AfriGeneas ~ African Ancestored Genealogy

26/11/2020

Grave Is Found at Site of Historic Black Church in Colonial Williamsburg

An archaeological project digs into the past to finally give voice to one of Williamsburg’s oldest communities.

An archaeological project digs into the past to finally give voice to one of Williamsburg’s oldest communities.

11/11/2020

New research tells the story of Black Washingtonians killed during World War I.

“I just think they deserve recognition,” said the D.C. woman who compiled the information.

10/11/2020

Alexander Hamilton, Enslaver? New Research Says Yes
A paper by a researcher at the Schuyler Mansion finds overlooked evidence in letters and Hamilton’s own account books indicating that he bought, sold and personally owned slaves.

A paper by a researcher at the Schuyler Mansion finds overlooked evidence in letters and Hamilton’s own account books indicating that he bought, sold and personally owned slaves.

04/11/2020

Archeologists unearth 300-year-old slave quarters in Southern Maryland.

LEONARDTOWN, MD (WBFF) - Maryland archaeologists have found 300-year-old slave quarters at a historic plantation in Southern Maryland, and plan to spend this week digging at the research site. The remains of the slave quarters are on a Jesuit plantation in Newtowne Neck State Park in St. Mary's Coun...

27/10/2020

Florence Price was the first African American woman to have her music performed by a major symphony orchestra – in 1933. Here’s her story…

27/10/2020

Madame Sul-Te-Wan was born on September 12, 1873 as Nellie Conley in Louisville, Kentucky where her widowed mother worked as a laundress. Madame Sul-Te-Wan was a pioneering stage and film actress who became one of the most prominent black performers in Hollywood during the silent film era. Her career spanned more than seventy years and she is best known as the first African American actress contracted to appear in D.W. Griffith’s groundbreaking and racist cinematic epic, Birth of a Nation (1915).

Madame Sul-Te-Wan’s interest in performing was awakened when she delivered laundry to Louisville’s Buckingham Theater where the white actresses who were her mother’s customers often invited young Nellie in to watch the shows. Two white actresses, Mary Anderson and F***y Davenport, wrangled an audition for her at a talent contest at the Buckingham which the youngster won. Moving to Cincinnati, Ohio with her mother, Madame Sul-Te-Wan worked in dance troupes and theater companies throughout the East and Midwest billed as “Creole Nell.” She later formed her own musical performing company, The Black Four Hundred. She reconstituted the group as the Rair Back Minstrels and toured the East Coast to great acclaim.

Madame Sul-Te-Wan married in 1910, gave birth to three sons, and moved her family to Arcadia, California where she hoped to break into California’s burgeoning film industry. Within two years of arriving in California, her husband deserted the family, leaving them destitute. Madame Sul-Te-Wan accepted charitable assistance and worked as a domestic in between stints as a singer and dancer in Southern California. In 1915, on learning that D.W. Griffith, a native of her hometown, was making a movie about the antebellum South and Reconstruction, the actress personally plead her case to the filmmaker and won a part in the cast of Birth of a Nation. Most of her role however, like that of the other black actors in the film, was deleted from the final cut. When the film was complete, Madam Sul-Te-Wan was discharged from Griffiths’ film company for “allegedly stealing a book from a white actress and inciting blacks to protest the film’s showing in the Los Angeles area.” Hiring prominent African American attorney E. Burton Ceruti, she successfully defended herself against the charges and was reinstated in the company. She continued to work in film until her death at the Motion Picture Country Home in Woodland Hills on February 1, 1959.

Source: https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/sul-te-wan-madame-nellie-conley-1873-1959/

27/10/2020

The headstones were from Columbian Harmony Cemetery, a historic African American burial ground that was dug up and relocated in 1960 to make way for commercial development.

Columbian Harmony had been the final resting place for a century’s worth of D.C.’s most illustrious Black citizens. Among them: Elizabeth Keckley, confidante of Mary Todd Lincoln; Philip Reid, who helped create the statue of Freedom atop the U.S. Capitol dome; and scores of Black Civil War veterans from the Union Army.

The headstones had been ripped up from Columbian Harmony Cemetery, which served thousands of Black families for a century.

26/10/2020

Pope Francis named Wilton Gregory, the archbishop of Washington, as cardinal. He would be the first African-American to hold such a position.

Wilton Gregory, the archbishop of Washington, was among 13 new cardinals named on Sunday.

14/10/2020

Emory Conrad Malick (1881-1958) was the first licensed African American aviator, earning his International Pilot’s License (Federation Aeronautique Internationale, or F.A.I., license), #105, on March 20, 1912, while attending the Curtiss School of Aviation on North Island, San Diego, California. Mr. Malick was also the first African American pilot to earn his Federal Airline Transport License, #1716, in 1927. In March 2011, an article published in the Air & Space/Smithsonian touched off a controversy over whether Emory was "the First Licensed Black Aviator."

Emory was born in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, the third of six children born to Darius Malick, a carpenter from the same area, and Susan Conrad. Emory's mother died when he was five, and his father remarried shortly thereafter. By 1900, Emory was living on his own as a farm laborer. In 1910, he appears in both Lancaster, Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as a carpenter, like his father. With his father, Darius Malick, Emory helped build the capitol building in Harrisburg, as well as installing the mahogany veneering in the Pennsylvania Railroad dining and sleeping cars. In 1911, Mr. Malick became the first aviator to fly over central Pennsylvania, flying his homemade "aeroplane" over both Northumberland and Snyder Counties. On March 20, 1912, at the age of 30, Emory Conrad Malick became the first black pilot to earn an international pilot's license.

The Air & Space/Smithsonian published an article entitled "The Unrecognized First" in March 2011 suggesting Emory was the First Licensed black aviator. The claim was made by his great niece, Mary Groce, based on Malick family photos, records, interviews, and historical documents, which showed him to be a black man. According to the article, "Aileen looked at the paper and replied, 'Oh my God. He's black.'" Further commentary included, "this explains my brother's blond afro." No further evidence was provided, but none was needed. Ms. Groce is the granddaughter of Emory Malick's white-skinned sister, Annie Malick McCormick Groce, who was separated from her birth family as a young child, and who kept the family's African heritage a secret from her grandchildren, but wisely saved all the family records, as did her children, including Ms. Groce's father. The descendant innocently said, "I was never told about Emory or my mixed heritage", which was true at the time of the interview.

Since that time, there have been several prominent endorsements of Emory being the First Licensed Black Aviator, and Mary Groce has written two children's books about her great uncle, "Lila Tells the Story of Emory Conrad Malick, Our First Licensed Black Pilot," and "Aunt Cora's Wart, An Historical Faerie Tale: Nipper Fest!" Both books relate the recently revealed history and family lore about her Uncle Emory. She is currently writing Mr. Malick's biography. Since discovering information about her Uncle Emory, Ms. Groce has learned that, yes, he was indeed listed as white in public records, as were most members of mixed families at that time, in Pennsylvania as well as in several other states, especially when the mother was regarded as white. Following is a list of some examples of prominent groups sharing the history of Emory Conrad Malick:

Federal Aviation Administration Tweet honoring Emory Malick as first black person with a pilot's license in the United States

United States Department of Veterans Affairs, Pittsburgh honoring Emory Malick as first African American to receive a pilot's license
National Transportation Safety Board, Remarks to the Aero Club, Glenn Curtiss Mansion mentions him training America's first licensed African-American aviator, Emory Conrad Malick

Emory C Malick's draft card showing white, ruddy complexion, blue eyes, brown hair (1942)
Since that time, a controversy has surrounded the claim that Emory Malick is actually entitled to the honor of "First Licensed Black Aviator" because of the public records. Photos and records of Emory C. Malick, as well as those of his paternal aunt, Alice Malick, reveal them to be black members of a mixed African- and European-American family. Most of their family passed as white, but Emory and Alice did not, and they were treated accordingly by both their family and their peers.

In 2014, black aviation historian Guy E Franklin released a book entitled "Emory Conrad Malick: A Closer Look" . The author collected and presented many source documents to which showed that Emory was actually white, and hence not entitled to the claim of "First Licensed Black Aviator." Guy's conclusion was that all of the available documents showed that he was white and none suggested otherwise. However, many of Mr. Franklin's claims are based on falsehoods, twisted facts, and erroneous conjecture. None of Ms. Groce's three detractors—Mr. Franklin and two of Mary's very distant, white-skinned Conrad cousins—ever examined primary source material or tried in any way to research Mr. Malick, other than to consult public records available on the internet.

Among the public records suggesting that Emory was white are his draft registration cards from World War I in 1917 and World War II in 1942. The first describes him as white, brown hair, and blue eyes. The latter describes him as white, ruddy complexion, brown hair, and blue eyes. Since the contemporaneous documents match each other, show he was white, and were signed by a witness all add credence to support that Emory was white.

Other documents attesting to Emory Malick being white include:

Emory's membership in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, May 3, 1917 (a white-only organization at that time)
Emory's listing in the 1900, 1910 and 1920 census records as white
Emory's Pennsylvania death certificate, signed December 24, 1959, lists him as white

Emory's extended family
In addition, the following documents attest to Emory's extended family identifying and being recorded as white:

Emory's paternal grandparents Daniel and Lavina: white in 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880 census
Emory's maternal grandparents William and Anna: white in 1840, 1850, 1860, and 1870 census
Emory's father Darius: white in 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930 census, death certificate
Emory's mother Susan: white in 1860, 1870, and 1880 census
Emory's older brother Nelson: white in death certificate, 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1940 census, World War I draft (blue eyes, brown hair), World War II draft (sallow complexion, blue eyes, gray hair), death certificate
Emory's older sister Cordelia: white in 1880 census (died young)
Emory's younger sister Laura: white in 1900,[24] 1910, 1920, and 1930 census
Emory's younger sister Cora: white in 1918 death certificate

In October 2017, members of the Conrad family, distant relatives of Emory's white mother, created a web page highlighting Emory's aviation exploits as well as providing source documents on his family's background. On October 18, 2017, an article appeared in the Sunbury American entitled "Emory Conrad Malick, Sunbury's First Aviator and Controversial Claims" highlighting the evidence contradicting the claims that Emory was black. Both Ms. Thomas and Mr. Conrad are Mr. Malick's and Ms. Groce's distant white-skinned Conrad relatives, who are committed to the erroneous belief that they could not possibly have any mixed heritage or be related to anyone who does.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emory_Conrad_Malick; http://emoryconradmalick.com/biography.html

11/09/2020

The history of ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing,’ the Black anthem being played at NFL games.

The NFL's decision to play the Black national anthem at its season-opening games could expose millions of Americans to a song written a century ago and beloved by African Americans.