Use Context to Fill in Family History

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Critical Family History and Sundown Towns

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Christine: I am having a conversation with James W. Loewen, author of many well-known books including Lies my Teacher Told Me and Teaching What Really Happened. Jim, I didn’t know I had grown up in a sundown town until I read your book Sundown Towns. I knew the town was almost all-white, but I had more or less accepted the dominant idea that this was so because people of color didn’t choose to live there. For readers who aren’t sure what we are talking about, can you clarify: what is a sundown town?

 Jim Loewen: Sundown towns are communities that for decades were — some still are — "all-white" on purpose. I put "all-white" in quotation marks because some towns were viciously unwelcoming of African Americans even while harboring one and sometimes two black families. When Pana, Illinois, for example, forced out its African American population in 1899, whites did not make the black barber and his family leave. He had a white clientele and many acquaintances — even friends — in the white community. No one had a complaint about him. Pana did post signs at its city limits, signs that remained up at least until 1960, and permitted no other African Americans to move in, so it definitely became a sundown town. So I use <10 African Americans, not zero, as my population cutoff; for larger cities I use <0.1%.

Christine: Does a sundown town have to have a sign, like the one on the cover?

Jim Loewen: No, most towns never had a sign. Most towns never passed an ordinance. Moreover, the term "sundown town" is unknown in some parts of the nation. Nevertheless, residents understood that African Americans — and sometimes Jews, Chinese Americans, Native Americans, or members of other groups — were not welcome.

Christine: When did towns go sundown?

Jim Loewen: A few towns kept out African Americans even before the Civil War. Most went sundown much later, however, between 1890 and 1940. This is the infamous "Nadir of Race Relations," when the entire U.S., North as well as South, went more racist in our ideology than at any other point. Sundown suburbs came a little later, mostly forming from 1905 to 1968.

Christine: So, when researching family history, it appears that not only did racism in one form or another shape where our ancestors lived, but after Reconstruction, white people increasingly used various processes to create white towns, which had the effect of restricting where people of color could live. Very possibly most of us who live in the U.S. and who have ancestry going back at least a couple of generations have been touched by sundown towns. How might we look into the connection between sundown towns and family history?

Jim Loewen: First, use oral history. Older family members often know when their ancestors first got to a community. They also often know if their community was all-white by accident or by design. They may remember details. For instance, perhaps a black student was in the public schools briefly in the 1950s. Of course, no one intends to move to a town briefly. No family goes through all the trouble to enroll a child in school briefly. So already, that's evidence that the town was not all white by accident. Sometimes people will remember additional details — a brick through a window, a child beaten up at school, DWB stops.

Second, make use of the "manuscript census," the actual census enumeration. Down through 1940, the manuscript census tells the race of every resident, as well as their address, occupation, age, and sex. Just as a family historian might find an influx of "McDonalds" between, say, 1900 and 1910, s/he might find an abrupt decrease in "C" (for "colored") in the race column. Sometimes, the names no longer there can be found in the latter year in the nearest interracial town. Then you can contact descendants and learn why they left.

Christine: I would also like to direct readers to your Sundown Towns Map, which I’ve used periodically in my own family history research. You make available a very useful set of tools. On the map of the U.S., one can simply click on a state to see a list of possible sundown towns in that state, then click on a town and read documentation of its history as a sundown town.

Jim Loewen: Readers need to know that if a town does not appear on a state’s listing, that does not mean that it wasn’t a sundown town. It may mean that I simply haven’t learned about it yet. Your readers can perform a great service by sending me information about towns that they think kept out African Americans (or other groups). Eventually their material will get posted, anonymously if they so wish. My email address is jloewen@uvm.edu.

Christine: Thank you! What would you say is the most important insight a family historian might gain from asking about sundown towns in their family's past?"

Jim Loewen: Some families learn happy facts. Recently I spoke with a woman in her 50s. Her mother took down the sign at the edge of Oolitic, a small town in Indiana, and hid it in the family garage. She was proud of her mother, and rightly so. More often, white families did nothing. If they opposed the rule, they only said so within the confines of their own homes, so their opposition never registered in the community.

Christine: That was the case in my own family.

Jim Loewen: Even when that’s the case, that's an important insight, for it teaches that we white folks were "beneficiaries" of this outrageous custom and did nothing to change it. Black families, too, often pass down little about the bad things that happened to them long after slavery. Young people need to know what their elders went through. All Americans need to know about the Nadir. Few do. It does not fit with our national storyline, evident in every high school history textbook, of unrelenting automatic progress. We used to die young; now we have modern medicine. We used to be intolerant; now we are tolerant. We used to have slavery; now we have Obama. We used to be racist; now we aren't. The idea that we might have grown more racist for decade after decade after 1890 is hard to grasp. The idea that college campuses, towns, whole counties allowed black residents in 1880 but not by 1920 — hard to grasp. The idea that Jackie Robinson wasn't the first black ball player in the Major Leagues, but only the first after 1890 — hard to grasp. Family history is often the most powerful way to grasp these national trends and processes.

Christine: Thank you so much, Jim, not only for this conversation but also for the terrific books and tools you’ve been giving us.

Installment #4 “Black People Don’t Float and Swim:” Unlearning Another Lie that Jim Crow Taught

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By Dr. Sherick Hughes, Guest Writer

Unfortunately, the phrase “Black people don’t float and swim” has been interwoven as a deterministic lie deep within the fabric of this nation. There were skewed social science studies of our buoyancy and muscle density in relation to our White peers to suggest that we can’t float. From this conclusion, it was determined that my people are not born to swim like our White counterparts. In reality, neither buoyancy nor muscle density characteristics actually would prevent Black folks from swimming. I learned in a college water safety course in the early 1990s that each human can float by lying on her/his back or stomach in the water, filling up her/his lungs by inhaling air with the head above water, and then holding her/his breath in 5-10 second intervals. From there, humans must simply learn the kicks and arm movements that accompany the proper “strokes” that allow us to move most efficiently in the water.

Given these human facts about floating and swimming were ignored by Jim Crow in favor of a lie that my people can’t float or swim, how might critical family history assist folks in unlearning this falsehood? Nearly a decade after the college water safety course, I pursued ethnography and family history work as part of my dissertation 2001-2003. It was during this time that I first engaged three techniques that can be useful for critical family history: (1) revisiting the local libraries, (2) revisiting the local museums, and (3) listening for understanding. These three techniques provided fuel for me to challenge continuously the racialized floating and swimming lie that Jim Crow had spread throughout my family and in fact, throughout my birthplace in Northeastern, North Carolina. In this fourth and final installment, I describe how these three techniques can be quite useful for dismantling the Jim Crow lies that too often become faulty “common sense” in our families and communities.

Revisiting the Local Libraries
While we visit local libraries and read books as children and even young adults, I am encouraged by the practice of revisiting libraries for old and new texts that may shed new light on my family history. Cecelski's book The Waterman’s Song: Slavery and Freedom in the Maritime South (2001) was available in my local library, but I missed it during my initial online searches. Consequently, it was my wife who introduced me to the book after a conversation with her former employer about my dissertation research. Cecelski became a key piece of evidence to provide a context around my family’s coastal, rural experience. I learned from Cecelski that historians now estimate that over 900 free Blacks lived in the Albemarle region of Northeastern North Carolina (which, includes my hometown), more than anywhere else in the South during slavery. The Blacks who lived there like Moses Grandy (one of the few published slave autobiographers), were known for their skills on the water, for building ships, for their brick masonry, etc. A critical mass of them were escaped slaves living in my hometown’s Great Dismal Swamp in Maroon communities, while others were free Blacks, including those who literally bought their freedom and began to help slaves to escape to the North.  Revisiting another library book by Siddle Walker (1996), Their Highest Potential, although written about a different part of the state, reminds us of the ingenuity and intellectual feats of the segregated Black schools that counters the pre- and post-Brown narrative of how horrible they were for Black children. Moreover, in my book, Black Hands in the Biscuits Not in the Classrooms: Unveiling Hope in a Struggle for Brown’s Promise (Hughes, 2006), I describe finding in the state archives the fact that in 1955 one county’s segregated Black K-10 schools sent more youth to college than the local white high school.

My father added additional context to Cecelski (2001) and I paraphrase:

Back then (during Jim Crow), White folks didn’t want to work down at our local (the Unionized International Longshoreman’s Association). They were ashamed to due to the grueling schedule (4:30am-6:00pm includes commute) lifting and transfer of goods from ship to port to cargo trucks and trains, so David D. Alston, a Black man, recruited Blacks to do this work. Knowing that most of the youth came from poor Black families, David D. Alston persuaded the union to open more of its doors to Black workers. The higher than minimum wages and health insurance with over-time pay benefits and bonuses were a big deal for Black men then and they are a big deal now. Then, when he died, they named a scholarship after him from our union local…that scholarship that you got all of those years. Now White folks want to work down there. The last time I was down there on the waterfront, most of the folks were White and that’s not right.

Revisiting the Local Museum
While we visit local museums and see their local exhibits as children and even young adults, I am encouraged yet again, by the practice of revisiting museums for old and new displays that may shed new light on my family history. At one of the museums in the Albemarle are pictures in black and white photography of Black men who saved many lives as life guards in the very rough and sometimes unpredictably waters of the Atlantic. The sandbars alone sank many ships which led to it being known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic. Similar to their hinterland brethren of the Great Dismal Swamp, a group of Black lifeguards emerged, survived and thrived in their work to save others in the Atlantic Ocean. Anyone who visits this museum display would be remiss to dismiss the honor that those young men have brought to local, national and international Black families by troubling Jim Crow’s lies about our aquatic capabilities. These brothers piloted ships, they built boats, and yes, they floated and swam with the very best. Seeing their portraits again, for the first time in the local museum as an adult, gave me the chills, because they had become such powerful photographs for me on a critical historical level.

Listening for Understanding, Not Just to Reply
I am learning from experiences of collecting oral histories formally and informally, that when I listen, I must consider how to listen. Listening for understanding is quite different and can produce quite different results when researching family history critically, than listening just long enough to reply and to maintain my comfort level of knowledge with the topic without expansion. This point became quite clear from a discussion with my nephew back in 2001, when he was in high school and I was home pursuing the ethnography and critical family history work of my dissertation. I worried that during the encounter, he was not beginning to understand better how our family's story connects to larger stories. I remember telling him what I was learning from Cecelski (2001), Siddle Walker (1996) and the local museum. Several years later, he returned home from the Coast Guard with a proud look on his face with a brief personal encounter to share:

The first time I went into the galley (eating and social area on the ship), there were huge portraits of a bunch of Black men on the walls who were being celebrated as heroes for their service work on ships and in the water saving lives. I felt so proud to know that other Black mean had not only succeeded but also thrived in the Coast Guard, both on the ship and in the water. Seeing those celebrated black men in the galley helped to build my confidence, especially when times got tough.

While I was encouraged by his story, I recall feeling frustrated as I replied, “Don’t you remember me telling you about this information back when you were in high school, didn’t you believe me?” My nephew looked as if he sincerely did not remember. That exchange has been a key turning point in my approach to sharing and receiving family history. I am learning from that turning point that in addition to contexts and family liaisons, there is much to be learned at all ages about listening for understanding and not just listening to reply. A listener and receiver of ethnography and critical family history evidence must fight against being just critical, liberal and conservative enough to hear his or her own voice.

Concluding Thoughts 
The critical family history and critical ethnographic techniques in Hughes (2006) coupled with the work of Cecelski (2001) and Siddle Walker (1996) did seem to help my nephew, family and me to make more meaning out of what we already knew about the family's history with water in our coastal hometown, and to add to our limited knowledge about our family’s prowess in schooling and water-based entrepreneurship from slavery to segregation. Yet, my nephew and I must continue to ask ourselves, “Is this experience in the water and on the boat something for which I should be ashamed, because White people do it, or is it something for which I should be proud, because it is what my people used to do, before Jim Crow pushed us out of this part of the local economy?” Obviously, I am arguing here that the evidence suggests that the latter is the closest to (t)ruth for our family, a Black family with six generations on the coast with records dating back to the early 1800s. The next step includes continuing to check other family members in the appropriate contexts with necessary family liaisons; and to fight against passing on Jim Crow’s aquatic lies to our posterity.

I continue to learn more about my family history of swimming, boating and Black life in the home of my birth, the county of The Great Dismal Swamp. It is the home of escaped and free Blacks, of Maroons, and of brave Black lifeguards, as revealed from my revisiting of local library books and displays in the local museum and in my listening for understanding. I find this evidence toward my critical family history troubling Jim Crow, my nephew and me with respect to our previous assumptions about possibilities and limitations of our family in maritime North Carolina from the late 1800s to the present. It is my sincere hope that information from this final installment (both alone and in conjunction with the previous installments) will inspire readers to initiate, sustain, and augment evidence from their own critical family histories in ways that keep troubling Jim Crow and the lies Jim Crow taught.

References 

Cecelski, D. (2001). The Waterman’s Song: Slavery and Freedom in the Maritime South. Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press.

Hughes, S. A. (2006). Black Hands in the Biscuits Not in the Classrooms: Unveiling Hope in a Struggle for Brown’s Promise. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishers. (Also see http://www.peterlang.com/download/datasheet/46083/datasheet_67431.pdf)

Siddle Walker, V. (1996). Their Highest Potential: An African American Community in the Segregated South. Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press.

Dr. Sherick Hughes, MA, MPA, Ph.D. is Associate Professor with Tenure, and Founder and Director, Interpretive Research Suite & Carter Qualitative Thought Lab Graduate Program Coordinator/Chair, Cultural Studies & Literacies Program Founder and Director, Black Alumni of the School of Education (BASE), School of Education, University of North Carolina, CB #3500, Peabody Hall, Chapel Hill, NC 27599

Historical Societies

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Historical societies are wonderful resources for information about the historical contexts in which your ancestors lived. There are historical societies (or other history centers) at the state, county, and city levels. The easiest way to locate those relevant to your work is online.

For example, I live in California. The state has a large historical society located in San Francisco that houses extensive collections of material including maps, photos, records, books, art work, and thematic collections (such as the history of the Golden Gate Bridge). Much is available for browsing on its website; the society also publishes several materials including a newsletter. At the county level is the Monterey County Historical Society which, in addition to housing collections of local historical records, also manages several historical buildings and monuments.

You probably won’t find information about your ancestors per se in at historical society, but you may well find a wealth of information that tells you something about how they lived. For example, my mother’s mother was born in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. On a visit to Colorado, I wanted to find out more about where she was born and spent her early childhood years. Online I located Yampa Valley Historical Information, which directed me to several small facilities, including Steamboat Springs’ history center. In the back of my mind, I was hoping to find information about my ancestral family there. Although the center did have files about some families (including newspaper clippings and other documents), there was none about my family. However, I browsed maps, photos, descriptions of the local economy, and stories from the late 1800s, when my grandmother was born. I also photocopied a description of the forced removal of the Ute Indians from the area, written by a white person whose views reflected the overt racism of that time.

The California Historical Society recently launched a very interesting global crowd sourcing project called Historypin. The idea is that a good deal of historical material is lodged not in museums or historical societies, but in boxes of old family photos, old post cards, and old letters. Anyone can contribute material, and anyone can access what is there. While it’s highly unlikely that you will find your ancestors, this growing website will provide insights into historical contextual material from grassroots perspectives.

To locate material on Historypin, you can 1) search by geographical location anywhere in the world (and you can narrow down by time span), 2) browse collections (such as “Louisville’s Past,” or “Streetcars, Busses and Trams”), or 3) browse tours (such as a tour of historical stores of New York). The collections and tours were all created by people whose Historypin pages you can visit.

And you can add to Historypin. The process is quite simple. After creating your account (your channel, the term used on the website), use the “Pin Something” button, and just follow the directions for uploading, labeling, and locating the item geographically. Items that can be pinned to the map include photos, sound files, and movie files. In the process of labeling and locating the item, you can also write information about the item, such as who is in a photograph, where it was taken, or anything else you know about it. As you get into pinning, you can create a collection or a tour for other history browsers.

Excuse me now, while I go pin some old scanned photos from my grandparents’ generation. Thank you, California Historical Society!