The Senator John Heinz History Center has developed a micro site to feature its award winning exhibition project that chronicles the African experience in America and its manifestation of freedom in Pittsburgh and elsewhere. This site is an online version of a larger project that included an award winning exhibition, public programs, research, workshops, and education lessons and teachings. The project is named in dedication to the great historian, John Hope Franklin, and his seminal work, the nine editions of From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans first published in 1947. I first met Dr. Franklin when I invited him to be the keynote speaker celebrating the 25 anniversary of the African American Archives in Cleveland in 1995. I felt then as I do now that any work looking at a wide range of the African American experience should be embraced by Franklin the most dynamic and scholarly academic of my lifetime. With the blessing of his son, John W. Franklin, the Heinz History Center uses the title of its project to not only honor Franklin but also the thousands of Africans and African Americans on both sides of the Atlantic, spanning hundreds of years of struggle and triumph, and forever seeking a path to freedom.

Visit the From Slavery to Freedom exhibit

“Make Way for Liberty” – courtesy of Western Reserve Historical Society

From Slavery to Freedom explores the quest for freedom by Africans in America from the enslavement of the 18th and 19th centuries to the civil rights movement of the 20th and 21st centuries. The site is largely focused on African Americans in Pittsburgh but in order to due proper historical context, the African background is explored including the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade moving forward. The site explores the abolitionist movement and Underground Railroad in greater Pittsburgh and original research that examines more closely the efforts of freedom seekers to sustain their lives as they made their way from slavery to freedom.

During the antebellum period of the 19th century Pittsburgh became a destination of freedom. By 1831 Africans had been enslaved in America for two hundred -eleven years. For the next 30 years Pittsburgh would be engrossed in the abolition of slavery locally and nationally. During this period the local population increased as did the resolve of local abolitionist to fight for suffrage rights and the end of bondage in America. Pittsburgh held the reputation as an active militant community of both African and white abolitionists. Not until the end of the Civil War in 1865 did many of the issues of slavery, citizenship, and suffrage resolve into a new world for African Americans. Legal bondage may have disappeared, but social codes forced African Americans to relive slavery if but in another form. Despite the bonds of American racism, Africans Americans in Pittsburgh contributed greatly to the development of the Three Rivers region and helped form its identity as a hardworking and creative city. From the anti-slavery movement to civil rights African Americans have defined freedom and shaped the American experience.

This section looks at African civilization from the Senegambia to Angola, the very region exploited by the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.

In Western Africa from Senegal to the Central African region (Angola) of the 15th to the 19th centuries, unaffected by the slave trade, great developments in metallurgy, textiles, agriculture, government, economy, social and cultural dynamics advanced. These were great societies with large cities and city-states. Metallurgy, textile development, currency, wears, tools, agricultural techniques, social and cultural practices are all signs of African civilization. These skills, technologies, and development processes were exploited by Europeans in the slave plantations, mines and fisheries of the Americas. Metal work such as sophisticated weapons, tools, and currency are examples of the skill and technique of Africans.

“Spearhead” – photo by Gail Manker; courtesy of Carnegie Museum of Natural History

“Katanga currency” – photo by Gail Manker; courtesy of Carnegie Museum of Natural History

Bronze and later iron weaponry evolved in the region of the Congo/Angola basin. A Congo spearhead like those used by Luango warriors helped build a great empire along the Southwestern Atlantic coast. Queen Nzinga Mbande's ironsmiths developed weapons for war against their enemies including the Portuguese. Other iron tools were used to advance the agriculture practices of Africans. The iron hatchet was used for many work applications including harvesting wood and other needs. Currency were examples of metallurgy among African people but also reinforced a system of trade and commerce. The cross or x-shaped Katanga currency bar is a great example of such craftsmanship. These currency bars were copper casted and used in trade and commerce in the Southern Congo region.

“Loom” – photo by Gail Manker; courtesy of Carnegie Museum of Natural History

Textile development was a part of every household and family looms, such as this one from the Congo region, dates back to the 19th century. African textiles utilized natural fibers made from cotton, raffia, bark fibers, and animal fur. The African weaving techniques demonstrate a cultural tradition dating back thousands of years. The kente of the Akan people are just one example of material culture that is defining of a people.

Social and cultural practices such as age-grade ceremonies, rituals, hierarchical ceremonies, all played a role in the manifestation of African culture. These cultural practices utilized the adornments and instruments of ritual or entertainment developed by various societies. Language, musical rhythms, and social thought advanced Africans cultural norms and reinforced ethnic identities. It is important to know that this region of Africa contained a multitude of social, political and cultural systems. The hand piano instrument has many names and is used in various regions in western Africa. It is called the Sanza in some societies but Francis Bebey refers to it as, “Likembe or Gibinji in the Congo; Timbili by the Babute of the Cameroon; and the Kone in the region of Ghana.” It is referred to as a thumb piano in the Americas. Another retention of African musical innovation can be found in the gourd fiddle circa 1850. This instrument is known to have been made in St. Mary's County, Md. and is indicative of the style of musical instrument made by enslaved Africans in America.

Material culture and norms that reflect a sophisticated and diverse Western Africa economy are but a few of the indicators of a society. Entrepreneurs conducted trade, material innovation, marketing, management, and accounting to support the growth, development and sustainability of these societies. Trade routes were established long before Europeans came to this part of Africa. In the central region, trade routes stretched from the Atlantic coast across Southern Africa to the eastern Swahili coast. Another route stretched from the West African Atlantic coastal region north across the Sahara to the Mediterranean coast and east across the great desert to the Middle East. These were the routes historically taken by Mansa Musa and the great kings of Songhay. Yet another route connected the West African Atlantic coast via the Niger River to the Nigerian interior. African seamen ventured to the Americas before Columbus' journey. Historian's Lerone Bennett Jr., and Ivan Van Sertima have proffered that Africans sailed the Atlantic and arrived in the Americas during the reign of the Mali Empire.

No one knows the exact population of the African Atlantic coast between the 15th and the 19th centuries. We know that most estimates of captives that disembarked in the Americas during the slave trade were at 12 million. Many more than that were captives who perished during the middle passage. Some historians have estimated that more than 75 million Africans inhabited the coastal region from the Senegambia to Angola. During this time major political structures were empires, kingdoms, queendoms, and city-states such as Songhai, Akan, Borno, Ife, Benin, Oyo, Ndongo, and Kongo. Cultural spiritualities as well as Islam existed in these societies. Social and cultural practices from political systems, economic bases, education, family, and territorial networks existed.

Generations after the end of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, these fruitful societies were invaded by colonial powers only to be raped of human and natural resources all over again. Not until the era of the American Civil Rights Movement did the independence movement in Africa emerge new states, territories, and societies.

In no other time in history had so many people of various ethnicities been forced to migrate from one side of the planet to another. The triangular trade moved African captives from along the western coast from Senegal to Angola across the Atlantic where they mined precious minerals and produced goods shipped to European markets and colonial governments where products were sent to Africa for more captives.

During this 400 hundred year period, slave ship engineering further developed. Merchant ships were refitted as slave ships to transport human cargo. The Caravel, Nau, Galleon, Caramack, Clipper, Frigate, and Brig were all different types of ships used to transport African captives from the western coast of Africa to the Americas. These ships carried between 100 and 1,000 people packed like sardines in a can. It all began with the Portuguese caravel in the 15th century.

“A Liverpool slave ship” – courtesy of National Museums Liverpool

In the 1440s, the Portuguese travelled down the west coast of Africa setting up trade and conquering lands in the name of the Portuguese crown. They landed in modern Mauritania in 1444 and captured free Africans transporting them to the Atlantic Ocean islands of Cape Verde and the Azores before eventually holding Africans enslaved in mainland Portugal at its capital in Lisbon. At one point, Lisbon became 10% African because of the enormity of the enslavement of Africans. The Portuguese would control the enslavement of Africans that were first brought to the Atlantic Islands, Europe, and other parts of West Africa before being transporting across the Atlantic to the Americas.

Over time, a systematic enterprise took root between European governments and corporations and African governments and monarchies. Hundreds of ethnic Africans were packed like sardines in the hull of slave ships and transported in what Marcus Rediker calls, "floating dungeons." The trade mixed ethnicities on ships and tried to strip ethnic ties once in the Americas. Viewing Africans not by their ethnic origin but by their "blackness" and status as property would make it more difficult to attach ethnic origin to the descendants of captives for centuries. Among the ethnicities aboard slave ships were the Mende, Susu, Baga, Akan, Yoruba, Ewe, Ovimbundu, Kongo, Makua, and Yao among many others.

“East Africa captives aboard the Dutch HMS Daphne, November 1, 1868” – courtesy of National Archives, United Kingdom

For Europeans, the revenue from the Trans-Atlantic slave trade became so prosperous that its population expanded for the first time since the Black Plague of the Middle Ages. The expanse of the new commerce brought a renewed economic life to Europe. New port cities were developed or expanded due to the profits of the trade including Bristol, Liverpool, and Manchester, England. The ports of London, Nantes, and Lisbon expanded due to the extensive commerce of slaves, spices, gold, and other goods. Lisbon, the western-most port in Europe and the land base closest to the Western Hemisphere, enjoyed significant population, economic, political, and cultural growth during the slave trade period.

The Portuguese were the first to embark on the Trans-Atlantic trade that initially wasn't trans-Atlantic at all. Between 1501 and 1641, Portugal and Spain accounted for 97% of the slave trade. For some time, the Royal African Company (RAC) founded in the 1660s and the Dutch West India Company held jurisdiction over the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. In its first 16 years, the RAC transported approximately 90,000 captives across the Atlantic. London reaped great profits from the slave trade from the 17th through 18th centuries. Sugar became a major cash crop for both Iberian and British companies.

Although Europeans initiated and controlled the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, it could not have been as profitable and impacted the development of the Americas if not for the collaboration of some African societies. Kingdoms in Dahomey and Kongo collaborated with Europeans such as the Portuguese, British, Dutch, and others to extract the sick, prisoners of war, drought victims, debtors, victims of violence, raiding, and kidnapping for the trade. Some of these Africans societies came to rely on the slave trade economically and were handicapped when the abolition of such trade was initiated in the early 19th century.

North America represented about 4% of the disembarkation of the Trans-Atlantic enslaved. Roughly 389,000 captives disembarked in North American ports at Charleston, S.C.; Savannah, Ga.; Boston, Mass.; Newport, R.I.; New York, N.Y.; Biloxi, Miss.; New Orleans, La.; Annapolis, Md.; Alexandria, Va.; Philadelphia, Pa; and other ports along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. The slave trade proved profitable for Americans and served as a basis for the economy of the new nation after the Revolutionary War.

By the late 18th century, political opinion of the slave trade in Britain intensified and became successful in suppressing the trade by law in 1807. The U.S. followed suit a year later in 1808. It must be understood that the slave trade was not abolished for moral reasons but purely economic and political ones. The Trans-Atlantic trade was abolished but the internal trade in North America became an even greater institution until 1865.

Great wealth was made by European participants in the slave trade. And like many other economic ventures, slavery developed peripheral industries and systems that had a lasting impact on the global economy. By examining the plantation system, cash crop globalization, slave ship engineering, tool and machine innovations, technological exploitation, as well as socio-political economic development can we better understand the totality of the slave economy.

The Spanish followed Columbus' voyages to the Americas by establishing colonies that utilized enslaved Africans as labor forces to build one of the strongest colonial economies in the West. The Spanish were known for their brutality of native and African populations. The so-called “conquest of the Americas” did not come by peacefully but through violence as entire civilizations in the Caribbean, Central and South America were annihilated by Spanish colonial aggression. Mining, plantation agriculture, and socio-cultural politicization were the cornerstone of Spanish imperial conquest. Colonial Africans were defined as property and therefore their status would be defined in economic terms for quite some time.

In 1698, the Royal African Company relinquished its monopoly on the slave trade and it became the right of every British citizen to trade in slaves as they saw fit. North American colonists used indentured servants until 1661 when the Virginia colony passed laws declaring and defining slavery as the domain of Africans and hereditarily through African women. This was the beginning of North America slave statues. Judge Leon Higginbotham in his book, “In The Matter of Color: Race and the American Legal Process, the Colonial Period,” outlines the various statues establishing slavery in the British American colonies. By doing so not only did it transform the economic value of slavery but also a socio-cultural strata that made race and color the dividing line for human rights.

As the colony further developed, an increase in African slaves were demanded. In addition to the business of the slave trade, coastal North America was also expanding in the business of its agricultural economy based on the expansion of slave labor. Sugar, rice, cotton, tobacco, indigo, and wheat became major cash crops for the economy in North America. Using a plantation system of labor and production to realize massive profits these colonial economies became so powerful that they forced independence and sovereignty.

SUGAR

Sugar plantations were established throughout the Americas increasing the European demand for its products and expanding the product in affiliated crops such as coffee, tea, spirits, and confections. The Dutch were the first to introduce sugar as a slave raised plantation crop in the Caribbean in the 17th century. Sugar transformed the European diet and was in great demand. The wealth and impact of sugar spurred the industrial revolution in the 18th century. Antigua and Jamaica were major sugar producing islands of the Caribbean. Sugar plantations held hundreds of slaves under brutal conditions where the life expectancy was less than 10 years. Laborious work, environmental and industrial hazards shortened the life span of enslaved on these plantations.

RICE

“Fulcrum shovel” – courtesy of Edda L. Fields-Black, Ph.D.

“Henry Laurens” - from National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, transfer from the National Gallery of Art, gift of A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, 1942.

Rice is an indigenous crop of the West African coastal region from the Senegambia to the Liberia border. Coastal Guinea rice cultures had cultivated the crop since 1800 BCE. Coastal cultures in Guinea and Sierra Leone were the target regions for the slave trade specific to the development of rice plantations in the Americas. They had developed a sophisticated technology and system working in the mangrove swamps along the Atlantic coast and forged indigenous tools such as the fulcrum shovel . Thousands of rice coast people were enslaved to produce the rice industry of North America. For North America rice was concentrated in the Carolinas and Gulf Coast. Rice became the major starchy food of colonial America and its production enriched those who eventually lead the Continental Congress and independence movement against the British. Henry Laurens, a South Carolina slave trader, rice plantation owner, and shipper became a major financier of the Revolution and even served as a diplomat imprisoned for a number of years by the British only to be released in exchange for Cornwallis in 1781.

COTTON

“Eagle Cotton Mill” – Detre Library & Archives at the Heinz History Center

Cotton was another cash crop cultivated in the Carolina plantation system of the colonial period before moving to other states and sections of the country. As the United States expanded, cotton production became the largest cash crop and would accumulate over 40 percent of the gross national product by the 1840s. The cotton plantation system advanced after the invention of the cotton gin in 1794 and the abolition of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1808. Southern territories became states between 1808 and 1830 identifying cotton as one of the major plantation cash crops of those regions. When Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Arkansas, and Louisiana joined the union, it allowed the cotton belt to expand from the Carolinas to Texas. Relying on slave-produced cotton, northern textile mills imported tons of cotton each year feeding the growing industries in New England and Western Pennsylvania. By the 1840s, the port of Pittsburgh accounted 5,000 tons of Mississippi cotton each year.

American cotton plantations were notorious for their brutality and hardship of the enslaved and many feared being sold south headed for those areas. American slave-raised cotton became a major export crop to Great Britain and other European markets. Cotton was so important to the southern economy that it was a major factor in the commencing and strategy of the Civil War. Abolitionist knew that undermining the slave-raised cotton industry was a key to abolishing slavery in the U.S.

“Drayton Plantation drying cotton” – courtesy of Western Reserve Historical Society

TOBACCO

Tobacco is an indigenous plant of the Americas that was popular for several uses among first peoples of the Americas. The plant had medicinal, recreational, sacred, and utilitarian uses. For European colonists the recreational smoking, chewing, snuffing, and utilitarian use were most popular. Recreational smoking and chewing of the leaves and utility as rope and binding made the product popular to a colonial and European market. As early as the 1520s, Europeans were using tobacco. In North America, tobacco plantations in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Maryland spread with the migration of white settlers into Kentucky, Tennessee, and other states. Tobacco led to the importation of enslaved Africans to Virginia in the 17th century and the population of slaves grew from 100,000 to nearly one million during the 18th century.

Tobacco product manufacturers and dealers were present in every urban community in the nation. In Pittsburgh, a number of these enterprises imported slave produced tobacco and sold it with various paraphernalia to consume the product. George Weyman invented the smokeless tobacco snuff in the 1820s and sold it along with other goods at his Pittsburgh retail store. The popularity of cigarettes and cigars made the product even more useful in the mid-19th century.

INDIGO

“Indigo cultivation in the West Indies, 1760s” – courtesy of Brown University Library

Indigo was a centuries old textile tradition in West Africa by the time Europeans arrived in the 15th century. The plant produced a deep blue color that became associated with the wealthy. American colonists used enslaved Africans with knowledge of the technology to produce the dye in the Carolinas. It quickly became the second most profitable cash crop in South Carolina behind rice.

The economics of slavery are often overlooked. By closer examination of the great wealth accumulated by those involved can we get a greater understanding of the dynamics of slavery. This understanding could lend to greater knowledge of the struggles of African humanity as well as the development of the Americas.

In the history of the Underground Railroad, much is made of the role of activists, safe houses, and station operators both black and white. One of the most important lessons of this history is the agency of the enslaved to self-liberate from bondage. In the From Slavery to Freedom exhibition, the term “freedom seekers” or “runaway” is used instead of fugitive slaves to identify those who were seeking freedom and were determined from the outset to do it themselves. The focus is on the human determination to find freedom and the factors of this agency to do so. The Underground Railroad did not consume all those that sought freedom. For some, freedom was a spontaneous reaction to conditions in bondage and for others it was well planned clandestine strategy to strike a blow against slavery. Historians John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger drove home this point in their book, “Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation,” by insisting that the greatest act of resistance to slavery was to run away. In that context, this study poses a major question, “How did freedom seekers survive their journey?”

Overall, the historic record examines little of the detailed experiences of the runaways’ journey to freedom. Some narratives, memoirs, histories, recantations, interviews, and oral histories have revealed brief accounts of the day-to-day, moment-to-moment quest to live while on the run. Josiah Henson, a Maryland-born slave who escaped with his wife and children from bondage in Kentucky in 1830, details the strife of the freedom seeker, including the means to find food and shelter in the wilderness, in his 1849 autobiography. With a few exceptions, details of the means of survival are just now coming to light in the current scholarship. How was it possible to travel hundreds of miles, even with help, without nourishment, food, and rest? From Slavery to Freedom opinions that the greatest challenge to freedom seekers was the natural environment. This research examines various aspects of the encounter with the natural environment and methods used to survive the journey. To better understand this history, we have embraced an interdisciplinary study that includes anthropological, historical, botanical, and cultural approaches. These methods included knowledge of edible plants and flora as well as those used as medicine and shelter and the ability to read the terrain. Freedom seekers must conquer the wilderness or face being captured or killed by slave hunters and the dogs that accompanied them. Speculative numbers say that nearly 30,000 people escaped through the Underground Railroad. No one knows the number of those that perished in the wilderness, were killed by wild beast or slave catchers and their dogs, or succumbed to the challenge of the wilderness. The ability to sustain one’s life, to find food, shelter and aid was most important for success to freedom.

Our study concentrates on the region south of Pennsylvania from Virginia and Maryland to the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coasts. The region included the southern slave holding states and contained over 90% of the antebellum African American population. It included the states of Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Much of this territory covers severe terrain that includes a number of ranges of the Allegheny Mountains such as Blue Ridge, Piedmont, Catskills, and various sub-ranges, major rivers, lakes, streams, swamps, gorges, bluffs, and gullies, as well as the wild beasts that were plentiful in antebellum America. A significant amount of research on the plants and flora of the period centered on the resources at the Carnegie Mellon University Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation. The primary texts consulted were “Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests, Medical, Economical, and Agricultural” by Francis Peyre Porcher for the Surgeon General of the Confederacy in 1863; and “Edible Wild Plants of Eastern North America” by Merritt Lyndon Fernald, et. al., 1943. These two texts and other secondary sources helped gather a greater understanding of the plants, flora, cash crops, and foods found naturally, or cultivated by people of African descent in slavery and freedom. Up to 50 plant species are illustrated from books, mostly from the period, mostly engravings, many of them hand colored, from the Carnegie Mellon University Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation.

The Hunt Institute provided sources written during the antebellum period that reflect the relationship of plants, flora, foods, and terrain with African Americans. This point was a primary factor in the research methodology. Our findings proved that there exists the skills and knowledge of plants, flora, and the environment to be a factor in the quest for freedom. It also strengthens the notion that black agency played a major part in the freedom seeker experience and that these brave souls were not totally dependent upon white help to find freedom. Other sources included slave narratives and secondary sources. Numerous slave narratives, memoirs, autobiographies, and histories mentioned the efforts by freedom seekers to find sustenance, safety, and aid while traveling to their place of refuge. James W.C. Pennington in his 1849 recollection of his escape from slavery in Maryland recalls his foraging to ward off starvation while he made his way from Western Maryland to New York.

In addition to the noted sources, the project had two advisors Jessica Harris and Michael Twitty whose expertise in African American culinary traditions and folk medicinal histories provided anecdotal and scholarly guidance to the project. Harris’ and Twitty’s input also opened the exhibit to explore more deeply the traditional culinary habits of African Americans at this time. A typical enslaved diet may have consisted of corn meal, flour, pork fat, molasses, and whatever greens, fruits, and vegetables could be added. Some enslaved were allowed to cultivate their own gardens, raise chickens, duck or turkey. Depending on the region and era, food knowledge retained from West Africa would have aided in food cultivation and culinary practices. American potatoes, peppers, root vegetables, okra, and peanuts were carryovers of African diets. Greens of various kinds were incorporated as well. The corn meal and flour was used to make hoe cakes or soup thickener. Salted pork fat or other parts of the hog were used basically as a seasoning of the greens and cakes. Former North Carolina slave Dorcas Griffith recounted in 1937 the weekly ration of food that consisted of, “…a half peck of meal and a pound o’ meat, a little oat meal, and canned grape juice, a half pound o’ coffee and no sugar or lard and no flour. Dey give us dat for a week’s eatin’.”

Freedom seekers would often carry provisions with them. Some of these were used to ward off their scent for dogs or to energize them on the journey. Alton Hughey, a white Presbyterian Minister confined to jail in Mississippi as a Federal sympathizer during the Civil War, talked about methods enslaved Africans taught him to ward off dogs while he was on the run.

The enslaved had a history of survival in the wilderness, not only as freedom seekers, runaways, or fugitive slaves but also as inhabitants of the wilderness as maroons. Numerous autobiographies, memoirs, and narratives of former slaves help us to better understand the trek to freedom but provide very little detail as to the methods used to survive what would sometimes take almost a year to accomplish. In his autobiography of 1848, William Wells Brown talked of his own escape from slavery and his reliance on foraging for survival. These stories and recantations do not clearly identify how freedom seekers lived off the land. A more detailed survival can be found in the work of Sylviane Diouf in “Slavery’s Exiles: The Story of the American Maroons,” who explained the experiences of the Maroons who lived in the swamps and wilderness just out of reach of slavery. Diouf profiles the knowledge of the natural environment and skills to survive and the determination to be free from bondage. Judith A. Carney and Richard Nicholas Rosomoff in their book, “In the Shadow of Slavery: Africa’s Botanical Legacy in the Atlantic World,” adds, “Plantation slaves and fugitive runaways alike depended on ethnobotanical knowledge for nourishment, healing, and their collective survival.”

Much is made of the traveling habits of freedom seekers. Many travelled at night after having found the daylight to reveal their journey. As a consequence, they ate and hunted at night. The night would conceal their fire for cooking and at times make nocturnal animals such as opossum, raccoons, and rodents their prey. The skill to survive in the wilderness all the while being chased as an escaped slave is challenge enough. According to Cheryl LaRoche, “The valleys of three parallel [mountain] ranges, the Cumberland, Allegheny, and Blue Ridge Mountains carved natural pathways leading north. Plenty of limestone caves could be found along the way and were used by escapees and white conductors alike.” LaRoche further explains that escape narratives mention the natural and manmade hiding places that included caves and waterways. Likewise, William Wells Brown recalls escaped slaves living in caves, giving birth there, and forming a most primitive existence, although as free people relying almost exclusively off their skills isolated from human contact. George Womble enslaved in Georgia recalls a runaway from the Womble plantation, “One of the slaves on the Womble Plantation took his wife and ran away. He and his wife lived in a cave that they found in the woods and there they raised a family. When freedom was declared and these children saw the light of the day for the first time they almost went blind.”

Historian Edda L. Fields-Black recalls the escape of Jack from a South Carolina rice plantation, “Leaving his family behind, he hid in the rice swamps ‘creeping along at night’ until he reached the woods, then hid in the bushes to evade the dogs. He ‘crawled down to the banks of the creeks and marshes,’ stood in water up to his chin for an entire day, and sank deep in black mud to mask his scent. Jack ‘cut a lot of bushes and a tough oak-tree for splints’ then spent two days weaving a basket-boat, which he caulked with cotton picked in the fields. He smeared the cotton with pitch made by ‘cutting into a tree and catching the gum, which [he] boiled in a kettle.’”

Jack demonstrated his knowledge and skill to survive in the wilderness and his determination to be free from bondage. Jack utilized the natural resources to aid in his escape, shelter, and quite possibly his nourishment. There were thousands of plants and flora familiar to African Americans that existed in the target area. Many of these plants and flora or ones similar were used by the enslaved on plantations or in their modest homes. Some of the plants and flora were used for food, tinctures, medicines, shelter, health aids, or other needs for survival. The most common use was food or medicine. The enslaved developed their own remedies for medical purposes and used various herbs, flora, and plants to make them. The WPA narratives of former slaves conducted in the late 1930s recall the use of herbs in folk remedies. Joseph Ringo a former slave of Mason County, Ky. recalls, "Dey used to mel all kines er home remdies fer ailmen's; red pepper tea fer colds, en oak bark en hickory bark fer stommick ails, en but, oh, chile, I cant member all sech home doctorin'." It has been said that Harriet Tubman carried a vile of paregoric with her when assisting freedom seekers to the north. This derivative of opium was used mostly on children so that they would sleep most of the journey.

But when freedom seekers reached their destination, many of them brought their culinary and medicinal remedy traditions with them. This factor helped to spread African American culinary traditions throughout the U.S. Wherever people went, they took their culinary traditions and adapted to their new environment. A significant number of early residencies of the Pittsburgh area were people from Maryland and Virginia. Pennsylvanias border-states, Maryland and Virginia, held diverse culinary traditions. The eastern shores of these states had remarkably different diets than the western part. According to Michael Twitty, the coastal diets of the Chesapeake region relied on the bounty of the Bay with fish and oysters as part of the diet along with peas, hominy, and various greens. In 1937, 105-year old former slave Parson Williams of Baltimore recalled his enslaved diet consisting of, “red herring and molasses.” The western plantation range of these states utilized less Bay area foods but the same culinary script. Greens, corn, peas, roots, and wild game such as possum, snakes, and turkey were part of the diet although on special occasions. Basically, regardless of where you were enslaved, life was hard and you made food out of what you could find or grow.

By examining the use of plants, flora and the wilderness for survival we have opened a new chapter in Underground Railroad history. Now the learning around the Underground Railroad is on the ground with freedom seekers. This microsite contains a list of plants and foods that were researched to have a relationship with the enslaved, freedom seekers and free people of color. Arranged by category: fruits, herbs, flora, nuts, trees, vegetables, cash crops, and medicines the list explores a history of survival and use of the natural environment to attain freedom.

During the antebellum period from 1780 to 1861, Pittsburgh was seen by freedom seekers as a destination for freedom. The gradual abolition act of 1780 set in motion colonial and new states' initiatives in the North to abolish slavery. Pennsylvania was one of the first states to establish a law pertaining to the status of African Americans held in bondage. By gradually phasing out legal slavery, the Commonwealth hoped that over the coming decades of the 19th century, slavery would be eradicated from Pennsylvania. One condition of the law established indentured servitude for those born after March 1, 1780 to serve for 28 years. Actually, there was very little difference between slavery and indentured servitude on paper or in life. Between 1792 and 1857, Allegheny County recorded a number of emancipations, manumissions, indentures, certificates of freedom, and freedom papers for African Americans who were passing through the region or settling in the area. It was important for African Americans to have a legal document describing their status on file in the courts because of the danger of losing their freedom to slave catchers. The documents help understand the transition from slavery to freedom in Western Pennsylvania and also indicate that Pittsburgh was a destination for freedom.

"General James O’Hara” – gift of Mrs. Harmar D. Denny, Heinz History Center

Slavery had existed in Pennsylvania from its inception as a British colony in 1681. Various ethnic and religious groups such as the Quakers were the first Europeans colonists to abolish and denounce slavery in the colony. But that did not stop slave holding in Pittsburgh. Some of the leading citizens of antebellum Pittsburgh held slaves. Gen. James O'Hara, Conrad Winebiddle, John McKee, Isaac Craig, Gen. John Neville, and a host of wealthy land and property owners held slaves. Slavery was small in Pittsburgh when compared to the plantation economies of the southern states. By 1790, there were 3,737 enslaved in Pennsylvania with 878 recorded in the western counties and 795 statewide by 1810. The gradual abolition act made Pennsylvania a border state with the slave holding southern border of Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware important to the abolitionist cause. To its west, Ohio and the Northwest Territory were deemed free of slavery. The first half of the 19th century witnessed a continual battle along the borders between slaveholders and abolitionists as freedom seekers ventured into Pennsylvania and slave catchers followed them. This caused the Pennsylvania legislature to distinguish itself as a free state.

"Thomas Brown” – courtesy of Ohio Historical Society

Pittsburgh's abolitionists knew and understood the issue of slavery. Both white and African American abolitionists worked for decades to aid freedom seekers and to protest slavery in America. Eventually many would be part of the network of the Underground Railroad. By the 1830s, Pittsburgh had a growing reputation as a fierce, militant abolitionist community. Pittsburghers were founding members of the American Anti-Slavery Society and through the Prince Hall Masons and African Methodist Episcopal Church, had established a commitment to the abolitionist cause. Lewis Woodson, John B. Vashon, Martin Delany, John Peck, George Vashon, Thomas Brown, William Webb, Halson Vashon, Susan Vashon, Francis Brown, and scores more were deeply invested in abolitionism. These people and others helped form a cohesive African American community that not only addressed slavery but other issues and concerns as well.

The community investment included forming organizations to not only aid the cause of abolition and freedom but also to assist in the cause of education, employment, homelessness, and other humanitarian needs of the newly free and destitute. In the African American community, organizations such as the Moral Reform Society, Philanthropic Society, and the Juvenile Anti-Slavery Society aided the efforts of abolitionists. During the height of abolitionist activities, a vigilance committee stood guard over rescue missions as slaves were brought into Pittsburgh.

On the front line of the Underground Railroad was the Monongahela House Hotel located at Smithfield and Water Streets along the river. It was built in 1840, became a casualty of the fire of 1845, rebuilt in 1847, and was staffed by African Americans of the vigilance committee including Thomas and Frances Scroggins Brown. The underground network at the hotel worked to free enslaved people as they came into the hotel with their owners. The practice intensified leading up to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. The network was so effective that a southern slave holder who lost his 14-year-old slave girl while staying overnight at the hotel, wrote in several southern newspapers that slave holders should avoid Pittsburgh and the Monongahela Hotel for chance of losing their "property."

"Monongahela House Hotel” – Detre Library & Archives at the Heinz History Center

Local and national press aided the abolitionists' cause. Abolitionist and standard newspapers often printed stories about Pittsburgh activities. Newspapers such as the Colored American, North Star, the Pittsburgh Standard Visiter, and The Mystery covered issues of slavery, freedom, and the abolitionist cause. These newspapers are indications that African Americans understood the power of the press in propagating its anti-slavery position and building a collective of supporters for the cause. Counter to the abolitionists sheets was the Pittsburgh Gazette, and the Post newspapers that regularly printed runaway slave reward postings.

The issue of slavery and freedom would intensify in the 1850s. By September 1850, the conflict along the southern border of Pennsylvania erupted when the Compromise of 1850 and its Fugitive Slave Act gave more powers to slaveholders than ever before to intrude into the homes of citizens looking for fugitive slaves and provide little protection for free people of color from capture and later sold into slavery in the south. As a result, Pittsburgh would witness hundreds of its African American residents migrate to states west and north into Canada. Buxton, Ontario, Canada welcomed migrating Pittsburghers. By 1852, an African American committee of Pittsburghers had a replica of the Liberty Bell caste in a local foundry and sent to the Rev. William King's church in North Buxton. The Bell was inscribed with a message that read in part, "Presented to the Rev. Wm. King by the Coloured [sic] inhabitants of Pittsburgh for the Academy at Raleigh Canada West."

An emigration plan of a different kind was brewing among the African American community. In August 1854, the National Emigration Convention met for three days in Cleveland. Allegheny County accounted for the largest delegation at the meeting where only a plan for the departure of African American from the U.S. was discussed. The convention would settle on Africa as a place of emigration and send Martin Delany and three others to Yorubaland in the Oyo State of present day Nigeria to negotiate land leases with the chiefs of the Abeokuta. Leaders of the Pittsburgh underground were counted among the Emigration Convention members including William Webb, Samuel Bruce, Thomas Brown, Amelia Freeman, Charles Nighten, and Nimrod Dimmy. Each of these delegates played an important role in the organizing of the movement leading up to the Civil War.

Those Pittsburghers not involved with emigration continued to support the growth and development of the local African American community. Philanthropist Charles Avery provided financial support to religious and educational development of African Americans. He founded, funded, and taught at the Allegheny Institute beginning in 1849. Barbershop and Bath House owner John B. Vashon, who had spent decades fighting for the anti-slavery cause, died in 1853, a casualty of the Cholera epidemic. Lewis Woodson and John Peck were contributing letters to various newspapers including the Liberator, Colored American, and Frederick Douglass' Paper providing their perspective of the conditions placed on African Americans. Meanwhile, George Vashon would return to Pittsburgh and become principal of the African American public school in addition to his activist writings.

The 1850s could be called the decade of the launching pad to freedom. In the decade leading to the Civil War, the struggle for freedom continued to evolve. The impediments of the Fugitive Slave Law, violence between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions across the state and region, and the venture to find freedom in other lands occupied the mind of African Americans. By the time the Civil War commenced in 1861, hardened Black men in militias volunteered to settle the slavery issue once and for all. But it wasn't until 1863 that hundreds of Pittsburgh men went off to join the Massachusetts regiments and the United States Colored Troops at Camp William Penn and elsewhere that the fight for freedom would continue on the battlefield.

Abolitionist John Brown had travelled the eastern part of the U.S. and Ontario, Canada soliciting support for his planned raid on the Federal Arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Va. in 1859. Militias were formed throughout many African American communities to protect themselves from reprisal of the fugitive slave law of 1850. Before Lincoln was sworn in as the first Republican Party president in 1861, South Carolina had seceded from the Union and was followed by other southern slave-holding states. When Abraham Lincoln travelled to Washington, D.C. to assume his residence at the White House, he stopped in Pittsburgh for a night at the Monongahela House hotel. Within a few months, the nation was in a Civil War and the call for federal volunteers went out. Pittsburgh’s African American militias, the Fort Pitt Cadets, and the Hannibal Guards both volunteered their services to Gen. James Negley. Like many such militias throughout the north, they were rebuffed. It wasn't until 1863 that African American men from Pittsburgh were able to join the Union forces as United States Colored Troops (USCT) or troops of the Massachusetts 54th and 55th regiments.

"Colored Troops 1” – courtesy of National Archives Records Administration

Pittsburgh would contribute hundreds of African American men over the next two years to the Union army and naval forces. African American men on the home front would work to fortify the city against a pending Confederate invasion. In May 1862, after being rebuffed by Negley, Rufus Sibb Jones, the captain of the Fort Pitt Cadets, sent a letter to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton offering the militia to the Union efforts to garrison southern forts. In addition to the Cadets, Jones offered to recruit 200 men from Pittsburgh within 30 days. African American men were ready to fight because they saw the war as a war over slavery and they would fight to end it.

When Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation went into law on Jan. 1, 1863, it gave great jubilation to the masses. It also provided for the establishment of United States Colored Troops (USCT) providing the opportunity for African American men to join the ranks of the Union. The Federals then relied on the existing network of African American abolitionists to help recruit nearly 100,000 men. Pittsburgher Martin R. Delany came back from Canada to serve as a recruiter first for the Massachusetts 54th regiment then for other USCT regiments.

Pittsburgh would eventually contribute hundreds of men for the USCT. Alexander Kelly would join the 6th USCT at Camp William Penn and was eventually awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery in the battle of Chapin's Farm, New Market Heights, Va. in 1864. Rufus Sibb Jones would serve in the 8th USCT as a sergeant major in the Army of Virginia. Paris Burley served in Company B, 32nd USCT. The 32nd regiment served under terrible conditions, fighting both in battles against the Confederacy at Honey Hill and against white officers whose racist attitudes threatened their lives. Many of the 32nd died from disease and medical neglect. Burley was the son of Paris Burley who attended the National Emigration Convention in Cleveland in 1854.

"Major Martin R. Delany – courtesy of US Military History Institute 

However the Emancipation could not prevent the chaos and terror faced by African Americans in the Confederate South. Delany and others loudly denounced the atrocities inflicted on helpless emancipated slaves by white southerners. Between 1863 and 1865, reports of these atrocities prompted civilians like Martin R. Delany to approach Lincoln with solutions to protect the southern freed men. In turn, Lincoln commissioned Delany as a Major in the 104th United States Colored Infantry making him the highest ranking African American field soldier in U.S. military history. Delany would serve through the end of the war and then work for the Freedmen's Bureau until his commission was served.

After the war, the work of ratifying the reconstruction amendments to the Constitution was another cause for the network of abolitionists. The National Equal Rights League (NERL) was formed in 1864 and quickly began to work toward the constitutional abolition of slavery. Branches of the NERL were established in various states in the nation. In Pennsylvania, Pittsburghers George Vashon, Rev. John Peck, and B. F. Pulpress of Allegheny City became leaders of the NERL.

Over the next five years, the NERL would work to ratify the 13th (1865), 14th (1868), and 15th (1870) amendments to the Constitution. The 13th amendment ended slavery, the 14th allowed for citizenship, and the 15th allowed for male voting. The Pennsylvania State Equal Rights League would petition the legislature to ratify the 14th amendment and grant citizenship rights and suffrage to its black inhabitants. After the 15th amendment was ratified in Pennsylvania in 1869, African American Pittsburghers would hold a parade to commemorate the re-establishing of their suffrage rights that were violated in 1839. The “Jubilee of Freedom” parade was held in Pittsburgh and Allegheny City on April 26, 1870. The route for the parade began at Smithfield Street near the Monongahela House hotel and trekked into the Hill District then back downtown and across the 9th Street Bridge to Allegheny City then back across the Suspension Bridge to Liberty and Wood Streets where the event commenced. In 1873, another parade was held that continued east on Liberty commencing in Friendship Grove where a program and meeting were held. Events like these annual parades to commemorate the freedom of African Americans show that the local community was very much engaged in issues of freedom, civil rights, and citizenship. However much of the gains in the aftermath of the Civil War would come to an end and a renewed struggle would ensue changing the landscape of Black life forever.

From the end of the Civil War to the turn of the 20th century, former slaves, freemen, and the descendants of the enslaved would help transform Pittsburgh. During this period, the professional class continued to grow and support the founding of social organizations and institutions. George G. Turfley completed medical school in Ohio and opened a clinic in the Hill District where he would train a new generation of African American doctors. Mary Peck Bond co-founded a home for aged colored women eventually called the Lemington Home. A second generation of African American family-owned businesses cemented their economic and cultural significance in the area. J.R. Pulpress operated the Allegheny City Market fish dealer business started by his grandfather. Cumberland Posey established the Posey Steamboat Company, the Diamond Coal and Coke Company, and other businesses, becoming a philanthropist in the African American community. Despite the presence of Jim Crow laws, de facto segregation, and discrimination, African Americans persevered in Pittsburgh and elsewhere.

In the 35 years after the end of the Civil War and slavery, African Americans in Pittsburgh continued to struggle with the possibilities of real freedom. Southern migrants seeking freedom from the oppressions of the south began to swell the local communities. The Hill District was beginning to form as a migrant and immigrant community. A small enclave of "old Pittsburgh" families distinguished themselves from most migrants causing great schisms in the social network of everyday black life. However a collective agenda was beginning to form that would bring "old Pittsburghers" and migrants together to challenge the racism of early 20th century Pittsburgh.

After the election of Rutherford B. Hayes to the presidency in 1876, his policies to lift the federal occupancy in the South and provide amnesty to former Confederates opened the social and political resurgence of white oppression of millions of African Americans. White terrorist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan roamed the southern countryside threatening and killing any advancement and hope to escape oppression. The court battles over civil rights escalated as southern states moved quickly to apply black codes and segregated laws. First installed were the voting rights violations, then social restrictions, followed by economic repression. As a result, millions of African Americans who could not escape or change the conditions in their society were trapped in a social, political, and economic subculture orchestrated by whites to protect white power and cultural attitudes.

Land ownership, enterprise, and businesses were under attack. Many were forced into sharecropping or slave-like labor teams. As a result, millions fled the South to the North and West searching for a freer society. These migrants contributed to the growth of northern cities like Pittsburgh. From 1900 to 1930, Pittsburgh witnessed an 80% increase in its African American population. They were drawn by the promise of good paying jobs, housing, and social freedoms. What many found was an increasingly segregated society that placed African Americans at the lower point of the economic totem pole. Even in the steel mills and its subsidiary industries, African Americans overwhelmingly received the lowest paid, unskilled, and most dangerous jobs even when they had experience working in mills in the South.

Not all migrants during this period were poor, uneducated, former sharecroppers, or unskilled laborers. Robert L. Vann migrated to Pittsburgh after attending Virginia Union University in Richmond. He was a recipient of the Avery scholarship to the University of Pittsburgh and became its first African American graduate of the School of Law. The industrious Cumberland “Cap” Posey, Sr., moved to Western Pennsylvania in 1892. Posey would own the Diamond Coal and Coke Company and become founding president of the Pittsburgh Courier Publishing Company in 1910.

"Pittsburgh Courier, November 10, 1910” – Detre Library & Archives at the Heinz History Center 

However, the discrimination and restrictions of early 20th century Pittsburgh did not deter African Americans from striving to change the oppressive conditions in America. From 1900 to 1920, African Americans in Pittsburgh founded the NAACP branch, Urban League chapter, and the Pittsburgh Courier newspaper to help fight many of the discriminatory conditions and promote civil rights. Leaders in the African American community would fight for better housing for migrants, education, jobs, and against racism. The NAACP launched a nationwide anti-lynching campaign that involved the local NAACP branch as well as the Pittsburgh Courier newspaper. Local activists wore "stop lynching" buttons to support the national campaign against lynching. Steel mill workers in Aliquippa and Pittsburgh organized a local chapter of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and brought the international president general, Marcus Garvey, to town. Their efforts to address the black working class were opposed by some in the black and white communities.

"Gaines Funeral Home” – courtesy of George Gaines

Just like the Civil War, hundreds of African American men from Pittsburgh would serve in the U.S. military during World War I. The national debate surrounding the war and African American support was centered on the escalating violence such as lynchings and the denial of civil and constitutional rights nationwide. President Woodrow Wilson welcomed segregation into federal offices and cut African American federal employment opportunities. Following the editorials of W.E. B. Dubois and others who called for African Americans to "close ranks" and set aside civil rights and support the war effort, thousands of African American men enlisted or were drafted into the military and served valiantly in Europe. The hope was that after the war, the democracy won would be extended to African Americans. Unfortunately, servicemen had to fight for civil rights while in the military and face white retribution upon their return from war.

"351St Field Artillery Reunion booklet” – Detre Library & Archives at the Heinz History Center

The 351st Heavy Field Artillery Battalion made up mostly of Pittsburghers first protested their conditions at Camp Lee, Petersburg, Va., where white officers explained that they were expected to “do manual work only with picks, shovels, scrub floors.” The men “would not be armed, and might be employed one mile from front line trenches.” The men of the 351st wanted to fight and protested these conditions until they were transferred to Camp Meade where some became officers before serving in combat in France in 1918. Upon the return of the 351st to Pittsburgh at the end of the war, Mayor Babcock held a parade from the Hill District to downtown to recognize their bravery in war and democracy. Pittsburgh Lieutenants Donald C. Jefferson, John Carter Robinson, Wilson Primas, and William J. Curtis were officers in the 351st. Despite the parade, African American servicemen across the country were under attack in 1919 and the early 1920s by European immigrants and whites he felt the new aspect of freedom of their expressions were not to be tolerated in America.

On the frontline of civil rights battles and community advancement was the black church. The increase in population during the first thirty years of the 20th century also meant the increase in black churches. According to Joe Trotter and Jared Day, "By the late 1920s, African Americans maintained forty-five churches in the Hill District alone." Long standing churches such as Bethel African Methodist Episcopal (AME), John Wesley AME Zion, Grace Memorial Presbyterian, Metropolitan, and Rodman Street Baptist, Allen Chapel AME, and Brown Chapel AME was joined by great migration era churches Ebenezer, Beulah, Central, Jerusalem, Macedonia, and Mt. Ararat Baptist Churches, St. Benedict the Moor Catholic, and Homewood AME Zion that attended to the religious and spiritual needs of congregations but also provided social, cultural, and at times political leadership.

Those racial attitudes that showed defiance toward black advancement continued. Various communities in Pittsburgh would bar African American homeownership. Confining African Americans to a few communities like the Hill District, East Liberty, and sections of Homewood, this type of discrimination, called "redlining," was supported by the real estate industry and federally funded programs. When Robert L. Vann moved to Monticello Street in Homewood in 1924, his new neighbors quickly protested. They became eager to sell their own properties. Vann purchased a few homes on his street and resold them to other African American families. Trotter and Day recalled the Pittsburgh Public Schools not hiring African American teachers between 1881 and 1933. Former Pittsburgh Courier reporter and editor Frank Bolden recalled African American teachers had to leave town to find work because of the racist policies of the public schools. African Americans paid taxes that funded the schools yet were barred from pursuing teaching careers. This type of exploitation undermined African American advancement and handicapped students of color and others. Thousands of African Americans students would become teachers but were not hired to teach in Pittsburgh. It wasn't until 1936 that Pittsburgh Schools had African American teachers. The first of these teachers and administrators worked in Hill District schools.

African American organizing focused on social and political issues of the day as well. Voting rights for women was a main issue for African American women in the early 20th century. Daisy Lampkin was one of the main organizers for women's rights during this period. The Lucy Stone League, the National Association of Colored Women (later the National Council of Negro Women) served as her base of operations. Historian Leslie Patrick commented that Daisy Lampkin "was active on numerous fronts, both in her adopted Pittsburgh and throughout the nation. Her activism is believed to have begun with hosting a women's rights tea in her home in 1912, which led to her subsequent roles as a suffragist and member of the Negro Women's Equal Franchise Federation, campaigning for women's right to vote." Lampkin was a political activist, vice president of the Pittsburgh Courier, and the first field secretary for the NAACP in 1930.

Politically, African Americans were majority Republican since the Civil War. In 1932, Pittsburgh Courier editor Robert L. Vann, in a speech in Cleveland forecasted that African Americans would switch to the Democratic Party presidential candidate Franklin Delano Roosevelt because the Democrats were addressing issues impacting blacks. Decades of Republican apathy and exploitation of black voters were coming to an end. By 1923, Homer S. Brown graduated from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. In 1934, he was elected to the state legislature and in 1949, he was appointed a judge in Allegheny County. Brown sat on the bench until his retirement in 1975. His political rise followed the movement of African Americans from the Republican to Democratic Party. Twenty-five years after Brown was elected to the state legislature, K. LeRoy Irvis was elected to represent the first district of Pittsburgh. Irvis would become speaker of the House in Harrisburg in 1977, only the second African American since John R. Lynch in South Carolina during reconstruction. Both Brown and Irvis witnessed the civil rights revolution of the 1950s and 1960s from their elected chairs.

Political opportunities were the result of a new phase of migration that took place from 1940 to 1970. African Americans in Pittsburgh expanded from 62,000 to 105,000 while the white population in the city declined. This meant more eligible voters for office holders, but the change was a slow process because African Americans were constituted into two legislative districts, the 1st and the 24th. The migration also impacted employment opportunities. Pittsburgh's great employer of the 20th century was the steel mills. For African Americans, very few worked beyond unskilled labor in the mills. Other occupations recorded the same struggle as eligible workers continued to be denied access to jobs despite having the qualifications. As a result of increased migration, lack of jobs, inadequate housing, unemployment, and slow income growth, civil and economic rights activists continued to advocate for equal rights for African Americans.

This meant more eligible voters for office holders but the change was a slow process because African Americans were mostly constituted into two legislative districts, the 1st and the 24th. Homer S. Brown and K. LeRoy Irvis were able to transform the increased African American voter registrations into political office. Brown ascended to the state legislature in 1934 and Allegheny County Judge in 1949. Irvis was elected to the state legislature in 1959. He ascended to Speaker of the House in 1977. Irvis' political power held promise to transform the conditions of African Americans not only locally but statewide. It was during Brown's tenure in the state house that plans by the Allegheny Conference on Community Development were unveiled to change the face of the Hill District and set in motion a displacement of people, places, and resources in the community. This change in infrastructure and community life reverberated throughout greater Pittsburgh.

The migration also impacted employment opportunities. Pittsburgh's great employer of the 20th century was the steel mills. For African Americans very few worked beyond unskilled labor in the mills. Other occupations recorded the same struggle, as eligible workers continued to be denied access to jobs despite having the qualifications. As a result of increased migration, lack of jobs, inadequate housing, unemployment, and slow income growth, civil and economic rights activists continued to advocate for equal rights for African Americans. The industrial complex to support the war effort during World War II was in dire need of workers. According to historian Laurence Glasco, it took action by the Pittsburgh Courier and local politicians to open the doors for African American war industry workers.

Much of the activism of the post-war period grew from the activism during the war. Thousands of African American men and women joined the U.S. military from 1941 to 1945 to defend the Allied forces but also to fight for equality at home. This focus was championed by the Pittsburgh Courier that initiated the "Double V" campaign in 1942 for victory over the Axis forces and victory at home over racism and discrimination. After the war, returning servicemen and women expected changes in America that would show appreciation for their patriotism. The late 1940s witnessed desegregation in sports and military that fueled the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s. The Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision of 1954 did not change much in Pittsburgh as African American neighborhood schools ran on capacity while white schools ran at lower the 50%. Much like cities across the country, Pittsburgh took decades to address physical desegregation in its schools.

"Double V Democracy” – courtesy of The New Pittsburgh Courier

By the late 1960s, African American frustration with police brutality, unemployment, segregation, and economic discrimination boiled over. In the wake of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in April 1968, the Hill District suffered eight days of rioting where buildings were set on fire and some stores were looted. Activists such as Jimmy Joe Robinson, Nate Smith, and Byrd Brown were joined by the Urban League, NAACP, and other activists to lead mass demonstrations and marches to address these issues. In Pittsburgh, the civil rights struggle was focused largely on economic discrimination. Construction tradesmen, medical professionals, access to capital, and covenants designed to limit economic mobility were all issues addressed by African Americans. As the city built Three Rivers Stadium and the U.S. Steel Building, African Americans were completely shut out of working on any of these projects. On Aug. 25, 1969, the umbrella group known as the Black Construction Coalition marched across the Manchester Bridge to Three Rivers Stadium in protest. Pittsburgh politicians, police, and construction workers were all defiant against the demonstrations and at times became violent.

In the early 1970s, the issue of racism in the city police department was confronted by the first African American city council president, Louis Mason, and others. According to Trotter, Mason asserted that police “were too ingrained with racism to change their ways.” Recognizing the police bias in emergency ambulance service for the Hill District, the Freedom House Ambulance Service was developed in 1968. A partnership with Presbyterian Hospital and funding from the Maurice Falk Fund, the Freedom House Ambulance Service was one of the first emergency medical services in the nation. Public school desegregation did not come easy. African American parents and students both demonstrated in the courts and corridors of their schools for better education, desegregation, and end to racial biases. In 1968, students at Westinghouse High School held a strike to demonstrate against racial policies and attitudes of its administration and sub-standard unequal education. Westinghouse was soon joined by Langley, Perry, Fifth Avenue, and Schenley High Schools.

Simultaneous to the struggle against racism, significant accomplishments were made in all phases of American society. In 1847, the Allegheny County Bar Association denied admittance to George Vashon. Sixty years later, the University of Pittsburgh School of Law welcomed its first African American graduate, Robert L. Vann, and first dean, William M. Carter, Jr., in 2012. Nearby, Duquesne University Law School graduated its first African American, Theron B. Hamilton in 1925, and first dean of the school, Ronald Davenport, in 1970.

"Robert L. Vann Law School portrait” – courtesy of Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

Despite the struggles for equal rights as citizens of Pittsburgh, 20th century African Americans continued to develop and expand culturally and socially. Pittsburgh has great a legacy of internationally renowned jazz, opera, and entertaining artists. Its greatest impact was in jazz music. Very few cities around the country can count as many greats in "America's classical music" as Pittsburgh. To name but a few: Earl ‘Fatha' Hines, Mary Lou Williams, Billy Strayhorn, Erroll Garner, Roy Eldridge, Billy Eckstine, Henry Mancini, Slide Hampton, Dodo Marmarosa, Ahmad Jamal, Art Blake, Kenny Clarke, Paul Chambers, Maxine Sullivan, Dakota Staton, George Benson, Stanley Turrentine, and Walt Harper all represent a great legacy of jazz. Mary Cardwell Dawson was one of the many music teachers that helped produce some of the jazz greats. She was the founder of the National Negro Opera Company in 1941 before moving operations to Washington, D.C.

Social organizations played a major role in the African American community as philanthropists and community organizers. In the late 1890s, a number of male and female social groups were formed. In 1897, the Loendi Social and Literary Club was formed by middle class professional men and in 1910, the Frogs social club was formed by sons of the Loendi members. Fraternal organization such as the Prince Hall Masons can trace their beginnings back to the 1840s and they were joined by the Improved Benevolent Protective order of Elks, Odd Fellows, and Knights of Phythias in the early 1900s. The National Association of Colored Women Clubs was founded in 1896. In 1897, the two Pittsburgh clubs that were members of the NACW were the Pittsburgh and Allegheny Francis Ellen Watkins Harper League and the Women's Loyal Union of Pittsburgh. Ionia Smallwood of Allegheny City was part of the leadership in the local contingent of NACW.

The 1960s witnessed the emergence of Black Power groups and cultural nationalists. Black Power was used figuratively and literally, the act and the organization. Many groups expressed the renewed power of black protest while others saw Black Power as a trait. The United Movement for Progress formed in 1967 and was led by activist William "Bouie" Hayden. The Democratic Association of Black Brothers, a Black Panther type of organization, appeared in Pittsburgh during the Black Construction Coalition protest in 1969. The United Black Front headed by Clyde Jackson was part of the Black Construction Coalition. Its advocacy for economic rights helped secure up to 1,000 jobs in construction.

In 1986, the Metropolitan Pittsburgh Crusade for Voters sued the city over voting rights. Issues of police brutality continued with the 1995 murder of Jonny Gammage by police from Brentwood, Whitehall, and Baldwin. After a mistrial, the second trial was held in 99% white Lackawanna County where some held it as a venue that would insure the acquittal of all charged. All officers in the death of Jonny Gammage were acquitted by an all white jury. Many protested the biases in the jury and judges on the case. Even the U.S. Department of Justice refused to bring civil rights violation charges against the officers. The Jonny Gammage case is one of the numerous police brutality issues of this generation.

The first African American school board member was in 1966 when Richard F. Jones and Gladys McNairy joined the board. McNairy was the first black women to serve and in 1971 became the first African American president. Black parents and community leaders continued to press the school board to totally desegregate and equally fund schools in African American neighborhoods. In 2000, Pittsburgh received its first African American superintendent of schools. John Thompson was an experienced superintendent who turned around schools in Tulsa, Okla. before coming to Pittsburgh. But the layer of racism in the city would not allow him much room to implement his plans to turn schools around in Pittsburgh. When he promoted closing some schools in majority white sections of the city, he was met with condemnation. White critics complained about his salary, benefits, and professional habits.

"Westinghouse High School” – Detre Library & Archives at the Heinz History Center

It had been a long struggle for migrants and the children of migrants to find freedom and equality in Pittsburgh. As they continued to enjoy their lives, they also fought for rights denied them in almost all facets of society. Broadcaster Mal Goode once said that "there was a lot of negative living we [African Americans] had to do." In the 21st century, African Americans fully expected greater rights as American citizens, the first century in American history free from slavery or its de facto system known as Jim Crow. Great advances in all phases of American life would sometimes mask the continuation of racism, discrimination, and unequal treatment. The changes were a result of the century-long struggle from 1900 to 1999. In 2008, African Americans in Allegheny County overwhelmingly supported the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama. Trotter and Day commented that "ultimately, however, like many other Americans, African American supported Obama because his candidacy offered Pittsburgh, the state, and the nation the best hope for economic, political, and cultural renewal."

Made possible by the generous support of McAuley Ministries, Pittsburgh Mercy Health System’s grant-making foundation.