African Americans – Nashville Historical Newsletter

Nashville-Tuskegee Ties, Part II: The Tuskegee Airmen

by Kathy B. Lauder.

Our city’s most dramatic ties to Tuskegee developed shortly after the US entered World War II. In fact, it was Nashvillians who actually built the airbase where the famous Tuskegee Airmen trained. When brothers Moses and Calvin McKissack, well-known local architects, were selected to design and build the Tuskegee Airbase in 1942, they received what was then the largest federal contract ever won by an African American firm. McKissack & McKissack, now headquartered in New York City and Washington, D.C., remains the oldest minority-owned architectural engineering company in the United States.

The Tuskegee Airmen, whose exploits have become more familiar through a couple of recent commercial films, were actually not well known during the war, despite their extraordinary skill and courage. They were the first African American aviators to serve in the U.S. military. The “Tuskegee Airmen” title also encompasses the instructors, navigators, mechanics, and ground crew who trained and supported the pilots. According to a National Park Service article, “These men were the crème of the crop, many of whom already had bachelor’s and master’s degrees when they first began flight training in July of 1941.” And a considerable number of those remarkable men – trainers, support staff, and aviators – had ties to Middle Tennessee.

*· Curtiss P-40 Warhawk – produced 1939-1944*

The following local men graduated from the pilot training program on the dates listed:

2^nd Lieutenant Howard L. Baugh (see story below): Single Engine Section, SE-42-J; 10 Nov 1942.
2^nd Lieutenant William J. Faulkner (see story below): Single Engine Section, SE-43-D; 29 Apr 1943.
2^nd Lieutenant Carroll N. Langston Jr. (see story below): Single Engine Section, SE-43-I; 1 Oct 1943.
2^nd Lieutenant Thomas G. Patton: Single Engine Section, SE-44-B; 8 Feb 1944.
2^nd Lieutenant Hannibal M. Cox (see story below): Single Engine Section, SE-44-D; 15 Apr 1944.
Flight Officer Robert A. Pillow: Single Engine Section, SE-44-E; 23 May 1944.
Flight Officer Robert J. Murdic: Single Engine Section, SE-44-F; 27 Jun 1944.
2^nd Lieutenant Rutherford H. Adkins (see story below): Single Engine Section, SE-44-I-1; 16 Oct 1944.
Flight Officer Rutledge H. Fleming: Twin Engine Section, TE-45-A; 11 Mar 1945.

Those in the Single-Engine Cadet Pilot Class were trained to fly the Bell P-39 Airacobra, Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, North American P-51 Mustang, and similar combat fighter aircraft. Those in the Twin-Engine Cadet Pilot Class were trained to fly the North American B-25 Mitchell. There was also a third cadet program, the Liaison Pilot Cadet Class, training liaison and service pilots.

The sturdy construction of the Republic P-47N Thunderbolt enabled it to absorb severe battle damage and stay in the air.

After the war, Tennessee State University developed a new program called Aeronautical and Industrial Technology, which included an aviation education component and an Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC). Cecil Ryan, who was head of the department of aviation, and his colleague George Turman had been instructors in the Tuskegee Airmen’s cadet program. They would instruct generations of pilots as well as aircraft design and maintenance engineers. Many of Ryan’s students went on to become pilots on both military and commercial aircraft.

Simon Gaskill, a commercial pilot for Eastern Airlines during the 1970s and ‘80s, once wore his pilot’s uniform on a tour of the TSU campus. When he ran into Cecil Ryan, he introduced himself and was startled when Ryan began to cry. “I wanted to be an airline pilot, but wasn’t allowed,” Ryan explained. “Seeing you come in here with that uniform was just too much for me.”

*Carroll Napier Langston Jr. and family (photo courtesy of Kristi Farrow)*

Carroll Napier Langston Jr. (1917-1944), another of the renowned Tuskegee Airmen, was the great-grandson of John Mercer Langston and great-nephew of Nashvillians James C. and Nettie Langston Napier, widely respected community leaders. Raised in Nashville and Chicago, he graduated from Oberlin College and earned an LL.B. from the University of Michigan. In 1941 he entered law practice in Chicago but, shortly after the U.S. entered World War II, he signed up for flight school at the Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama. By 1943 he was part of the 301^st Fighter Squadron (Red Tail Angels) and was subsequently assigned to the 332^nd Fighter Group. In June 1944, during a reconnaissance mission off the Italian coast, Lt. Langston’s engine lost oil pressure and he had to bail out. Tragically, his parachute failed to open, and a witness saw him clinging to the side of the plane as it went down. His body washed up on the beach several days later and was brought later to Greenwood Cemetery, where he now rests amongst his family.

Captain William J. “Billie” Faulkner Jr. (1918-1944), a graduate of Pearl High School and Morehouse College, was the son of the Rev. and Mrs. William J. Faulkner Sr. His father was dean of the Fisk University Chapel. William Jr. enlisted August 17, 1942, graduating from the Tuskegee pilot program as a 2^nd Lieutenant on April 29, 1943. An airman with the 301^st Fighter Squadron, U.S. Army Air Corps, he is believed to be the first African American from Nashville to be commissioned in the Army Air Forces. In September 1944 he was awarded the first oak leaf cluster to the Air Medal for “meritorious achievement in aerial flight while participating in sustained operational activities against the enemy.” Barely two months later, November 7, 1944, with 56 combat missions to his credit, he was reported missing in action over Austria. Two days before Christmas his grieving parents finally received word that he had been killed on the day he was reported missing in November, “possibly because of mechanical failure of his P-51C.” (Other sources say he was shot down.) He was awarded the Air Medal with four oak leaf clusters. Captain Faulkner is buried in France in the Lorraine American Cemetery and Memorial, which contains the largest number of World War II American graves (10,489) in all of Europe.

Colonel Hannibal M. “Killer” Cox (1923-1988) graduated from flight training at Tuskegee in April 1944 and went on to serve as a combat pilot in three wars – World War II (where he flew 64 combat missions), the Korean War (more than 100 combat missions), and Vietnam. He earned a bachelor’s degree in aeronautics from Tennessee State University (TSU), a master’s in industrial relations and personnel management from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in psychology from Western Colorado University. After Vietnam one of his command duties was to serve as a professor of aerospace science at TSU, his alma mater. When he retired from the U.S. Air Force in the 1960s (with an Air Medal, five oak leaf clusters, and the Distinguished Flying Cross), he became director of ground equipment for Eastern Air Lines. Later appointed director of Eastern’s equal opportunity and community relations programs, he was instrumental in breaking down racial bias in the airline industry.

Colonel Howard Lee Baugh (1920-2008) was born in Virginia; attended public schools in Virginia and Brooklyn, New York; graduated from Virginia State University; and married his college sweetheart. In March 1942 he entered the U.S. Army Air Corps and completed his pilot training at Tuskegee, Alabama, that November. Assigned to the 99^th Fighter Squadron in Sicily, he flew 135 combat missions. As a pilot in the USAF, he registered 6,000 pilot hours, with a career record of 250 combat hours. Following his World War II service, Colonel Baugh, who had been trained by Cecil Ryan at the Tuskegee Institute, served for a period of time as Professor of Air Science at Tennessee State University. He retired from the United States Air Force as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1967. For his distinguished career as an aviator, Colonel Baugh was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters, the Air Force Commendation Medal, and the Air Force Distinguished Unit Citation, and other medals. In 2004 he was awarded the French Legion of Honor.

Dr. Rutherford H. “Lubby” Adkins (1924-1998), born in Alexandria, Virginia, developed an interest in physics while studying at Virginia Union University. He transferred to Temple University but was soon drafted into the U.S. Army. He took flight training for single-engine fighter planes at the Tuskegee Flight School, graduating as a 2^nd Lieutenant in 1944. A member of the 100^th Fighter Squadron of the 332^nd Fighter Group – the Tuskegee Airmen – he flew 14 combat missions over Europe. Returning home, he earned a B.S. (Virginia State, 1947), an M.S. (Howard University, 1949), and a Ph.D., the first ever granted to an African American by The Catholic University in Washington, D.C. (1955). At various times he served on the faculties of Virginia State University, Tennessee State University, the U.S. Naval Academy, Fisk University, Morehouse College, and the Georgia Institute of Technology. He was president of Knoxville College from 1976 to 1981, returning to Fisk in 1993 to become division chair of Natural Sciences & Mathematics, interim president in 1996, and president in 1997, only a year before his death.

Some of this material has been adapted from the Greenwood Project.

Learn more about the relationship between these two Southern cities in “Nashville-Tuskegee Connections, Part I.“

Slave to Statesman: The Story of John W. Boyd

by John W. Marshall and Kathy B. Lauder.

Introduction: Although John W. Boyd was not a Nashvillian, he was one of the fourteen African American men who served in the Tennessee General Assembly during the 19th century, so was certainly a significant figure in Nashville history. In time we hope to include biographies of all these men in the Nashville Historical Newsletter. For more information about these remarkable individuals and their complex historical era, visit the website of the Tennessee State Library and Archives.

John W. Boyd was born about 1852 in Tipton County, Tennessee, to Philip and Sophia Fields Boyd*. On March 13, 1879, John married Martha C. “Mattie” Doggett in Trinity Episcopal Church, Mason, Tennessee. Mattie was a member of St. Paul Episcopal Church, the local black congregation, but the couple was somehow permitted to be married in the white church, with their wedding ceremony conducted by its priest, Rev. C. F. Collins. Anecdotal references suggest that Boyd freely attended services in both churches, black and white.

*John Boyd, from a composite photo of the 42nd Tennessee General Assembly*, 1881

Mattie Doggett was the daughter of Andrew Doggett, a free man of color. Andrew actually owned property before the Civil War, acquiring some 200 acres more after the war ended. John Boyd’s older brother Armistead was married to Mattie’s twin sister, Nannie Doggett. Neither couple left any children. Their sister Judy married Henderson Stevens, a member of a well-respected, land-owning family in Mason. Judy and Henderson Stevens did leave a number of descendants, one of whom provided much of the information we know about the family.

While Nannie and Mattie Doggett were Episcopalian, the Boyd brothers were originally Methodists, members of what survives today as Alexander’s Chapel United Methodist Church. This church, too, was somewhat unusual in that it was not connected with either the Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) or African Methodist Episcopal (AME) churches, the historically black Methodist denominations.

John Boyd was a member of what is now Alexander’s Chapel United Methodist Church in Mason, Tennessee. Boyd is the bald gentleman standing in the back row on the left; his wife Mattie, wearing a dark hat, stands beside him. John’s brother Armistead Boyd, seated in front of Mattie, has a light-colored hat and a large white mustache. (Photo used by permission, Tipton County Historical Society)

John Boyd was too young to take part in the Civil War, but toward the end of the war his older brother Armistead left the Sanford place and went to Memphis to join the Federal army. His war record shows that he joined Company C of the 88th U.S. Colored Infantry on Jan. 21, 1865, at 19 years of age. He was mustered out a year later as a corporal. A story still extant in the community tells that, before his enlistment but after all the adult males had gone off to fight, Armistead, still a young teenager, armed himself with a shotgun to protect his master’s family.

Although no information has yet come to light concerning how or where John W. Boyd received his education or legal training, we do know that he was an attorney in the local courts and was highly respected among both the white and black communities. It is likely that the Boyd family had been allowed to obtain some rudimentary education even before emancipation – there is some evidence that for several generations this family of slaves had been high-achievers and had received special treatment from their masters. Perhaps this background gave them an advantage during Reconstruction and helped propel John Boyd into the profession of the law. Despite the Jim Crow laws that disfranchised African Americans during the last decade of the 19^th century and removed them from positions of power, Boyd was still representing District 10 as a magistrate on the county court as late as 1900, although by that time he was the only black member remaining on the court.

*John Boyd served as a Tipton County Magistrate well into the Jim Crow era*. *(Photo used by permission, Tipton County Historical Society)*

John Boyd was elected to two terms in the Tennessee State Legislature. In the 42^nd General Assembly (1881-1882) he served on the committees for Immigration, New Counties and County Lines, and Tippling Houses. In the 43^rd General Assembly (1883-1884) he was named to the committee on Federal Regulations. During his period of service in Nashville, Boyd worked diligently with other African American legislators to overturn Chapter 130 of the Acts of 1875, the first of Tennessee’s Jim Crow laws, which permitted racial discrimination in public facilities. He also attempted unsuccessfully to repeal the restrictive contract labor law, which had the effect of keeping working blacks in bondage.

Republican ballot from 1884 election, when Boyd ran for the Tennessee Senate. 19th century ballots listed all candidates from a single political party. If a voter wanted to vote for everyone on the ticket, he merely dropped it into the ballot box with no alterations (i.e., he voted the straight ticket). However, he could mark through (scratch) any names he did not want to vote for. Black candidates often received many fewer votes than others on the same ticket.

In the 1884 election, John Boyd ran for the Tennessee Senate seat representing Tipton and Fayette counties. When certified winner H. L. Blackwell, a Democrat, died three days before the 44^th Session was due to convene, Governor William B. Bate called for a new Democratic election to choose Blackwell’s successor. Boyd challenged the governor’s ruling, saying he was the rightful winner of the original election and had been defrauded of his seat: during the November 4 election the District 4 ballot box had “mysteriously disappeared,” along with at least 400 Republican ballots, more than enough to elect Boyd Tennessee’s first black senator. However, despite compelling evidence – depositions from the sheriff and several election officials that two Democratic election judges had taken the box with them when they left for supper, later claiming that it had been “stolen and carried off” – the Senate chose to seat Democrat J. P. Edmondson. It would be 84 years (1969) before an African American would be seated in the Tennessee State Senate.

John and Mattie Boyd’s home was in the town of Mason, just south of the railroad tracks on the east side of Main Street. John, who outlived Mattie, died on March 11, 1932, at about 80 years of age, and was buried in Magnolia Cemetery, Mason, Tennessee. The following is his obituary, found in the March 17, 1932, edition of the Covington (TN) Leader. It appeared on the newspaper’s first page:

“WELL-KNOWN NEGRO BURIED AT MASON–John W. BOYD, a well-known negro of District #10, died suddenly of heart failure Thursday, March 10th. He was buried the following Sunday. There were no immediate survivors. Well up in the eighties in age, Boyd was politically prominent in the three decades following the Civil War. A resident of a district composed largely of negroes, he was for a number of years a magistrate for the 10th District, and following a split in the Democratic ranks in the years following 1880 was elected to the Legislature from this county. He was also a member of the Covington Bar.”

* Philip and Sophia Fields Boyd were slaves to Henry Sanford and his wife Jean Murray Feild [sic] Sanford (1830-1893). Henry Sanford’s father was Col. Robert Walker Sanford (1802-1861), an early elected official of Tipton County, who had moved to Tennessee from Orange County, Virginia. Jean Feild Sanford’s father was Charles Grandison Feild (1805-1845), of Mecklenburg County, Virginia, and Haywood County, Tennessee. The death certificate of Armistead Boyd, another of Philip and Sophia’s children, indicated that both his parents were born in Virginia. Sophia Fields Boyd’s obituary lists her birthplace specifically as Mecklenburg County, Virginia, which had been home to many of Mason’s largest slaveholders – including the Feild family. [Note that the African American members of the family, after Emancipation, changed the spelling of their name from Feild to the more familiar Fields.] Another of the large slave-holding families in Mecklenburg County was the Boyd family, who were intimates and neighbors of the Feilds. It is likely that the Boyd name among the Feild slaves came from trading or intermarrying between the slaves of the two families.

Walker, Taylor, and Carr: The Men behind Nashville’s African American Parks and Cemeteries

by Kathy B. Lauder.

Although City Cemetery, Nashville’s first public burial ground (1822) accepted people of all races from the beginning, the rise of the “Jim Crow” South after the Civil War compelled African Americans to look elsewhere for a final resting place. In 1869 black businessman Nelson Walker and the Colored Benevolent Society bought land for Mt. Ararat Cemetery near the Elm Hill-Murfreesboro Pike intersection, directly behind today’s Purity Dairy plant. Walker (1825-1875), a barber at the Maxwell House, became an important figure in African American politics after the Civil War. Elected president of the first State Colored Men’s Convention (August 1865), he was active in the Masonic Order, the Sons of Relief, and the State Colored Emigration Board. Largely self-educated, he became a practicing attorney and later a Davidson County magistrate. An outspoken supporter of the public schools, Walker encouraged his seven children to become well educated – his daughter Virginia was a member of Fisk University’s first graduating class in 1875.

· The Maxwell House Hotel, built between 1859 and 1869, was partially completed in 1862, when the occupying Federal forces used it as a hospital, a prison, and barracks for Union soldiers. (In 1863 over 100 Confederate soldiers fell five stories when a staircase collapsed, killing up to 45 men and injuring many more.) Maxwell House coffee, introduced by Nashville’s Cheek family, was served in the hotel dining room. The building was destroyed by fire on Christmas night 1961.

When Mt. Ararat burial plots went on sale in May 1869, church leaders urged their parishioners to purchase them. Mt. Ararat received considerable media attention in 1890 when Reverend Nelson Merry’s remains were reinterred there from City Cemetery, and again in 1892, after three heroic African American firemen lost their lives fighting a devastating fire in downtown Nashville. The day of their burial was declared a city-wide day of mourning, and the procession leading from their funeral ceremony at the Capitol to the cemetery was said to be over a mile long. Mt. Ararat (now Greenwood West) became part of the Greenwood Cemetery complex in 1982.

Another key figure in Nashville history was the Reverend Preston Taylor (1849-1931). Born into slavery, he served as a Union Army drummer boy when he was a young teenager. While still in his 20s he founded a Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, church, attracting the largest congregation in the state during his fifteen years there, while also working as a contractor to build several sections of the Big Sandy Railroad. After moving to Nashville, he preached at the Gay Street Christian church and also joined the Masons and the IOOF, holding state offices in both organizations.

As the 19^th century ended, Preston Taylor committed himself to improving the social and economic condition of Nashville’s black community. Already well known as a local religious leader and businessman, he opened the city’s first African American mortuary, the Taylor Funeral Company, in 1888, the same year he and three others came together to purchase land for a “first class burial space . . . available at cost” for African American families. After his partners backed out of the project, Taylor alone funded the purchase of a 37-acre site on Elm Hill Pike and Spence Lane, near Buttermilk Ridge (so-called because of the scattering of dairy farms along the big S-curve on Lebanon Road east of Spence). Greenwood Cemetery, still in operation today, opened in 1888. Preston Taylor’s will deeded the cemetery to the Disciples of Christ religious organization, who continue to operate the facility (now merged with Mt. Ararat/ Greenwood West) as a non-profit enterprise. Preston Taylor is buried beneath a striking monument near the entrance to Greenwood. He was also involved in establishing the Lea Avenue Christian Church, the National Colored Christian Missionary Convention, the One Cent Bank (now Citizens Savings & Trust), and Tennessee State A&I Normal School (now Tennessee State University).

Preston Taylor’s monument in Greenwood Cemetery. (photo from NHN collection)

Jim Crow laws barred African Americans not only from cemeteries but also from many entertainment venues. However, in 1905 Preston Taylor responded to these restrictions by opening Greenwood Park north of the cemetery on the large unused portion of his original 37-acre land purchase. The park’s entrance stood just west of the intersection of Lebanon Road and Spence Lane. The first recreational park for Nashville’s black community, its attractions included a merry-go-round, a roller coaster, a shooting gallery, and a skating rink. Visitors could attend events at a baseball park, a bandstand, or a theatre, and if they were hungry, they could eat at a barbecue stand, a lunchroom, or a well-maintained picnic area. The area was spacious enough to include a Boy Scout camp, a racetrack, and a zoo, and it was home to the Colored State Fair, as well as other popular annual celebrations on Labor Day and July 4^th. The Barbers’ Union, Masonic Lodges, and USCT veterans scheduled special events in the park. Taylor, who actually lived on the grounds, banned fighting, drinking, or cursing by Greenwood visitors and required them to dress appropriately. When white neighbors complained about Greenwood and its attendant congestion, only Ben Carr’s last-minute appeal to Governor Patterson rescued the park from ruinous legislation. In 1910 a suspicious fire destroyed Greenwood’s large grandstand, but no one was ever charged with the crime. Preston Taylor died in 1931, but the park survived until 1949, superintended by Taylor’s widow.

The Taylor home in Greenwood Park. (photo courtesy of Peggy Dillard)

Benjamin J. Carr (1875-1935) was another remarkable Tennessean, whose concern for his fellow black citizens resulted in the creation of both a second park and a notable educational institution. Born into poverty, Carr grew up working on farms in Trousdale County, Tennessee. He carefully set aside most of his meager earnings (50¢ per day) to purchase his own farm. In time, the frugal young man was able to pay off his mortgage with income from his tobacco crop. Shortly before 1900 Carr came to Nashville, where he was elected porter for the state Supreme Court and became an unexpected friend and ally of Governor Malcolm Patterson (1907-1911), who sent Carr on a lecture tour throughout Middle Tennessee to educate and inspire black farmers. Carr headed the citizens’ organization that brought the Tennessee Agricultural & Industrial State Normal School (Tennessee A&I, known today as Tennessee State University) to Nashville, and he was the school’s first agriculture teacher. He was also the driving force behind the city’s purchase of 34 acres near the college for use as a municipal park. When Mayor Hilary Howse dedicated Nashville’s Hadley Park in 1912, it became the first public park for African Americans in the entire nation.

Ben Carr (TSLA photo from Calvert Collection)

The name given to Hadley Park is still a matter of some dispute. When Major Eugene C. Lewis (chairman of the Nashville, Chattanooga, & St. Louis Railway and director-general of the 1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition) named the park, many assumed the title was a tribute to John L. Hadley, a white slave owner whose home plantation became the site of Tennessee State University. However, Lewis may have intended instead to honor Dr. W. A. Hadley (1850-1901), a physician-educator with whom he had worked closely during the Centennial Exposition, and for whom the Hadley School was named. A graduate of Meharry Medical College, Dr. Hadley had taught briefly in Davidson County schools before opening his medical practice. In 1880 he was elected secretary of the newly formed State Medical Association, and in 1883 he was chosen as a delegate to the National Convention of Colored Men at Louisville. He founded the Independent Order of the Immaculates and served on the executive committee (with Major E. C. Lewis) of the 1897 Centennial. After practicing medicine for several years, Hadley returned to teaching. At the time of his death, he was principal of Carter Public School in Nashville.

Adapted from the Greenwood Project.

Samuel A. McElwee, 1859-1914

by Kathy B. Lauder.

Samuel Allen McElwee was born a slave in Haywood County, Tennessee, on June 26, 1859. After emancipation he attended Freedmen’s Bureau schools¹ and by 16 was teaching in a local school himself.²

In 1875 he entered Oberlin College for a year, taking odd jobs to pay his tuition.³ Returning to Tennessee, he walked ten miles each day after work to study Latin, German, and algebra with a white Vanderbilt student.⁴ He entered Fisk University in 1878, earning a Peabody Scholarship⁵ to pay his way.

While still enrolled at Fisk, McElwee won a seat in the 43^rd Tennessee General Assembly (1882), representing Haywood County.⁶ He graduated the following May, just as his first House term ended.⁷ In 1884, at age 25, he became secretary of the Tennessee Convention, a state-wide gathering of black leaders,⁸ and served as a state delegate to the Republican National Convention.⁹

McElwee entered Nashville’s Central Tennessee College during his second legislative term, earning a law degree in 1885.¹⁰ He became the focus of a historic vote after former U.S. Senator Roderick Butler nominated him for House Speaker. Although unable to surmount a large Democratic majority, the 26-year-old former slave received 32 of the 93 votes cast.¹¹

The first black Tennessean elected to a third legislative term (1887), McElwee pleaded for stronger legal powers over lynch mobs: “Great God, when will this Nation treat the Negro as an American citizen?”¹² Despite his highly publicized speech, the House tabled the bill 41-36.¹³Later that year McElwee spoke at Tuskegee Institute’s graduation¹⁴and presided over the Colored World’s Fair Association.¹⁵

In 1888 Samuel McElwee married the “handsome and cultured” Georgia Shelton.¹⁶ Their wedding party included many prominent Nashvillians, black and white. Fisk President E. M. Cravath officiated; guests included Charles Nelson, Granville P. Lipscomb, Dr. H. T. Noel, Dr. R. F. Boyd, Major E. B. Stahlman, and former Confederate General George Maney.¹⁷

The State Republican Party elected McElwee delegate-at-large to the 1888 Republican National Convention,¹⁸ where he was a member of the committee on credentials.¹⁹ McElwee’s eloquent words about the potential role of African Americans in national politics helped persuade Benjamin Harrison to nominate former slave Frederick Douglass as ambassador to Haiti and to endorse bills prohibiting Southern states from obstructing African American suffrage.²⁰

At home McElwee faced powerful political challenges to his campaign for an unprecedented fourth legislative term: Haywood County officials employed “disgraceful election methods”²¹ to ensure his defeat,²² and white separatists drove him from the county. During the following term (1889) the all-white General Assembly approved legislation that would disfranchise black voters for decades.²³

McElwee and his wife spent the next twelve years in Nashville, where he established a thriving law office.²⁴ Both Samuel and Georgia were active in civic organizations, and their names regularly appeared in the social pages of the newspapers. In 1901 McElwee moved his wife and daughters to Chicago,²⁵ where his legal practice flourished for over a decade. He won many important cases, including a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against the City Railway Company.²⁶ He died in Chicago October 21, 1914, at the age of 56. ²⁷ (2014)

SOURCES:

¹“Brave Tennessean Forgotten by History,” Nashville Tennessean, February 13, 1971.

² “A Remarkable Negro,” Nashville Daily American, June 9, 1888.

³ “Brave Tennessean Forgotten by History.”

⁴ “The Death of Atty. Samuel A. McElwee,” Chicago Broad Axe, October 24, 1914.

⁵Tennessee State Board of Education Minute Book, Volume 55, page 131.

⁶ McBride, Robert M., and Dan M. Robinson. Biographical Directory, Tennessee General Assembly, Volume II (1861-1901). Nashville: Tennessee State Library and Archives, and Tennessee Historical Commission, 1979.

⁷ Simmons, William J. Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive and Rising. Cleveland: G. M. Rewell & Co., 1887, 500.

⁸“The Tennessee Convention: Colored Men in Council at Nashville—Vital Questions Ably Discussed—Resolutions setting forth the Grievances and Needs of the Race,” New York Globe, March 15, 1884.

⁹Johnson, Charles W. Republican Party (U.S.:1854-), 227. Official Proceedings of the Republican National Convention, Chicago, June 3, 4, 5 and 6, 1884, 21.

¹⁰ Simmons, William J. Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive and Rising. Cleveland: G. M. Rewell & Co., 1887, 500.

¹¹ Tennessee General Assembly. Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Tennessee. Nashville: Tavel & Howe, 1885.

¹² Nashville Union, February 23, 1887.

¹³ Tennessee General Assembly. Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Tennessee. Nashville: Tavel & Howe, 1886.

¹⁴ “Tuskegee Normal School: Celebrating Its Sixth Anniversary—An Exhibit of Industries—Commencement Exercises,” New York Freeman, June 4, 1887.

¹⁵ “General Announcement. Colored World’s Exposition, 1887-’88,” Weekly Pelican, January 29, 1887.

¹⁶ “McElwee. A Southern Lawyer, the Brilliant Orator and Barrister,” Freeman, March 2, 1889.

¹⁷ “Hon. S. A. McElwee Married,” Nashville Daily American, June 7, 1888.

¹⁸ “A Remarkable Negro.”

¹⁹ Johnson, Charles W. Republican Party (U.S.:1854-), 227. Official Proceedings of the Republican National Convention, Chicago, June 3, 4, 5 and 6, 1884, 24.

²⁰ Calhoun, Charles W. Benjamin Harrison: The American Presidents Series: The 23^rd President, 1889-1893. New York: Times Books, 2013,

^{21 “}McElwee. A Southern Lawyer, the Brilliant Orator and Barrister.”

²²Granberry, Dorothy. “When the Rabbit Foot Was Worked and Republican Votes Became Democratic Votes: Black Disfranchisement in Haywood County, Tennessee.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Vol. LXIII, No. 1, Spring 2004.

²³ Lester, Connie L. “Disfranchising Laws.” Tennessee Encyclopedia, Online edition. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2002-2014.

²⁴ “An Eloquent Lawyer’s Great Effort Highly Complimented by Leading Whites,” Freeman, June 20, 1891. Also “Professional Success,” Freeman, July 11, 1891.

²⁵ “Chips,” Broad Axe, August 12, 1901.

²⁶ “Chips,” Broad Axe, February 8, 1902

²⁷ “Death Claims Samuel A. McElwee: Well Known Attorney Was Native of Brownsville, Tenn.—Was Member of Tennessee Legislature.” The Chicago Defender, October 24, 1914.

Sampson W. Keeble, 1833-1887

by Kathy B. Lauder.

Sampson Wesley Keeble, Tennessee’s first African American legislator, was born May 18, 1833, in Rutherford County.¹ His parents were Sampson and Nancy Keeble, slaves of Walter “Blackhead” Keeble, whose 1844 inventory listed 11-year-old Sampson.² (Walter Keeble referred to his slaves as his servants and reportedly treated them respectfully. His 1816 will specified that his slaves were to be treated kindly, to be educated, and to be freed as soon as the law allowed . . . and that any of his descendants who refused were to inherit nothing at all.) The youngster was bequeathed to newsman Horace P. Keeble, who employed him as a pressman on the Rutherford Telegraph and the Murfreesboro News.³ After the Civil War, during which Sampson probably served as Private H. P. Keeble’s cook, the newly freed slave settled in Nashville and found work as a barber. Part-time employment in a law office helped him pass the Tennessee bar.⁴ He quickly became a leading citizen of the black community, working with James Napier, Peter and Samuel Lowery, Henry Harding, Nelson Merry, and others to educate black voters and to improve their civic status and security.⁵ Popular and successful as a barber, he also managed a well-known boarding house, and was believed to be quite wealthy.⁶ He was a director of the Tennessee Colored Agricultural and Mechanical Association⁷ and served on one of the few all-black Freedman’s Bank boards in the country.

*This bust of Representative Sampson W. Keeble was installed near the House Chamber in the Tennessee State Capitol in 2010. (photo used with permission of the sculptor, Roy Butler)*

In 1872 Davidson County Republicans appointed Keeble to run for the Tennessee House of Representatives. Swept into office by the landslide vote for President Grant, he became the first African American to serve in the state legislature. He introduced several bills aimed at improving the condition of black citizens, but none received sufficient votes to pass into law.⁸ He served only a single two-year term and lost a later bid for reelection (1878).

Sampson Keeble joined other prominent Nashvillians in protesting the upper-level mismanagement and fraud that threatened to topple the Freedman’s Bank,⁹ but Congressional response was inadequate. When the government failed to insure the existing deposits, the Freedman’s Bank collapsed in 1874, taking with it the life savings of thousands of African American depositors.

*Keeble descendants at his historical marker in downtown Nashville. (photo from NHN collection)*

Keeble was elected to the Davidson County Court in 1877, serving as a magistrate until 1882.¹⁰ He was a delegate to the State Republican convention and served on a number of juries, including a federal grand jury (1881).¹¹

After the death of his first wife,¹² he married educator Rebecca Cantrell Gordon. Of the six children born to them, only a son and daughter survived to adulthood.¹³ At some point in the middle 1880s the family moved to Marshall, Texas, where Sampson Keeble died in June 1887.¹⁴ Rebecca brought the children back to Nashville, supporting them as a seamstress. She died in 1923 in a tragic accident at her daughter’s home in Charleston, South Carolina.¹⁵ Sampson Keeble is buried with his daughter and son-in-law in Nashville’s Greenwood Cemetery under a stone which reads, “Benjamin F. Cox (1874-1952) – His Wife, Jeannette Keeble Cox (1876-1956) – Her Father, Sampson W. Keeble (1833-1887), First Negro Representative of Tennessee Legislature.”

*Keeble-Cox tombstone in Greenwood Cemetery, Nashville.*

On March 29, 2010, a bust of Sampson W. Keeble, created by sculptor Roy W. Butler, was unveiled near the House chamber in the Tennessee Capitol. Its base lists all fourteen African Americans elected to the General Assembly during the 19^th century. (2014)

SOURCES:

¹ McBride, Robert M., and Dan M. Robinson. Biographical Directory, Tennessee General Assembly, Volume II (1861-1901) Nashville: Tennessee State Library & Archives and Tennessee Historical Commission, 1979.

² Rutherford County Will and Inventory Book 12, 1844, 432-434 and 558-562.

³ “Representative Keeble,” Nashville Union & American, December 6, 1872.

⁴ Helen Davis Mills, Keeble descendant, correspondence, 2008.

⁵ “In Chancery at Nashville,” Nashville Republican Banner, September 3, 1872.

⁶ “History of a Stolen Watch,” Nashville Republican Banner, October 18, 1871.

⁷ “The Colored Fair, A Satisfactory Indication of Material Progress,” Nashville Republican Banner, July 16, 1871.

⁸ Cartwright, Joseph H. The Triumph of Jim Crow: Tennessee Race Relations in the 1880s. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1976.⁹ “A Memorial to the Senate and House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States,” Congressional Record, January 15, 1875.

¹⁰ “Keeble Still Ahead,” Nashville Daily American, September 2, 1876.

¹¹ “Federal Court Jurors,” Nashville Daily American, March 16, 1881.

¹² “Died,” Nashville Republican Banner, June 17, 1870.

¹³ U. S. Census records.

¹⁴ “Death of Sampson W. Keeble,” Nashville Daily American, July 3, 1887.

¹⁵ Ancestry.com South Carolina, Death Records, 1821-1960 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry-com Operations Inc., 2008.