from cold and lack of food and had dogs set upon him. But he also found some who would offer him temporary shelter, give him a meal, advice or directions. After one absence, he prevailed in a pivotal fight with an overseer, as had Douglass. In later escapes, he was sometimes gone for a month or more, but was never able to reach his goal in Corinth, with its Union encampment. We don't know if he was aware that Corinth also had a camp for escaped slaves, complete with classes for those who wanted to read and write. If he did, his failure must have been bitter indeed.

Because of his reputation for running off, Wallace was sold again. This wasn't easy, since the slavers were certain he would corrupt the slaves they already held. Finally an old gentleman in Mobile bought him and put him to work at a variety of duties around his home. These tasks included driving the carriage and doing errands around town. His treatment was increasingly harsh, and one day when an old harness broke and a carriage was damaged, Turnage was taken to the slave jail to be whipped: first ten lashes, a break, and then another ten. `Will that do?' asked the jailer. `No,' came the answer, `give him ten more.' Finally satisfied, the owner told his slave to see if he could get himself home. He then turned and walked off. Turnage reports that it was the worst whipping he ever had.

At that point, Wallace Turnage chose another option. Despite the presence of about twelve thousand Confederate troops in Mobile, he decided to make another attempt at escape. After resting some and praying mightily for the help of the Lord, he walked through the Confederate camp and out of the city. He reports that many of the soldiers saw him but said nothing. Perhaps they thought he was one of the camp slaves. Perhaps, as he believed, he had divine protection. But getting out of the city was only the beginning. He was deep in rebel territory and Mobile Bay was heavily patrolled since the Union Navy was preparing an attack. Crossing snake and alligator-infested swampland, Turnage was occasionally seen and pursued by Confederate patrols, but managed to elude them. Barefoot and with no food and little fresh water to be had, he passed several harrowing weeks. He was within sight of Union ships and a Union fort, but still in slave country himself.

Turnage's final desperate effort at freedom would make an amazing adventure film. The short version is that after offering agonized prayers for deliverance, he found a small leaky rowboat and determined to head out into the bay, come what may. Just as a large storm swell approached, he was rescued by a Union Navy patrol, jumping off his little craft only seconds before it capsized. Taken to Fort Powell, he was well treated and spent his first night of freedom. The next morning, he was given the choice of enlisting or working for a Union officer. He chose the latter, having already had plenty of acquaintance with battle lines and Confederate soldiers. He served a Julius Turner until the company mustered out in Baltimore. He would have been about eighteen. From there, he reports that he was able to contact his family, but gives no information about how that was accomplished.

Professor Blight was able to learn that Wallace Turnage appears in the census of 1870 in New York City and later moved to Jersey City. He was employed at various trades and helped to found the Abyssinian Baptist Church, where he was also married - several times, as two of his wives died young. No stranger to tragedy, he had seven children, four of whom died in infancy. Turnage lived to the age of 70, dying in 1916. Lydia Turnage Connolly, his daughter, lived in Greenwich CT until 1984. We are not as far from slavery as we sometimes think. Lydia left a special black clamshell box to her friend Gladys Watts. It contained the narrative.

Now this is where fate and luck smiled on Prof. Blight. Gladys saw a film about slave narratives. It made her think of that box and its contents. She contacted the Historical Society of the Town of Greenwich and gave them the Turnage narrative. Not long afterward, Prof Blight was invited to give a lecture to their board of trustees. It was the fall of 2003. At dinner before the lecture, the director called him aside and told him that she thought they had something of interest. She asked if he would take a look. Well, yes, he would look, and he certainly was interested! What's more an agent had contacted him a just few months before regarding the Washington narrative. It had come into the possession of Julian Houston, a Massachusetts judge, who recognized its importance. Blight explains that only about 120 slave narratives are known, from about 1770 until the early 1900s, and nearly all of them have been edited. `Only a handful have come to light in my lifetime,' he reported, `and here I had two!' His book, with both narratives and an extensive essay placing them in context, was published last year.

The stories are fascinating, and clearly both these young men were daring and courageous. They were also devoted family members, rescuing their families of origin and establishing families of their own. They became contributing citizens of their country and their communities. And those communities of freed men and women faced staggering obstacles. Events soon proved that while the nation had abolished slavery, racism flourished. In the South it became law. In the North it was enshrined in practice. John M. Washington and Wallace Turnage, through their narratives and through what we've learned of their lives, offer us a window into history and more. They offer examples of both daring and determination in their quest to become free and full citizens despite enormous odds.

Of course, there's more to tell. But I will close with a reminder of the questions I asked early on. Now that you've heard these stories; now that we know more of the history, what difference will it make? This Tuesday's election results may auger toward a black man becoming candidate for president of the United States. But I do not believe the work of opposing racism and achieving equality is nearly completed. How will we choose to use what we've learned? What does it mean for our own times, our own lives? We can help each other work toward answers. These two men, Wallace Turnage and John M. Washington, that their stories can be a beginning for this work.

February 3, 2008

This is one of our Minister's Sermons. We also have a brief biography of Rev. Simons, and the latest edition of Grace Notes, a column she writes for our newsletter.
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