author. editor. collector of the dark.

Publications

• "Extra Keys" Published in Under The Stairs Anthology from Wicked East Press, 2011.

• "Golden Noir" Published in Short Sips: Coffee House Flash Fiction from Wicked East Press, 2012.

• "The Scream" Published in The Realm Beyond from Fortress Publishing, 2012.

• "Dear Eliza" Published on The Enchanted Spark.com, 2014.

• "Fairground Rides" Published on MetroFiction.net, 2014.

• "A Case of the Blues" Published in The Colored Lens, 2014.

• "Going Dark" Published in Sensorama from Eibonvale Press, 2015.

• "Clem" Published in Infernal Ink Magazine July 2016.

• "Sirens" Published in Daily Science Fiction August 11, 2016.

• "Yeast Rolls" Published in Shotgun Horror Clips Vol. 1 Issue 4. November 25, 2016.

• "The Sacrament of Hair Color" Published in Mused-The BellaOnline Literary Review, Summer 2017.

• "Battery Life" Published in Typhon-Pantheon Magazine, 2017.

Advice for the writing life- KSMO SCRIBBLES:

• “Editing My Work” Spring 2018

• “To Conference, or Not to Conference. That is the Question” Summer 2018

• “New Year, New Me.” Winter 2019

• “Introverts and Extroverts: How Both Personality Types Can Get the Most from a Writer’s Conference” Spring/Summer 2019

• “Laugh Until it Hurts” Fall 2019

• “Is Time Slipping Away?” Winter 2020

• “GET BACK ON THE HORSE- and other advice from one writer to another.” Spring 2020

STORIES AND BLOG:

Peruse selected, immediately available, short stories and (periodic) mental musings. Feel free to contact me with any thoughts or comments.

HISTORY BLOG — ALL THINGS INTERESTING

THE CARTER HOUSE –BATTLE OF FRANKLIN

From the moment the tour begins—between 1860’s outbuildings, swaying trees still bearing the marks of bullets, and a small garden tended by community groups—the guide commands undivided attention. This is the story of the Carter House, those who lived in it, and died around it, on a fateful day over 150 years ago. The house, a mixture of white clapboards and red brick is quiet today, with only the bullet holes in its sides to bear witness to the story of the second Battle of Franklin which engulfed it on November 30th, 1864.

In its final months, the Civil War’s Western front had become a game of catch-and-chase. With Confederate Lieutenant General John Bell Hood desperate to pin-down Federal Major General John Schofield’s troops, the chase came to a bloody head in Franklin, Tennessee, and more specifically, the Carter Family Farm. After eluding Hood’s troops the night before, the Federal troops, with Brigadier General Jacob Cox in temporary command, found themselves stymied by the need to cross the Harpeth River. With Hood’s troops closing in, the Union engineers worked feverishly to open a crossing to the relative safety of Nashville and its waiting reinforcements. Tired from their overnight march, the troops made temporary camp in Franklin, with Cox setting himself up in the Carter family home as a place of temporary command. But with Confederates too close to ignore, Cox ordered lines of earthworks—which involved the digging up of the Carter yard and the demolition of their cotton gin for wood—to be quickly constructed.

But was such an attack entirely expected? As the tour moves into the first-floor sitting room, the guide explains that when commandeering the house, Cox assured the family’s patriarch, Fountain Branch Carter, that the stay would be short and uneventful. Such was not to be the case. In a desperate bid, perhaps brought on by having been outmaneuvered overnight, Hood’s troops attacked. In a charge to rival Pickett’s at Gettysburg, the Confederates stormed the Union’s position. The guide holds the tour’s attention, describing the chaos and confusion as the scale of the attack became evident.

Standing in the cramped basement, the tour guide switches off the lights, his voice low and captivating. “Imagine,” he says, “the family, their slaves, and their neighbors hiding here, with the sounds of battle raging.” With only their faith in a stone foundation, and the rope they had wrapped around the window bars, to keep the bullets from finding their hiding places, you can imagine their quiet prayers. They likely clutched their children close – the guide points to chairs circling the basement’s wall, each labeled with the name and age of an unwilling battle witness.

The first line of earthworks fell, and Union troops madly sprinted for their lives toward the second line. The noise must have been deafening, one thinks, as the artillery switched hands and turned toward the house and battling Federals. Despite the immediate Confederate advantage, by the time the smoke and chaos would clear, the Union prevailed enough to withdraw across the river. But the casualties would be massive.

The story of the Carter family, expertly woven throughout the tour—from the opening moments outside of Fountain Branch’s farm office, to the portraits of the sons on the wall of the master bedroom—comes to a head as the tour moves out of the basement and back to the garden. It was here, only a few hundred yards from the home in which he was born, that Fountain Branch’s son Todd was found. Todd, by then a Captain in the Confederate Twentieth Tennessee was an aid to Brigadier General Thomas Benton Smith. Having only recently returned to the army after having escaped Union captivity, his own family did not know of his presence. In fact, up until the discovery of his body, Fountain Branch thought his son was still under Union lockdown. Having suffered nine bullet wounds, the family realized the inevitable and moved their son and brother to the sitting room—only recently abandoned by the Federals—to await his end.

It is on this somber note that the tour guide finally opens the farm office doors to reveal light pouring through the hundreds of bullet holes that stand as a stark reminder of both the brutality of war, and the resilience of the human spirit.

The Battle of Franklin Trust operates The Carter House, Carnton Plantation and Rippa Villa sites and all are worth visiting if you are in the Franklin or Nashville areas. Please visit BOFT.org for more information on visiting and tour availability.

Religion in Schools: Not a New Debate

            To the lay person with only passing familiarity, the debate over religion in schools might seem decided, but also of relatively modern origins. Almost every American high school student will have some introduction to the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925 and the resultant “triumph” of evolution in the court system. Fewer may have a working knowledge of the details of Engel v. Vitale (1962) or Abington School District v. Schempp (1963), but most know the general outcomes. In Engel, the Supreme Court limited government sponsored prayer which, up until that ruling, had been a mainstay in most public schools. Schempp took the ruling a step further and declared school-sponsored Bible reading unconstitutional. For those with only a passing interest, the debate over religion in schools may seem to have begun with Scopes in the 1920’s and ended sometime after Schempp with the removal of Christianity from the public education system. But the debate started well before Scopes, however, the terms may be surprising.

            Not only debate rage well before Scopes, Engel or Schempp, but those cases were far from the first to reach the courts. In fact, in 1855 the Supreme Court of Maine tackled its own case of Bible reading. In Schempp, the argument was that no one should be forced to read any version of the Bible. In Maine in 1855, in Donahoe v. Richards, the question wasn’t whether the Bible should be read, but which version. Bridget Donahoe and her father argued that as Catholics, she could not be forced to read a Protestant version of the Bible. This case somewhat parallels Schempp, but in a non-secular focused society, the question wasn’t from an atheist demanding the right to be free from religion, but rather the debate centered on the free practice of a different sect of Christianity.

            While the Donahoe and Schempp cases have some parallels—and it could be argued that as society moved toward a less theistic structure, Schempp may have even been a natural progression from the Donahoe argument—the same cannot be said for Minor v. Cincinnati Board of Education. This case was decided by the Superior Court of Cincinnati in 1870 and might shock the average American today. John D. Minor and a concerned group of citizens sued their local school board when that board passed a rule resolving to stop the reading of the Bible within the district’s schools—exactly the ruling that was won nationally in Schempp. These citizens, however, sued the school board to return the Bible to the classroom. Not only did they take this matter to court, they won! And their win was not provisional. The ruling demands that “the injunction [against the school board’s rule] must be perpetual.” Religion—specifically Christianity and the teaching of the Bible—was not something the court was willing to see disappear from the schools. However, within less than a hundred years, the highest court in the land had nullified such rulings and the Bible and the faith it represents were gone from the standard public education.

            While the modern era has provided much scholarship on the religion in school debate—from many sides and perspectives—if one wanted to study this landscape in the century prior to the landmark (and much publicized) Scopes Trial, Samuel Thayer Spear published Religion and the State, or, The Bible and the Public Schools in 1876. The world today is not the same as yesterday, but we who live in the here and now so often forget the changes that came before. Reading works of their time – such as Spear’s 1876 account—can provide much needed perspective.

The Great Depression: Monetary and Government Meddling

The Great Depression, like most, if not all, global phenomena, was multifactorial in both cause and resolution. While a standard Google search, or the reading of your child’s history textbook, might lead one to think the wild speculation of the 1920’s and the resultant crash in stock prices was the primary, if not the only, cause of the Great Depression. Many economists would actually argue that, while tightly linked, the stock market played only one role, out of many.[i] However, it is not hard to see why the uninitiated might ascribe blame to the stock market. The decade leading up to the crash had seen an increase in speculation and margin trading.

The First World War had introduced the average citizen to the ownership of Liberty Bonds. For the first time, middle America was watching their investments as if they were participating in the broader market.[ii] And middle America developed an appetite for the markets. Charles Mitchell, then the head of National City Bank (today Citibank), opened brokerage houses across the nation and strongly promoted the idea that investing in companies was something positive for the average citizen.[iii] The push from men such as Mitchell, accompanied by the technological advancement that made ticker tape machines readily available and the acceptance of buying on credit and instalments – General Motors and Ford both created lending systems for car purchases during the 1920’s—led many previously conservative American investors to buy on margin (putting as little as 10% down on a stock investment where the stock itself acts as the collateral). Speculation was rampant and the ripples and aftershocks following the 1929 crash were felt across the entire nation, if not the world.[iv]

However, the stock market was only one factor in the Great Depression, and according to economists such as Milton Friedman, not the most important one at that. Friedman argues that it was the disastrous monetary policy of the Federal Reserve that sent the United States Economy into a deflationary spiral that made what might have been a recession of a few years into a global depression of over a decade.[v] The Federal Reserve was set up (only 15 years before the crash) to act as a lender of last resort for the private banking system. The idea being that if a bank were unable to mobilize enough money to cover a “run,” the Federal Reserve could step in to lend the bank the needed funds. Friedman points out that the Federal Reserve did not live up to their stated reason for being. Instead, the dollars in circulation decreased by 1/3 between 1929 and 1933. In other words, for each three dollars in the economy in 1929, only 2 dollars remained by 1933.[vi] While Friedman did not give a definite reason the Federal Reserve failed to act – for they did fail to act, allowing, instead, banks to collapse rather than to provide a stream of money—one possibility is the death of Benjamin Strong Jr in 1928. Elected as the first Governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York –then the most important branch—Strong’s writings reveal a man who firmly believed in the role of lender as last resort. Additionally, Strong’s early death left a power vacuum that resulted in fighting between the New York Fed and the Washington DC branch, which might have caused some of the inertia in acting.[vii]

Former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke appears to agree with Friedman but with a broader scope and viewpoint. While he does not argue against the idea of bad monetary policy being at fault for the deepening of the Depression, he looks at global monetary policy and the movement of gold both within and without the United States.[viii]Harold Cole and Lee Ohanian likewise do not disagree with Friedman, but rather seek to provide detail and clarification to his deflationary theories by trying to tease out the types of deflation that might have occurred, specifically the “banking story” and the “high-wage story.”[ix]

In this case, the high-wage deflation story had a great deal to do with President Hoover’s attempts to engineer the economy back to health. Hoover was a mining engineer by trade and despite being a Republican, did not share the hands-off approach of his predecessor, Calvin Coolidge. Instead, he attempted to keep both wages and unemployment stable by coercing businesses to maintain wages and employment levels for the guarantee that he would eliminate union strikes. This alone may have caused problems, but the signing of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act sent prices into a tailspin. At first businesses tried to honor their agreement, but as income/sales detached from costs, eventually the businesses had to adjust. For Ohanian and Cole, Hoover’s attempt to engineer the economy were disastrous when put in conjunction with the Federal Reserve’s tight monetary policy. [x]

While Hoover was quickly replaced with Franklin Roosevelt, the government’s intervention in the economy only increased. Conventional wisdom says these policies helped, but economists have shown that many hurt and prolonged the economic turmoil, or at the best, were indifferent uses of government funds.[xi] Just as the descent into the Great Depression was multifactorial, so was the recovery. It is indisputable that World War II played a role, but it was, perhaps, the way the war impacted global money that might have been the most important factor. Global money supply began to increase and gold flowed into the United States from other countries, but specifically Europe.[xii] However, given the role that government engineering seems to have played in the origins, and continuation, of the Great Depression, it is also possible that by simply dividing attention away from the economy, the war helped America climb out of the depression by giving it a respite from interference.

Bibliography

BBC 2. “1929: The Great Crash.” Directed by Joanna Bartholomew. January 24, 2009.

 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00h9xh8

Bernanke, Ben S. “Nonmonetary Effects of the Financial Crisis in the Propagation of the Great

 Depression.” The American Economic Review 73, no. 3 (June, 1983): 257-276.

Cole, Harold L., and Lee E. Ohanian. “Re-examining the Contributions of Money and Banking

Shocks to the U.S. Great Depression.” NBER Macroeconomics Annual 15 (2000): 183-227.

Fishback, Price. “The Newest on the New Deal.” Essays in Economic & Business History from

 The Journal of the Economic & Business History Society (June 13, 2018):1-22.

Friedman, Milton, and Anna Jacobson Schwartz. A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-

1960. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963. Kindle.

Huertas, Thomas F., and Joan L. Silverman. “Charles E. Mitchell: Scapegoat of the Crash?” The

 Business History Review 60, no. 1 (Spring, 1986): 81-103.

Romer, Christina D. “What Ended the Great Depression?” The Journal of Economic History 52,

 no. 4 (December 1992): 757-784.

Strong, Benjamin. “The Papers of Benjamin Strong.” FRASER: Discover Economic History of

the Federal Reserve. Accessed June 7-9, 2022. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/archival-collection/papers-benjamin-strong-jr-1160

Sutch, Richard. Liberty Bonds: April 1917-September 1918. December 4, 2015.

FederalReservehistory.org. https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/liberty-bonds

White, Eugene N. “The Stock Market Boom and Crash of 1929 Revisited.” The Journal of

 Economic Perspectives 4, no. 2 (Spring, 1990): 67-83.

[i] Eugene N. White, “The Stock Market Boom and Crash of 1929 Revisited,” The Journal of Economic Perspectives 4, no. 2 (Spring, 1990): 67-83.

[ii] Richard Sutch, Liberty Bonds: April 1917-September 1918, December 4, 2015, FederalReservehistory.org.

[iii] Thomas F.Huertas, and Joan L. Silverman, “Charles E. Mitchell: Scapegoat of the Crash?” The Business History Review 60,no. 1 (Spring, 1986): 81-103.

[iv] BBC 2. “1929: The Great Crash,” Directed by Joanna Bartholomew, January 24, 2009.

[v] Milton Friedman, and Anna Jacobson Schwartz, A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-

1960 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963) Kindle.

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] Benjamin Strong, “The Papers of Benjamin Strong,” FRASER: Discover Economic History of the Federal Reserve.

[viii] Ben S. Bernanke, “Nonmonetary Effects of the Financial Crisis in the Propagation of the Great

 Depression,” The American Economic Review 73, no. 3 (June, 1983): 257-276.

[ix] Harold L. Cole, and Lee E. Ohanian. “Re-examining the Contributions of Money and Banking Shocks to the U.S. Great Depression.” NBER Macroeconomics Annual 15 (2000): 184..

[x] Ibid.

[xi] Price Fishback, “The Newest on the New Deal,” Essays in Economic & Business History from The Journal of the Economic & Business History Society (June 13, 2018):1-22.

[xii] Christina D. Romer, “What Ended the Great Depression?” The Journal of Economic History 52, no. 4 (December 1992): 757-784.

William Sulzer: Truly Progressive in the Progressive Era

While economic historians may argue about the true causes, desires, motivations, and goals of many of the major actors of the American Progressive era (1896-1916), it is less easy to debate the motivation of William Sulzer (1863-1941). A Democrat representative from the state of New York, Sulzer introduced legislation and fought for bills that were, without question, progressive. Included among that legislation was the first –non-emergency use—income tax. This progressive tax required the implementation of the 16th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Despite requiring such a massive step as a constitutional amendment, Sulzer’s support was unequivocal as he stated, “I have been a constant advocate of an income tax along constitutional lines…I reiterate that through it only…will it ever be possible for the Government to be able to make idle wealth pay its just share of the ever-increasing burdens of taxation.” Utilizing a literature review of JSTOR, articles provided in HIUS 713, and the archives of house.gov, this blog post has been created to provide a quick sketch of the life of a truly progressive politician with a unique legacy.

The period from 1896-1916 is generally termed as the Progressive Era because of a variety of legislative and economic policies that appear to favor progressive goals. According the College Board’s Advanced Placement United States history study guide, progressivism “refers to the belief that government…can be used to address social problems, inequalities, or inequalities facing the nation.” However, historian Gabriel Kolko argued that the era was, instead, a Triumph of Conservatism, in that the business interests of the time were actively working to influence and control legislation and government agencies to protect their own interests. Some libertarian economists, such as Murry Rothbard, agreed with Kolko, although with their own, pro-freedom, motivations, while economic historians such as Elliott Brownlee instead maintain the Wilson administration was truly progressive in motivation. Regardless of the ultimate drivers behind the era in toto, it is hard to argue about the progressive ideals behind the politics of Democrat William Sulzer.

While Sulzer was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey in 1863, he moved to New York City’s East Side at a young age and would spend the remainder of his life living in, and representing, New York. After attending New York City public schools, his talent for public speaking led him to Columbia College and an eventual law degree. A mentor-type relationship with Tammany boss John Reilly –earning Sulzer the nickname “Reilly’s boy spellbinder”—helped propel Sulzer to the New York state assembly in 1889 to represent the predominantly Irish and German Fourteenth District. This position appealed to Sulzer, who shared the German and Irish heritage, but more importantly, as he saw himself as a man focused on the working and lower classes, preferring to be referenced as “Plain Bill,” and a “man of the people.” After only four years in the Albany statehouse, Sulzer became the youngest Speaker of the New York Assembly in 1893. T

his success was quickly followed by another triumph when he was elected to the United States Congress for the 10th Congressional district. Again, it was Sulzer’s man-of-the-people style and his focus on the working and poor that led to his success culminating in eight successful reelections. During his time in the House, Sulzer championed an independent Department of Labor, the creation of the Bureau of Corporations, the direct election of U.S. Senators (another Constitutional amendment), the establishment of the parcel post, the eight-hour federal work day, and the required public exposure of campaign contributions.

Sulzer’s progressive Congressional career culminated in his support for, and vote in favor of, the eventual 16th Amendment. The amendment to the Constitution was necessary as the Supreme Court, in the 1895 case Pollack v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Company, 158 U.S. 429, ruled that a permanent income tax was not legal under the current system.

The Amendment was finally ratified by the last states necessary in 1913, coincidentally, the same year that Sulzer was elected to the prestigious position of the New York governorship. This glory was short-lived, however, and even the most cursory sketch of Sulzer’s life would be incomplete without mention of his short and ill-fated tenure as New York’s 39th governor. Taking office January 1, 1913, Sulzer was impeached and removed from office on October 18th of that same year. It is arguable that it was Sulzer’s man-of-the-people progressivism that led to his downfall. While his political career was due in large part to the Tammany Hall Democrat machine that ran New York during this period, once in office, Sulzer renamed the executive mansion “The People’s House” and began a series of populist progressive reforms aimed at rooting out corruption and focusing more power in the hands of the people. Support for such ideas as open primaries threatened the Tammany Democrat party machine and Sulzer quickly lost the support of the men who had helped him gain power. Soon, Sulzer found himself facing questions of perjury and the misuse of funds. Despite maintaining the charges were invented by his enemies – likely with good reason—the accusations were enough to lead to his impeachment. Despite this setback, William Sulzer stuck to his progressive roots and managed to earn election once again to the New York State Assembly on the Progressive Party ticket. However, his aspirations for greater political office were dashed and he ended his life practicing law in New York City.

Bibliography

Brownlee, Elliot W. “Wilson and Financing the Modern State: The Revenue Act of 1916.”

Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 129, no. 2 (June 1985): 173-210.

Friedman, Jacob Alexis. The Impeachment of Governor William Sulzer. New York: Columbia

University Press, 1939.

Kolko, Gabriel. Triumph of Conservatism: A Reinterpretation of American History, 1900-1916.

New York: The Free Press, 1963.

Pollack, Sheldon D. “Origins of the Modern Income Tax, 1894-1913.” The Tax Lawyer 66, no. 2

(Winter 2013): 295-330.

Rothbard, Murray N. “The Origins of the Federal Reserve.” The Quarterly Journal of Austrian

Economics 2, no. 3 (Fall 1999): 3-51. https://mises.org/library/origins-federal-reserve-2

Sulzer, William. Life and Speeches of William Sulzer.

https://archive.org/stream/lifespeechesofwi01sulz/lifespeechesofwi01sulz_djvu.txt

United States House of Representatives. History, Art & Archives: The Ratification of the

Sixteenth Amendment. https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1901-1950/The-ratification-of-the-16th-Amendment/

United States House of Representatives. History, Art & Archives: William Sulzer.

https://history.house.gov/People/Detail?id=22455

Wesser, Robert F. “The Impeachment of a Governor: William Sulzer and the Politics of Excess.”

New York History 60, no. 4 (October 1979): 407-438.

Mound Bayou and Nicodemus- What Worked, What Did Not

In her 1998 novel Paradise, Toni Morrison describes the town of Ruby as a community consisting only of African Americans. What may not be known is that while Morrison extrapolated a future for such a community, she did not invent the idea. Instead, Morrison based Ruby on the more than 60 all-black towns created within the US from the mid-1800’s through the start of World War I.[i] Two such towns were Mound Bayou, Mississippi and Nicodemus, Kansas. Both of these towns could have been Morrison’s Ruby where “this town is black; yes, literally black with people.”[ii]

Beyond being founded for and by former slaves, however, these towns took divergent paths. In the most recent census, Nicodemus is clearly dying with only 5 residents – all females of color and over the age of 65—left in the township and a total of 14 residents when the outlying farms are included. Given this trajectory, Nicodemus is unlikely to see the next census. Mound Bayou, on the other hand, is not large, but not in its death throws. Instead, it has a population of 1,695 with a median age just slightly over 35.[iii] Why these two towns—with similar origins—came to such different ends can perhaps be understood through a close look at their foundings and early years of development.

In order to compare these two communities, a search of the CLIO African American Experience database was conducted as well as a literature review of JSTOR. Close reading was used to develop an overview comparison of these two similarly created communities. While the sources cited in this post are not primary, they all have primary source citation included and, when looked at comprehensively, provide a detailed picture of both towns.

Mound Bayou was founded in 1887 by Isaiah Montgomery, a former slave who, at the age of 12, had been made secretary to future president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis. When he founded the town of Mound Bayou, Montgomery had saved over $6,000 and owned part of a saw mill and helped run the Davis Bend plantation with his father. Montgomery saw the potential for an all-black community and kept a tight focus on growing the town by attracting capital investments and settlers with a strong work ethic and, when possible, financial backing. By 1900, Mound Bayou had at least 24 successfully operating businesses collectively grossing over $115,000 a year. These concerns were bolstered by some 10,000 surrounding acres of black-owned farmland, focused on cotton production, bringing in approximately $250,000 annually. Much of this money stayed within the Mound Bayou economy.[iv]

By contrast, Nicodemus, Kansas, was not started with much financial backing nor strong economic leadership. Founded in 1877 by a group of seven men known as the Nicodemus Town Company; the group included one planner – in the form a white man named W.R. Hill—and preacher Simon P. Roundtree, both from Kentucky.[v] The dominant personality in the early years of Nicodemus, however, was Benjamin “Pap” Singleton of Tennessee. It was through Singleton’s strong personality and his “glowing stories of a ‘Promised Land’ in Kansas” that the years between 1873 and 1880 saw the “greatest mass migration” of black settlers ever to occur in the United States.[vi] To grasp the scope of Singleton’s impact it is only necessary to see know that in 1860 the entire state of Kansas had 627 residents of African descent, but by 1880 that number had grown 43,107.[vii]

Singleton, however, did not have the background of management and business displayed by Isaiah Montgomery. Born a slave, Singleton learned carpentry in captivity. While little is known of his early life, he escaped his slavery in Tennessee to spent some years in Canada and Detroit. After emancipation, he returned to Tennessee, but eventually became dissatisfied with the treatment of former slaves at the hands of Southern land owners. After the Republicans were defeated in the 1876 election—and following the Homestead Act of 1862 which allowed for land acquisition without a massive outlay of funds—Singleton and other organizers were able to encourage enough migration to the town to reach a population of nearly 600 by 1879.[viii],[ix]

This wave of migrants marked the beginning of what has become known as the Great Exodus and saw some 6,000 African Americans leave the South for Kansas.[x] The participants in this move were known as Exodusters and were predominately made up of impoverished sharecroppers looking to own land or simply escape Southern poverty and the institution of Jim Crow laws.[xi] Unlike the landowners and capital investors sought after by Isaiah Montgomery, these settlers were often “illiterate and destitute.”[xii] While most of the Exodusters did not reach Nicodemus – settling in places like Leavenworth where the African Methodist Episcopal Church was founded—enough did that the town saw its population high in the early 1880’s.[xiii]

While Pap Singleton was a strong driving force behind the migration of blacks to Kansas, he began his crusade in his seventy’s and did not stay in Nicodemus, nor even Kansas. This left a void in leadership not seen in Mound Bayou. While Nicodemus did have its share of successful residents, they all achieved their success after departing the wind-swept town. George Washington Carver and Edwin P. McCabe—the first black person elected to state office, as Kansas Auditor, outside of the South—both called Nicodemus home for short periods.

Mound Bayou did not necessarily attract the attention of state of office holders, but it was not entirely reliant on Montgomery for strong leadership, either. In addition to its founder, the city came under the steady guidance of a banker aptly named Charles Banks. Along with founding the Bank of Mound Bayou, he convinced the Department of Agriculture to base an agent in town to teach best practices for land management. Additionally, Banks took it upon himself to educate the population in the ways in which property and good fiscal management could lead to generational wealth. This is in stark contrast with Nicodemus where the population treated land as a means of speculation much like “trading horses.”[xiv] In fact, the local paper The Western Cyclone, “proudly proclaimed that ’50 to 200 percent has been realized on money investments in Nicodemus lands.’”[xv]

While the citizens of Mound Bayou were learning to save and consolidate, Nicodemus was in a cycle of quick sales. While the location of Nicodemus – on the arid and windy plains in far Western Kansas, closer to Colorado than to any metropolitan area within Kansas—left much to be desired, the lack of proper land management likely contributed to its demise. The final blow came when the nearby town of Bogue was chosen, over Nicodemus, for a railway stop. Most of the remaining businesses moved to be closer to the transportation hub.[xvi]

The two towns of Mound Bayou and Nicodemus were founded within 10-years of each other with the common goal of providing a place for the recently emancipated to prosper. Only one of these two communities succeeded. This difference was due in large part to the managerial planning and drive of their central figures. While location and financial backing also played a role, to a large extent, those were factors under the control of the initial founders, showing the importance of strong, competent leadership in such a venture.  

Bibliography

Crockett, Norman L. “Economy and Society.” In The Black Towns, 115-154. Lawrence, Kansas:

University Press of Kansas, 2021.

Crockett, Norman L. “Frustration and Failure.” In The Black Towns, 155-188. Lawrence,

Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2021.

Garvin, Roy. “Benjamin, or “Pap,” Singleton and His Followers.” The Journal of Negro History

 33, no. 1 (January, 1948): 7-23.

Gibbons, William, and Gordon E. Thompson. “Black Towns in Kansas.” In The American

Mosaic: The African American Experience, ABC-CLIO, 2022. https://africanamerican2-abc-clio-com.ezproxy.liberty.edu/Search/Display/1540034

Gibbons, William, and Gordon E. Thompson. “Kansas Timeline.” In The American Mosaic: The

African American Experience, ABC-CLIO, 2022. https://africanamerican2-abc-clio-com.ezproxy.liberty.edu/Search/Display/1540027

Harris, Angelique. “Exodusters.” In The American Mosaic: The African American Experience,

ABC-CLIO, 2022. https://africanamerican2-abc-clio-com.ezproxy.liberty.edu/Search/Display/1477345

Johnson, Christopher Keith. “Nicodemus, Kansas.” In The American Mosaic: The African

American Experience, ABC-CLIO, 2022. https://africanamerican2-abc-clio-com.ezproxy.liberty.edu/Search/Display/1477442

Mills, Quincy T. “Mound Bayous.” In The American Mosaic: The African American Experience,

ABC-CLIO, 2022. https://africanamerican2-abc-clio-com.ezproxy.liberty.edu/Search/Display/1400286

Reich, Steven A. “Black Towns.” In The American Mosaic: The African American Experience,

ABC-CLIO, 2022. https://africanamerican2-abc-clio-com.ezproxy.liberty.edu/Search/Display/1400286

Taylor, Joseph. “Mound Bayou-Past and Present.” Negro History Bulletin 3, no. 7 (April 1940):

105-106.

[i] Steven A. Reich, “Black Towns,” In The American Mosaic: The African American Experience,

ABC-CLIO, 2022.

[ii] Norman L. Crockett, “Frustration and Failure,” In The Black Towns (Lawrence, Kansas:

University Press of Kansas, 2021), 155.

[iii] Census.gov

[iv] Quincy T. Mills, “Mound Bayous,” In The American Mosaic: The African American Experience,

ABC-CLIO, 2022.

[v] Christopher Keith Johnson, “Nicodemus, Kansas.” In The American Mosaic: The African

American Experience, ABC-CLIO, 2022.

[vi] Roy Garvin, “Benjamin, or “Pap,” Singleton and His Followers,” The Journal of Negro History

 33, no. 1 (January, 1948): 7.

[vii] Ibid., 8.

[viii] Angelique Harris, “Exodusters,” In The American Mosaic: The African American Experience,

ABC-CLIO, 2022.

[ix] Johnson, “Nicodemus.”

[x] William Gibbons, and Gordon E. Thompson. “Kansas Timeline,” In The American Mosaic: The

African American Experience, ABC-CLIO, 2022.

[xi] Harris, “Exodusters.”

[xii] Garvin, “Singleton,” 7.

[xiii] William Gibbons, and Gordon E. Thompson, “Black Towns in Kansas,” In The American

Mosaic: The African American Experience, ABC-CLIO, 2022

[xiv] Norman L. Crockett, “Economy and Society,” In The Black Towns (Lawrence, Kansas:

University Press of Kansas, 2021), 120.

[xv] Ibid., 120-121.

[xvi] Johnson, “Nicodemus.” 

THINGS TO READ:

• The Scream (Originally published in The Realm Beyond)

editor.

Let me help you down your own writing path.

As a writer, I am also a reader and a lover of all things "word." If you are interested in my help with content editing, please contact me to discuss your project and rates. I love being that fresh set of eyes to look at a piece and see the areas that need a little sanding. Note: I do not enjoy/do copy editing. There are other, much more meticulous folks, for that.