Sunday, September 26, 1999
History might help fuel dreams for blacks
Freedom center hopes ancestors inspire youths
BY LUCY MAY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
It's been 10 years since the people of Havre de Grace learned of a plan to build an industrial rubble field near their small, 150-year-old church.
The predominantly African-American community 40 miles east of Baltimore has fought the development by lobbying elected officials and researching the history of the St. James A.M.E. cemetery, where African-American veterans of the Civil War are buried.
Through the struggle, African-Americans in Havre de Grace and their white neighbors have united against the development and around the community's history.
For the past several years, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center's Carl Westmoreland has been a regular presence, researching the church's history and motivating the community to keep up the fight.
“He's just been there for us,” said the Rev. Violet Hopkins-Tann, the St. James pastor who has helped lead the fight since 1989.
For Mr. Westmoreland, the freedom center's external affairs director, the story of how the black and white neighbors have come together illustrates just how powerful a common enemy — and a shared history — can be.
And his work illustrates the kind of research and outreach the freedom center staff members have undertaken, even though it will be years before the museum is transformed from designs on paper to bricks and mortar.
The idea of using history to bring people together is a critical part of the mission of the freedom center, the $45 million museum scheduled to open on Cincinnati's central riverfront in 2003.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the type of research that needs to be going on,” said John Fleming, director and chief operating officer of the freedom center. “If we're going to be taken seriously, we need to document this information very thoroughly.”
That's just what Mr. Westmoreland has been doing. He's spent years helping the Gravel Hill community in Maryland understand the significance of their cemetery.
He's just starting to reap the rewards of other research into African-American Civil War veterans from Greater Cincinnati.
Mr. Westmoreland has spent hours poring over dusty, yellowed military records from the 1800s stored at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
The records are helping him piece together portraits of the lives of 31 African-Americans who enlisted in the Union Army. He notes that these men weren't drafted — they weren't even considered citizens.
But they were determined to help fight for their freedom, Mr. Westmoreland said, even though they were paid less than the white soldiers who fought for the same cause.
“This flies in the face of the myth that we (African-Americans) were lazy, good-for-nothings,” Mr. Westmoreland said. “Thousands upon thousands of nameless people gave of themselves in the most basic way. A lot of them died.”
But Mr. Westmoreland is finding those names and faces. Next, he wants to find their descendants so they can take pride in these men that they probably know nothing about.
“This knowledge,” he said, “can be healing.”
• There's Austin Holmes, born in Virginia, a boatman who enlisted in Cincinnati on Feb. 1, 1864. He couldn't write, as evidenced by the “X” labeled as “his mark” on the military records.
He was 28 years old when he enlisted, 5 feet 3 inches tall with dark skin and dark eyes. He signed up for three years and trained in Delaware, Ohio, with other members of the 127th Ohio Voluntary Infantry, later called the Fifth Regiment, United States Colored Troops. His home is identified as Cincinnati's 1st Ward.
• Tecumseh Hayes volunteered Feb. 10, 1864, at age 23. He was a boatman as a civilian and an ambulance driver in the service.
He, too, enlisted for three years and trained at Delaware. He had dark eyes, curly hair and a light complexion. He was 5 feet 8 inches tall and listed his home as Hamilton County.
• Charles Nance lived in Ripley but was born in Fleming County, Ky., just across the river. He was 22 when he enlisted Aug. 2, 1864.
He listed his occupation as farmer. He had brown eyes, black hair and a “brown” complexion. He was 5 feet 8 inches tall.
He died of consumption Jan. 12, 1865, in an Alexandria, Va., hospital. His uniform and boots were sold for $3.90, and the money ws sent to his widow in Ripley.
• John Jackson signed up as a substitute, taking the place of Lorenzo Harper, who lived in the 15th Ward in the 2nd District of Ohio. The 24-year-old farmer was described as having black hair, black eyes and a black complexion. He was 5 feet 6 inches tall.
He was wounded and admitted to an Alexandria, Va., hospital Oct. 3, 1864, where he was diagnosed with “lumbago.” He spent eight months in the hospital and was discharged June 22, 1865.
Mr. Westmoreland wants to learn more about these men and the others he's studied. He will look through city directories, church rosters and even old diaries and documents of local white families to try to fill in the blanks of the men's lives.
He wants to be able to stand before a class of African-American teens and tell them about the bravery he sees in the military records.
Learning about that bravery, he thinks, could turn around the lives of these men's descendants.
“If his great-great-grandsons can hear that story, maybe they'll come off the street corner in Dayton. Maybe they'll finish at Wright State,” Mr. Westmoreland said. “We're still enslaved by our own ignorance. You tell black kids they're nobody — they believe it.”
He's seen it happen in Havre de Grace, Md. There, the community learned about the five Civil War veterans buried in their church cemetery. How the five men walked to Philadelphia to fight in the war.
Mr. Westmoreland has watched as a young man from Gravel Hill went from dreams of leaving his hometown to dreams of coming back to it after completing his degree at the University of Maryland.
He wants to bring that history alive for young people in Cincinnati and across the country.
And if everything goes as planned, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center will do just that.
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