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A Black New York Newspaperman's Impressions of Boston, 1883 Author(s): John H. Hewitt Source: The Massachusetts Review, Vol. 32, No. 3 (Autumn, 1991), pp. 445-463Published by: The Massachusetts Review, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25090281Accessed: 04-04-2015 14:24 UTC

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John H. Hewitt

A Black New York

Newspaperman's

Impressions of Boston, 1883

**"D oston and Massachusetts are synonymous terms,

Jjregarded in the light of their people?their liberal sen

timent, their pleasing and cultured manners, and their generous efforts to make a stranger at home with them and theirs," T.

Thomas Fortune, editor of The New York Globe, an African

American weekly newspaper, wrote as the lead on a special report about his first visit to 'The Hub." Fortune was writing

primarily about blacks for blacks. Not all blacks. Mainly those

individuals or families already among, or very near, the top black leadership and the social elite of Massachusetts' premier city. As such, many of the people Fortune briefly mentioned

emerge as significant figures in the history of Boston's African

American community?a history that remains largely unknown

among white Bostonians even today. Fortune had gone to Boston for a three-day visit at the end

of December, 1882, on the invitation of a committee of socially

prominent local African Americans. 'True," he continued in

his report, published in the Globe's January 6, 1883 issue, the

people of Boston "are much like an oyster, with his mouth shut, until they know something of you, but when they have weighed you, if not found wanting, they take you to their warm breasts,

just as if you were home-folks. This is true of all classes and

sects, but much truer of the Bostonian, who is the embodiment of intelligence and amiability ..."

Fortune, who had been born into slavery in Florida in 1856 and later trained on-the-job as a printer and newspaperman in

Florida, Washington, D.C., and New York, had taken over a

newspaper and changed its name to the Globe in 1881.1

Although based in New York City, the Globe had aspirations

445



The Massachusetts Review

of becoming national in scope, regularly incorporating reports called "Letters" from correspondents, who also served as

subscription and advertising agents, in centers of African

American population ranging from Boston, New London and

Worcester, New Haven and Hartford, Providence, Raleigh, Newark, and Chicago, to Albany, Hudson and Troy, New York.

Now about to begin his third year of publication, Fortune was

still struggling to make ends meet. Since J.D. Powell, the

Globe's Boston correspondent was a member of the committee

that invited Fortune, the trip may well have had an underlying

promotional aspect. All Fortune said about the journey north

itself was that he enjoyed "the congenial society of Mr and Mrs

Geo T Downing" on the Fall River steamer from New York

to Newport.2 A review of Fortune's impressions, at age 26, of "BOSTON

AND ITS PEOPLE," as he titled the article, provides some

insight into the development of his highly personal style of

journalism. Depending on his view, he could be severely critical

or glowingly laudatory. One thing about Fortune: His readers

always knew exactly where he stood on almost any person or

issue.

Early in his visit to Boston?a visit not mentioned by his

biographer?Fortune made a special effort to seek out and report on a white abolitionist he much admired. He found Wendell

Phillips "not as vigorous as could be desired" and living in a

small, brick house on Common Street. "No man contributed

more to the formation of that public sentiment which elimi

nated from our system of government the virus of slavery," Fortune wrote. Phillips had only recently moved to Common

Street from the house he had occupied for some forty years, and

he did not yet feel at home in his new location. The famous

abolitionist, Fortune continued, "has grown old in good works,

and, as he himself said, the circle of those who once labored with

him, grows constantly smaller as the years roll by . . ."

But clearly the highlight of Fortune's visit with Wendell

Phillips was the story the elderly gentheman told, apparently for the first time, about having once been "treated as a colored

man."3 It happened not in Boston, but in New York. As Fortune

retold the event, in 1862, while passing through the city, Phillips

446



A Black New York Newspaperman's Impressions

stepped into a hotel and registered his name, remarking to the clerk that he would step out a moment (to get a newspaper, he thought), and would not choose his room until he came

back, and handed the clerk his satchel. When he returned, and asked to be allowed to select his room, the proprietor, who had come in during his absence, handed him his satchel and said: "We have no vacant rooms." "Do you mean that, or do you

mean you do not desire to accommodate Wendell Phillips?" asked Mr. Phillips. "I mean I do not care to accommodate you, sir." And the great good man took his satchel and walked into the streets of New York, feeling how deep was the hatred of the helpless and defenseless slave which could vent its spleen and littleness upon him who had always fought for the right, through evil report as well as good.

Phillips also had some opinions Fortune thought worth

noting on the current state of race relations in this country and the bright outlook for the future. Phillips expressed

unbounded satisfaction at the marvelous progress which our race has made since the war. They have, in his estimation, done even more than he anticipated of them. He does not believe in colored churches and schools, but thinks all people should live in harmony together, each taking and enjoying his proper share of the common benefits of government and society

without any other than those restrictions which society always has and always will evolve from its inner consciousness for self

protection. He thought we had a promising future before us, and thought that honest difference of opinion among thought ful colored men which obtains at this time was an encouraging and healthy sign of intellectual vigor and a more settled condition.

On Friday morning, December 29, 1882, Fortune attended what he described as "one of the most imposing funerals" he ever witnessed. "A striking feature" of the funeral, that of Robert

Morris Jr., son of attorney Robert Morris, who had been buried from the very same Church of the Immaculate Conception4 only two weeks before, "was the conspicuous absence of the colored

element," Fortune said. In "the vast congregation of two thousand or more there could not have been more than four

hundred persons of his own race. Of the twelve pall bearers, there was not one colored man, and of all places of honor in the

447




funeral procession, there was not one assigned to a colored

family, or man, or woman. Mrs Morris leaned upon the slender

arm of a young white man, who was a law clerk of the Morris

law firm, while the brother and family of ROBERT MORRIS,

SR, were disposed of as distant acquaintances, rather than near

and dear relatives of the deceased."

The senior Morris had become well known and wealthy?"a remarkable man with a remarkable history," historian John Daniels wrote in 1914. Morris' grandfather, Cumono, was as a

young boy captured and enslaved in Africa and brought to

Ipswich, not far from Boston. He, too, must have been a re

markable individual, for Cumono Lane, in Ipswich, was named

after him. Robert's father, York Morris, moved to Salem, where

Robert was born in June, 1823. As a young lad, while working as a "table boy," he was noticed by Ellis Gray Loring, a leading Boston lawyer and abolitionist, who took him on first as a house

servant, then as an office assistant, later helping him study law.5

Morris was admitted to the bar in January of 1847. That same

year, he and a white attorney, Charles Sumner, argued a lawsuit

entered by Benjamin Rogers in behalf of his daughter Sarah, who had to pass by five, public, white-only, elementary schools

in order to get to the one school she was permitted to attend, the segregated and overcrowded Abiel Smith School, on Smith

Court, in the section primarily inhabited by blacks then known

as the "West End" but now called "Beacon Hill." Morris and

Sumner lost the case?segregation in the public schools of

Massachusetts was not outlawed until 1885?but Morris went

on to build up a substantial practice among white as well as

black clients.6

Fortune revealed much about himself when he apparently could not resist adding a distinctly personal commentary on a

black-on-black attitude he discovered at Morris Jr.'s funeral:

I never before saw such honor paid to the memory of a colored

man by white people and less paid to the memory of a colored

man by colored people. This singular state of things, this

phenomenal way of conducting a colored funeral, I doubt not,

will be news of a conflicting nature to that numerous class of

readers of THE GLOBE who do not dwell under the historical

inspiration of Bunker Hill and the Old South Church . . .

448




A remark by the priest conducting the funeral also triggered Fortune's sharply barbed criticism of the racial views he felt then held in "the average Protestant Church" in this country:

The Catholic priest who officiated at the funeral threw out a remark that may edify the meanness and narrowness which

sway the policy of the average Protestant Church of the land? that Protestant Church which loves God so very much and the common brotherhood of mankind so very little. The priest said in substance, and truly, that the Catholic Church was universal in its consistency of the Fatherhood of God and the brother

hood of man that the Catholic Church was large enough to contain people of all races, and catholic enough to treat them, one and all, alike. Let the narrow-minded, lying Methodist

minister, who lately declared, in a God-forsaken village in

Alabama, that colored people "were not invited, and not

expected to attend" his church, put the remarks of the Boston

priest in his pipe and smoke them, and let others of the like ilk do the same thing. If the hypocritical Protestant churches

would hate the Catholic Church less and practice its compre hension and love of mankind as taught by the Bible more, some

people would have more respect for Protestant principles and less contempt for Protestant hypocrisy and meanness. And I am

one of this latter class. I don't believe in much that the Catholic Church teaches, but I do believe that a man can go as directly to heaven through a Catholic gate as he can through a

Methodist one, especially when we have such a Methodist gate as the Alabama preacher has been pleased to define.7

On a very different note, Fortune also made it a point of going to see the editors of Boston's major white newspapers, who, as far as he could judge, "are an honor to the fraternity . . . and

very justly rank with those of New York and Philadelphia." About "Mr HOLMES, chief of staff of the Boston Herald," he wrote:

a man of broad culture and liberal nature, with a countenance as mild and benevolent as that possessed by Col MCCLURE of the Philadelphia Times. He weighs his remarks and speaks with deliberation.

The editor of the Transcript, whom Fortune did not name,

449




is a man of thoughtful countenance, with compressed lips, which indicates strong resolution, while his meditative eyes and heavy brows indicate reflexion and, perhaps, much sarcasm and acrimony in dealing with a subject. He appears to draw much inspiration from a finely colored meerschaum.

Fortune described "Mr WORTHINGTON, editor of the Boston

Traveler and collector of customs," as

a veteran journalist and thoroughly in sympathy with the work. He was prolific of reminiscences of journalism, and looked with pleasure upon the importance and influence to

which newspaper literature had grown. Forty years ago, when he commenced the Weekly Traveler, a circulation of 2,000 was

considered a great thing. But times have changed, and the daily circulation of the Traveler has grown to be upwards of 100,000.8

"Will colored journalism ever attain to this?" Fortune asked in

his report. "I am not without hope, I am not without encour

agement, that it will. Such a transformation can only be effected

by the years and the labor of the future?many years, much

labor."

The last newspaperman on his list was "Col SLACK, editor

of the Commonwealth and collector of Internal Revenue," whom Fortune described as

a political wheelhorse and a gentleman who has many kind words at his command. We found him to be a very pleasant gentleman.

Turning his attention to some of the African-American

businessmen whom the sponsoring committee made sure he

met, Fortune noted, perhaps somewhat enviously, that "Messrs

T A Ridley and J H Lewis do each a paying tailoring business

and are among the solid men of Boston. Mr Ridley is a

gentleman who knows how to make a dollar and turn it to the

best account. He owns a fine residence on Buckingham street, and his home is made happy by an accomplished wife and sister

and by the sunny smile of a sweet little daughter. Mr Ridley drives a fast team, and Mr Lewis has three fine specimens of

horse flesh in his stables."

450




Fortune did not say so, but John H. Lewis, operator of the Lewis Tailoring Establishment, had become famous locally for his menswear specialty: bell-bottom trousers.9 Not only that, his wife, according to social historian Willard B. Gatewood, "dominated" the "South End Set," one of the two "most fashionable social sets" in black Boston in the mid-1890s.

Naturally, the other and competing fashionable group, the "West End Set," was led by the wife of John Lewis' chief

competitor in the tailoring business, Mrs. T.A. Ridley. "Although the rivalry between them was sometimes fierce,"

Gatewood notes, "the two cliques were often related either by blood or marriage. Admission to either set was allowed only after careful scrutiny."10

Attorneys George L. Ruffin and E.W. Walker "each have a lucrative law practice and enjoy the respect and confidence of the good people of Boston," Fortune continued. "They have each served in the legislature of Massachusetts."

Fortune had no way of knowing, of course, that later that same

year (1883), Governor Benjami F. Butler would appoint George L. Ruffin to a City Court judgeship in the Charles town district, a post he would continue to hold until his death in 1886. As a very young man, Ruffin had been a barber before studying law at Harvard and become Boston's first black attorney. Elected to the State House in 1870 and 1871, he also served on the Boston

City Council in 1875.11 George L. Ruffin was the son of Torrington Ruffin, who,

with his wife, were among the sixty-six enslaved black men, women, and children manumitted under the last will and tes tament of the owner of a large Virginia tobacco plantation.

Arriving in Boston on September 15, 1847, the elder Ruffin, unable to use his agricultural skills in an urban environment, became a porter, and by 1870 he owned the family home, assessed for tax purposes at $2,000, in the South End. George Ruffin's

older brother, Jefferson, age four when the family left Virginia, became a store clerk and helped found Ebenezer Baptist Church.12

Next, Fortune considered Post Office employees, who by virtue of their civil service status and securely higher-than average incomes were usually admitted to the black elite if they qualified on other grounds, such as long family residence in

451




Boston and good manners. William H. Dupree was, Fortune

reported at the time, "superintendent of station A, the largest

sub-postoffice in Boston"; James M. Trotter was "second in

charge of the registration department of the main post office."

These "two gentlemen are among the most public-spirited and

genial of the colored men of Boston, and are foremost in every

good cause."

Dupree, whose family had moved to Boston from Ohio before

the Civil War, started as a Post Office letter carrier, but by the

time Fortune met him in late 1882 he had reached his high position in the sub-station in the South End and had become

socially prominent.13

James Monroe Trotter, Dupree's brother-in-law, was,

however, among the post-Civil War newcomers to Boston who

had made it into the upper levels of black society. Trotter was

born in slavery in Mississippi in 1842. Some time around 1854,

his mother and the children either were freed or escaped, settling in Cincinnati, Ohio, a free city, where young Trotter was

educated. In 1863, after working for a while as a teacher, Trotter

responded to post-Emancipation Proclamation recruiting efforts and journeyed to Boston to enlist as a private in the Fifty fifth Massachusetts, one of two all-black regiments with white

officers. He rose quickly through the ranks, becoming a first

sergeant, a sergeant major, then in April of 1864 a second

lieutenant, a commission the Union Army at first refused to

recognize. At issue was the whole matter of equal pay for black

soldiers of all ranks, and Trotter was one of the leaders of the

protest effort in which the black soldiers steadfastly refused any

pay whatsoever until Congress granted equal pay in June of

1864.

After the war, Trotter settled in Boston, where, like a number

of other African-American veterans, he was hired as a Post Office

clerk. He married a young woman from Ohio, William H.

Dupree's sister, whose family tradition held them to be descen

dants of Thomas Jefferson and Jefferson's slave/mistress, Sally

Hemings. Characteristically independent of spirit and interested in

politics, Trotter defected to the Democrats, at a time when most

African Americans were staunchly Republican, because of what

he felt was a betrayal of black people by the Hayes administra

452




tion. Later, Trotter, who had moved his family to Hyde Park, a white suburban neighborhood, resigned from the Post Office in protest when a less qualified white employee was promoted

over him. He went into real estate and other businesses and in 1897 was appointed by President Cleveland to succeed Frederick

Douglass as Recorder of Deeds in Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, his son, William Monroe Trotter, the first African American to be elected to Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard and who received the A.B. degree magna cum laude in 1895, went on to become one of the founders and the first managing editor of the Boston Guardian, a full-sized weekly black newspaper similar in design to the New York Globe.1*

Other men Fortune met at the post office were William O. Goodman, Timothy Tines (sometimes elsewhere spelled "Tynes"), and J.D. Powell Jr.,15 all young and all working at

distributing cases, and a "Mr DOWNING," in the foreign department.

Fortune mentioned without immediate comment finding a "Mr MITCHELL" and a "Mr MULLEN" at the Customs

House. The "Mr MITCHELL" whom Fortune encountered was quite probably Charles L. Mitchell, a Civil War veteran who had moved to Boston from Connecticut. In 1866, Mitchell was elected to a one-year term in the Massachusetts House of

Representatives. Later, he went to work as a customs inspector and clerk. He was the husband of concert singer Madam Nellie Brown Mitchell, whom Fortune mentions later in his article.16

At the State House, among other people, Fortune found "J W Wolfe," an attorney at law. Fortune probably should have identified this individual as James H. Wolff, who was born in

New Hampshire in 1847, studied at Kimball Union Academy and New Hampshire State College, read law at Harvard and in the office of a Boston attorney.17

Also at the State House, Fortune met J. Smith and Lewis Hay den. Hay den, Fortune wrote, "is now an old man, knows all the ins and outs of the State House, and can put his hand upon the oldest and most historical documents in the possession of the commonwealth without a moment's hesitation. Mr

HAYDEN is a stalwart republican and looks with distrust upon any course that deflects in the least from the 'good old way.'"

Born into slavery in 1815 in Kentucky, Lewis Hayden escaped

453




via the Underground Railroad, settled in Boston in 1844, and

opened a tailor shop on Cambridge Street. Soon, his home at

66 Phillips Street in downtown Boston had become an

important station on the very Underground Railroad that had

helped him and "the best known rendezvous" in the Northeast

for fugitive slaves. Through his tailor shop, which became the

second largest black-owned business in Boston, he was able to

help supply the runaways with clothing. By 1873, he had served

as the first black state employee, a messenger for the Massachu

setts Secretary of State, a recruiting agent for the Union Army, and been elected to the State Legislature. A Prince Hall Mason

and a founder of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, he died in

1889.18

The New York Globe editor did not get to meet many ministers. Indeed, he only mentions two: Rev. J. T. Jenifer,

"pastor of the Charles-street A M E [African Methodist

Episcopal] Church, [who] is held in the highest esteem for his

learning and piety;" and "an excellent pastor of a Baptist Church" whose name he admitted he could not recall.

Musicians and singers were another matter entirely. Fortune

called attention to several, praising each in turn. "Miss SADIE

WARDELL and Mr JOHN F. RANSOM have excellent

soprano and baritone voices, while Miss STELLA PINCKNEY

of Worcester, and Mr FRED P. WHITE manipulate the piano with ease and artistic finish," he wrote. But his greatest enthusiasm was reserved for Madam Nellie Brown Mitchell

whose magnificent vocal accomplishments have so often and

in so many places delighted lovers of good music, has lost none

of her richness of voice and amiability. Married life has

mellowed her vocal powers and lent a charm and attractiveness

to her naturally sociable disposition. Her husband [Charles L.

Mitchell] is a fine gentleman, and, from what I could see, one

of the aristocrats of the custom house, where he has held a

position of honor and trust for many years. While on a visit

to Madam's beautiful home on Wellington street Friday

afternoon, I was favored with some classical selections which

were rendered as only Madam can render them. The atmo

sphere of Madam's house is one of classical music, and the lady of the home is its life and joy.

454




Of all the singers and musicians mentioned by Fortune, only Madam Nellie Brown Mitchell (1845-1924), custom house offi cial Charles L. Mitchell's wife, achieved a national reputation.

After studying privately and at the New England Conservatory of Music, in Boston, she made her New York debut in 1874, sang in concerts in Philadelphia in 1882, meanwhile serving as the

"prima donna soprano" of the Bergen Star Concert Company, described as a leading promoter of African-American concert

artists, and later touring with her own concert company. The Cleveland Gazette in 1886 called her "America's greatest singer of African descent." By the mid-1890s, however, she had retired from the concert stage and was devoting her time to teaching at her music studio.19

"Boston has many noble ladies and accomplished vocalists," Fortune added, "and perhaps it is to this cause is due the large number of her eminent men, of which latter she appears to enjoy a happy number."

Next he mentioned the names of a few of those "eminent"

men?among them James M. Trotter, T.A. Ridley, and J.D. Powell Jr., son of the Globe's Boston correspondent?whose wives "were among the married ladies who impressed... [him] with their charming sociability and cultured manners." But he said nothing more about the wives. Instead, he offered a fond and general farewell.

"My visit to Boston was fruitful of many pleasant incidents and the formation of friendships which I trust may have long and pleasant duration," Fortune said toward the end of his

report. "The people with whom I came in contact made me feel as much at home as I feel in New York. The moral and intel lectual tone of society is of the most healthy nature, incom

parably in advance of that which obtains in New York, more

vigorous than that of Philadelphia and more healthy than that of Washington ..." He closed by warmly thanking the committee that invited him for their many "courtesies and attentions."

Fortune's article occupied almost two full columns on page two of the full-sized newspaper. He had devoted most of that

space to writing about the black aristocracy. Not only that, J.D. Powell's regular feature, called the "Boston Letter" and

consisting largely of social notes, occupied almost a full column

455




on page one, where it was typically carried. The January 6,1883 issue being the first one of the New Year, Powell wrote for the

most part about the holiday activities of the recent past, in

cluding "the marriage of Mrs Mary Brothers to Chas Dunsett, for many years coachman to Mr Jordan, of the firm of Jordan,

Marsh & Co. The marriage ceremony occurred at the residence

of Mr Herrick, on Wednesday December 27, at 8 P.M., after

which a reception was held at the residence of Mary Johnston, on

Spring street..."

Powell also described an event involving Fortune that

Fortune himself did not mention: "A large appreciative audi ence assembled at Parker Memorial Hall, on Thursday, Decem

ber 28th, to listen to the lecture on the "Demands of the Present,"

by T. Thomas Fortune, Esq . . . [followed by a concert, after

which]... Mr James Trotter stepped on the platform and offered

a few chosen words about the editor of THE GLOBE ..."

Unless he said something during his lecture, not a word did

Fortune say about Boston's black poor and downtrodden.

Perhaps he knew of Boston's emerging reputation for being "the

most racially tolerant city in the country."20 Perhaps he was

aware, too, that by 1883, when he published his observations, Boston offered free and integrated public schools, more equality before the law than many other northern cities, and "sweet

converse" between black and white "friends, neighbors and

business associates."21 Still, there were some real problems in

Boston's black community either overlooked by him in his short

three-day visit, or kept from him by the members of an ar

rangements committee anxious to present only their home

town's good side.

Physicians, for example, because of their learned profession, would normally have occupied a high and important place in

Boston's African-American social structure, as they did in other

black communities. Yet Fortune did not mention one. Although

physicians may have avoided him, feeling that the medical ethics

of the day precluded any reportage that even remotely suggested

self-promotion, they were finding it extremely difficult to make

a living. For reasons not clear, along with other professionals, Boston's African-American physicians were experiencing "a

high rate of failure" in the 1880s. Physicians who could not

make it in medicine, but did not want to leave the city, changed

456




to other occupations, usually for lower status jobs but more

money. One even became a waiter.22 It seems uncharacteristic that Fortune, who often got involved

in socioeconomic issues, did not even take note of the other

major problems in Boston's African-American community: a definite downward trend in occupational level with a heavy percentage of white collar workers "skidding" down to the blue collar level; a population turnover so severe that, by 1880, black Boston was filled with highly transient newcomers, mainly from the rural South. These migrants moved in, found employment as domestic or unskilled workers, stayed a short while, then

moved on before gaining an understanding of or adapting to the New England urban lifestyle. Therefore, they largely im

pacted negatively on what had formerly been a very stable, estab

lished, settled, well-organized, well-structured community.23'24 Like its counterpart in other major cities?Cleveland,

Cincinnati, St. Louis, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C, and New York?Boston's black aristocracy, an estimated two percent of the city's black population of about 6,00025,

placed "a premium on family, education, tradition,and respectability," social historian WillardB. Gatewood explains.26 "Much of what accounted for prestige and status in the black

community had no counterpart in white society. For example, the emphasis that colored aristocrats placed on ancestry and

family heritage ... was in large measure bound up with blacks'

experience with slavery?their place in the slave system, their role in opposing it, and the extent to which their families had been free from it."27 Almost by definition, Boston's African American upper class in the 1880s consisted of the "Old Bostonians," those whose families resided in the city before the Civil War, and the "Newcomers" who had not arrived until after the war but whose family backgrounds, achievements, profes sions, businesses, or responsible and secure white collar

occupations were such that they were permitted to blend in, even

intermarry, with the "OBs." Boston's black upper crust of the

1880s, says Gatewood, by and large opposed black-white

separatism of any sort (including the accommodationist views of Booker T. Washington), had been active in or at least

sympathetic toward the abolitionist movement, preferred the

Episcopal Church, employed servants, and tended to remain

457




aloof from the black masses, opting to set an example for, rather

than to mingle too closely with, the lower classes.28

Nearly all of the African Americans mentioned by Fortune

qualified as upper class or at least upwardly mobile by meeting the basic criteria: pre-Civil War residence; advanced education;

profession, business, or secure white collar job, preferably one

that enabled frequent contact with whites; and income enough to support a lifestyle that included attendance at performances

of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and public events at Harvard

as well as private music and dance lessons for the children.29

"Old Boston" African-American families whose current

members were mentioned by Fortune included the Morrises, the

Ruffins, the Mitchells, the Wolffs, and the Chappelles. Julius B. Chappelle, a member of the committee that invited Fortune

to come to Boston, was a barber from Florida. He would go into

politics and serve in the State Legislature in 1887-1888.30

But the newcomer T.A. Ridley, the prosperous proprietor of

the fashionable tailor shop?the "gentleman" Fortune so

admired for knowing "how to make a dollar and turn it to the

best account," for his "fine residence on Buckingham street" and

for the "fast team" of horses he drove?and his lavish-party

giving wife were on the periphery or lower echelon of black

society. Despite the fact that J. D. Powell's "Boston Letter"

devoted considerable space to the "large and fashionable

gathering" assembled by the Ridleys in honor of T. Thomas

Fortune in "the spacious parlor" of their Buckingham Street

residence, the Ridleys would have to mend their ways before

gaining admittance to the tight inner circle of Boston's real

"Black Brahmins," who, however privately and discretely,

nevertheless, for reasons of taste and good form, strongly

disapproved of any displays of conspicuous or vulgar?indeed, low class?behavior.

It may never be known whether, during his short, three-day

visit, Fortune was ever advised of any of Boston's black

employment, population turnover, or other problems. Indeed,

he may have been purposely shielded from them. Either way,

however, Fortune was clearly attempting to appeal to a

particular market. He considered himself in the newspaper

business, trying to produce a product that African Americans

would buy. If the uppercrust represented the folks most likely to buy his product on a regular basis, so be it. He pretended

458




to be neither a social scientist nor social worker. In any event,

although certainly aware of it, Fortune did not involve himself

in the analysis of social stratification in the black community. For that kind of analysis?with one possible exception, an

article by a white reporter that Fortune reprinted without comment from the Hartford (Conn.) Couranfi1?Globe readers

would have to look elsewhere.

Perhaps the reason T. Thomas Fortune did not comment

upon the Hartford Courant article was that, while interesting in that it had been initially published for white readers, it was

a subject his own readers already knew all about and apparently not one of paramount importance to him personally. Perhaps, too, he might have felt constrained by a desire not to offend the

very black aristocracy to whom he wanted to sell his newspaper. His trip to Boston was not for fun and games. His immediate

aim was to strengthen a shaky business through increasing circulation and advertising revenues. Accordingly, on the theory that most people like to see their names in print, he and all of

his columnists crammed as many names as possible into the

paper to boost circulation. At the same time, he encouraged his

columnist-agents to sell as many ads as they could. That he

succeeded, at least to an extent, on the second count is shown

by the Globe's November 3, 1883 issue, in which Fortune set

aside a separate space for Boston classified ads alone.

By far the largest ad was placed by Madam Nellie Brown

Mitchell, who maintained a studio at 16 Mills Street and who

wanted the Globe's readers, wherever they might be, to know

that she was available for "CONCERT ENGAGEMENTS" as

well as for vocal instruction. Other ads asked black Bostonians to attend dances to be given by several fraternal organizations (e.g., Union Club at Fishermen's Hall) and to patronize P.F.

Gill's tailor shop, 141 Brattle Street, and the Star Clothing House, 52 Howard Street.

Unfortunately, T. Thomas Fortune did not succeed finan

cially well enough for the New York Globe to survive very long. Its final issue appeared on November 8, 1884. According to his

biographer, Fortune returned to his office one night only to

discover, much to his surprise, "that the presses and other

property had been removed." While the details are not clear,

apparently, because of Fortune's fiercely independent politics, the Globe did not receive some sorely needed election advertising

459




revenue that had been expected from the National Republican Committee, and one of Fortune's partners, who had placed a

mortgage on Globe property without Fortune's knowledge, allowed the mortgage to be foreclosed.32

Nevertheless, in the few years of its short existence, the Globe had become nationally recognized, and its editor had already achieved a wide reputation as a brilliant journalist. Undaunted, Fortune would go on to begin publishing, only two weeks after the collapse of the Globe, another paper, the New York

Freeman, which he would own all by himself and in whose first issue he would proclaim:

The Globe is dead! Long live

THE FREEMAN!33

The New York Freeman died too, in 1887, when Fortune

turned it over to others who changed its name to the New York

Age.u Fortune became editor of the Age in 1889 and stayed there

until 1907.35 Setting a very high standard, he insisted that the

Age, like his earlier publications, be remarkably free of the

typographical and factual errors that marred so many other

comparatively small weekly newspapers, black or white. And

during his 18-year editorship, he built the New York Age, which

lasted until the 1960s, into the most important, most influential, most highly respected African-American newspaper in the

United States.36 For the rest of his life, Fortune continued to write editorials,

feature stories, and news articles, mostly on a freelance basis, for a number of African-American publications. In his later

years, his fond memories of Boston's black society may well have

faded under the onslaught of the vitriolic criticisms levelled at

him by William Monroe Trotter in the Boston Guardian

because of Fortune's espousal of many of Booker T. Washing ton's ideas.37

After his death on June 2, 1928, Timothy Thomas Fortune was widely eulogized as the "Dean of Negro Journalists."38 Indeed, says the distinguished African-American historian John

Hope Franklin, Fortune had become "surely preeminent among the secular black leaders of his time."39

460



A Black New York Newspaperman's Impressions NOTES

xFor a carefully documented treatment of Fortune's life, see Emma Lou Thornbrough, T. Thomas Fortune: Militant Journalist (Chi cago: University of Chicago Press, 1972). Thornbrough notes (p. 38) that early issues of the Globe have "disappeared." Indeed, the Jan

uary 6, 1883 issue examined here is the earliest one available, on microfilm or otherwise, either at the Library of Congress or the

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public

Library. 2George T. Downing was the son of Thomas Downing, a prom

inent, New York, African-American businessman whose "Oyster House" developed in the 1830s and 1840s into one of the city's most

popular and successful restaurants. After young Downing moved in 1855 to Newport, Rhode Island, his home became a well-known station for fugitive slaves escaping on the Underground Railroad. See Benjamin Quarles, Black Abolitionists (reprint edition, New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), p. 150.

3In the early 1880s, Fortune's style called for use of the term "colored." Soon afterwards, however, he used and actively promoted the term "Afro-American." See Thornbrough, pp. 105-135.

4This 127-year-old, granite church in the South End came into the news recently when the Massachusetts State Supreme Judicial Court in Boston ruled unanimously that a landmark commission's attempt to regulate structural changes inside a church violated the state constitution's "free exercise of religion" guarantee. The Jesuit fathers, who operate the church and had planned since 1986 to renovate the building inside to provide office, counseling, and residential space, contended that the landmark designation of the church's interior was itself unconstitutional. The court agreed. See The New York Times, Jan. 1, 1991, p. 9.

5John Daniels, In Freedom's Birthplace: A Study of Boston Negroes (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1914), pp. 57,58,451.

6Luix Overbea, Black Bostonia (Boston: The Boston 200 Cor

poration, 1976), p. 5. The former Abiel Smith School building, now a private residence, is today one of the Beacon Hill stops on the "Black Heritage Trail of Boston," a walking tour conducted by the

National Park Service. 7Fortune's biographer, Emma Lou Thornbrough, notes (p. 56)

that "In some respects he was deeply religious and was a member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, but he was highly critical of conventional religion."

8Around this time, according to Fortune, the circulation of the Globe was about 6,000. See Thornbrough, p. 57.

9Overbea, p. 21.

10Willard B. Gatewood, Aristocrats of Color: The Black Elite, 1880 1920 (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990, p. 111.

461




nOverbea, p. 14.

12Elizabeth H. Pleck, "Black Migration to Boston in the Late Nineteenth Century" (Ph.D. dissertation, Brandeis University, 1974), pp. 12-21, and Daniels, p. 97.

13Daniels, pp. 113, 168; Gatewood, pp. 109-110.

14Stephen R. Fox, The Guardian of Boston: William Monroe Trotter (New York: Atheneum, 1970), pp. 1-30.

15J.D. Powell Jr., son of J.D. Powell, the Boston correspondent for the Globe, was apparently Fortune's contact for behind-the scenes access to post office employees.

16Daniels, p. 453.

17Daniels, p. 455, and Gatewood, pp. 109-112.

18Quarles, pp. 147-148; Daniels, p. 99; Overbea, p. 14. 19See Eileen Southern, The Music of Black Americans (New York:

W.W. Norton & Company, 1983), p. 240. 20Pleck, p. 9.

21Pleck, p. 9, quoting from "Boston as the Paradise of the Negro," Colored American Magazine, Vol. VII, No. 5 (May, 1904), p. 312.

22Pleck, pp. 96-98. 23Federal census reports indicate that by 1880 only some 30% of

Boston's 6,000 African Americans were born in Massachusetts. The other 70% had come from the South (48%), the North (11%), or various other placed (11%). See Pleck, pp. 96-98, 102.

24Pleck, pp. 44-45, 50, 54. Pleck also notes (p. 47) that in 1870, Boston's black migrant population was 64% of the city's 3,496 black residents and that Boston was by no means unique in this respect.

That same year, in Lawrence, Mass., migrants made up 89% of the

black population total of 106; Cambridge, 67% of 848; Worcester, 62% of 523; Charlestown, 62% of 127; Lowell, 59% of 111; and Lynn, 53% of 371. Only in Fall River, 46% of 106, had most of the black residents been born locally. In New York, evidently less attractive than Boston, migrants made up only 33% of the black population of 13,072. Other

major cities had an even higher black migrant percentage than Boston, e.g., Washington, D.C. (70% of 35,455), and Chicago (84% of 3,691).

25Gatewood, p. 109; Daniels, citing 1885 census data, p. 461.

26Gatewood, pp. 109-114. 27Gatewood, p. 9.

28Gatewood, pp. 109-110.

29Gatewood, p. 110; Daniels, p. 73. 30Daniels, p. 39.

31"Gradations in the Social Scale Among Colored People," by "O.L.," reprinted in the New York Globe, Nov. 3, 1883, from the

Hartford C our ant.

32Thornbrough, pp. 66-67.

33Thornbrough, p. 79, citing the Freeman'?, Nov. 23, 1884 issue.

34Thornbrough, p. 95. Jerome Peterson took over from Fortune.

35Thornbrough, p. 105.

462




36In 1907, Fortune sold his stock in the New York Age to Fred R. Moore for $7,000, a sum said to have been actually provided by Booker T. Washington. See Thornbrough, p. 187.

37Fox, pp. 40-41.

38Thornbrough, p. 367.

39Thornbrough, p. vii.

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