Episodes

William Grimes authored the first book-form slave narrative printed in the United States. (Image credit: New Georgia Encyclopedia) “It was my great desire to read easily this book. I thought it was written by the Almighty himself. I loved this book, and prayed over it and labored until I could read it. I used to go to the church to hear the white preacher. When I heard him read his text, I would read mine when I got home. This is the way, my readers, I learned to read the Word of God when I was...

Noah Webster’s Blue-Backed Speller Image credits: worthpoint.com and historyisfun.org Very early in life I took up the idea that I wanted to learn to read and write. I was convinced that there would be something for me to do in the future, that I could not accomplish by remaining in ignorance. I had heard so much about freedom, and of the colored people running off and going to Canada, that my mind was busy with this subject even in my young days. I sought the aid of the white boys, who did all...

Bethany Veney; image credit: Public Domain The next thing I recall as being of any particular importance to me was the death of my mother, and, soon after, that of Master Fletcher. I must have been about nine years old at that time. Master’s children consisted of five daughters and two sons. As usual in such cases, an inventory was taken of his property (all of which nearly was in slaves), and, being apportioned in shares, lots were drawn, and, as might chance, we fell to our several masters an...

Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner; Image credit: CBS News July 16, 1964 Dear Mr. Nelson, As you probably already know, there have been many arrests in Greenwood … Tomorrow I expect to be there to picket the jail house. This means almost certain arrest. Yours in freedom, Cephas During the summer of 1964, thousands of young people from across the United States enlisted in the battle for democracy in Mississippi. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and other ...

Freedom Summer Volunteers; Image Credit: Civil Rights Movement Veterans The Freedom Carrier Greenwood, MS July 16, 1964 It is felt that the state of Mississippi has the worst educational system in the entire United States. As degraded as the white education is, the Negro has the worst half of the worst. A need to try to fill the gap was felt. Therefore COFO initiated the idea of Freedom Schools as an attempt to supplement the present system of education. The first Freedom School to be establ...

Women of the Army Signal Corps at First Army Headquarters Image credit: National Archives [/audio] “Every order for an infantry advance, a barrage preparatory to the taking of a new objective and, in fact, for every troop movement, came of these ‘fighting lines,’ as we called them. These wires connected to the front, up with the generals and made it possible for the latter to know exactly what was going on at any moment and to direct operations accordingly.” –Berthe Hunt, Women’s Telephone Uni...

A.F.F.W. Drivers. Chauffeurs of the American Fund for French Wounded. Image credit: Library of Congress http://media.blubrry.com/american_epistles/content.blubrry.com/american_epistles/Women_in_WWI_Part_3.mp3 [/audio] November 4, 1918 The chauffeurs have been most tremendously busy these last two weeks on account of moving. My life seems to hinge around choked carbureters, broken springs, long hours on the road, food snatched when you can get it, and sleep. Nothing else has mattered to me and ...

Salvation Army Worker Serving Donuts to the AEF; Image credit: Smithsonian Magazine “August 10, 1917 I get my appointment and go loco w joy. It seems to me my reason for existence is explained. All my training and experience seem to have fitted me for just this. Bradford Knapp talks and I get two ideas. Unless one gives all one is not giving enough, and if one can go one should. The other thing was that to our generation has come this great chance for sacrifice. There is a joy in my heart that...

Surgical Dressings Committee Volunteers in the Zander Ward of the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital; Image Credit: Center for the History of Medicine at Countway Library https://americanepistles.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/women-in-wwi-part-1.mp3 “Their house had been destroyed and they had lost all their farm possessions but one cow. They were living in one side of a dirt-floored barn that belonged to some friend, and someone else had given them a bed. But why this family was living at all, I do not ...

African American Soldiers Arriving in France, Image Credit: National Archives September 3, 1918 My Dear Mr Brimley, … I am glad to know that my people are doing their bit to win the war, they sure make good soldiers and seem to take delight in sticking Fritz with a bayonet or clubbing him with the butt end of a rifle, but their main weapon is the hand grenade… I am writing to the new commander today asking for special duty as patrol officer and I hope I can get it as it affords a fellow a better...

Suffrage Poster, November 6, 1917 Image credit: New York State Library. Topeka Feb 11, 1887 To Gov Martin Dear Sir: Ten thousand Women who have enough rights without voting and also plenty to do, to attend to their own affairs without meddling with men’s business, ask you to Veto this Suffrage bill. We don’t want to vote, and go to the polls with n****rs — and all kinds of woman. Mrs G. Monroe and thousands of others We’ve all heard of Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass, but there wer...

Provost Guard of the 107th Colored Infantry, Fort Corcoran, Washington, D.C., 1863 Image credit: pbs.org Carlisle, PA November 21, 1864 Mr Abraham Lincoln, I want to know, Sir, if you please, whether I can have my son released from the army. He is all the support I have now. His father is dead and his brother; that was all the help that I had … Today’s episode is a miniature one! The Civil War is a familiar topic to most of us, and there are several podcasts on the topic. Less familiar is the e...

“In the North the African American had more educational opportunities.” Jacob Lawrence Image credit: The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC “South State Street was in its glory then, a teeming Negro street with crowded theatres, restaurants and cabarets. And excitement from noon to noon. Midnight was like day. The street was full of workers and gamblers, prostitutes and pimps, church folks and sinners.” — Langston Hughes In many ways, the North delivered on its promise. The migrants enjoyed hi...

“The migration spread,” Jacob Lawrence Image credit: The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC http://media.blubrry.com/american_epistles/content.blubrry.com/american_epistles/Great_Migration_Part_2.mp3 “We must have the Negro in the South … It is the only labor we have; it is the best we have—if we lost it, we [would] go bankrupt.” –Macon (Georgia) Telegraph, 1916 Prior to World War I, African Americans had plenty of reasons to want to leave the South. But they had little reason to believe that ...

“…the slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery.” W.E.B. du Bois Initiated before the end of the Civil War, Reconstruction held the promise of freedom, full citizenship, and (for men) the franchise for African Americans. But even before the Federal troops that were enforcing Reconstruction withdrew from the former Confederate States, Southern communities and legislatures set about to return the freed men and women to their former condition. Despite ...

Image credit: Public Doman Where does “history” come from? How do we know, for example, what words didn’t make it into the Declaration of Independence? Or what the delegates to the Constitutional Convention argued about before the final document was signed on September 17, 1787? To a great degree, our history textbooks started with the diaries that the Founding Fathers kept, and the letters they wrote to one another. But there is more to history than Founding Fathers and famous generals. There...