Page 94 - 1619 Project Curriculum

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of
the United States, counted as people for the first time,

In the history
black Americans were the only or through the records of the Freed -

group for whom it was ever illegal to men ’s Bureau. Because 95 percent

learn to read or write. And so when of enslaved people were illiterate at

emancipation finally came, schools the end of the Civil War, the chances

and colleges were some of the first of finding old letters — or diaries or
institutions that the freed people family trees stuff ed in Bibles — are
clamored to build. Black Americans exceedingly low. And so for these

believed that education meant liber - graduates, like many black Amer -

ation, and just eight months after the icans, the holes in their family his -

Civil War, the first historically black tories can outnumber the answers.

college opened in the South. Still, more than any written

Howard University is among the record, today ’ s nearly 44 million

most venerable of these institu - black Americans are themselves the

tions. Chartered in Washington in testimony of the resiliency of those

1867, the school has educated some who were enslaved, of their deter -
of the nation ’s most notable black mination to fight and survive so that

Americans, including Toni Morri - future generations would have the

son, Andrew Young, Zora Neale Hur - opportunities that they neverwould.

ston and Paul Laurence Dunbar. But The story of black America is one of

where Howard has had perhaps the tragedy and triumph. These grad -

most indelible impact on black lives uates represent nothing less than

— and on the country — has been their ancestors ’ wildest dreams.
its law school. Leading up to the

civil rights movement, Howard was Elijah Porter, 26

virtually the only law school in the (Previous page, with his father, Elijah)

South that served black students. It
became an incubator for those who Hometown: Atlanta

would use the law to challenge racial Post -law -school plans: He has

been hired as a corporate
apartheid in the North and the South associate at a law firm in Mountain

and help make the country more fair View, Calif., where he aims to be-

and democratic. Many of the archi - come a partner in five years.
tects of campaigns for black equality
either taught at or graduated from Elijah Porter’s ancestor Moses

Howard, including Mary Ann Shadd Turner was born in April 1839 in

Georgia. At the time

of the 1870

Cary and Thurgood Marshall. census, he and his wife, Sarah, had

The school continues that legacy five children between 6 months

today, producing more black lawyers and 9 years. The family lived on

than perhaps any other institution. 265 acres valued at $750 ($14,665
today s dollars). Turner was an

in

’

In May, it graduated its 148th class, employer, and the farm produced

and the four newly minted lawyers cotton, sweet potatoes,
featured here were among the grad - molasses, butter and Indian corn.

uates. All of them descended from By 1910 the Turners had no

mortgage and were living with three
people enslaved in this country. We daughters who worked as

asked Kenyatta D. Berry, a genealo - laborers on their farm. Turner

gist who specializes in tracing black died in 1917 and did not leave

Americans ’ roots back to slavery, to a will; his wife was the

research their families and tell each administrator of his estate.

‘‘The way the story is always told

of them, and us, something about is that we were slaves, we got free

one of those enslaved ancestors. and now here we are and we didn t

’
What Berry could and could not make any positive contributions

find reveals its own story about the to America, ’’ Porter said. ‘‘So when

I am reading about Moses

Turner,

occluded heritage of black Ameri - not only is he a landowner but

cans. Because enslaved people were he is contributing to
the American

treated as chattel, they are rarely economy, he knows agriculture, he
’

found in government birth and death is married and has children. I was Septembra LeSane, 29 Septembra LeSane s maternal
really in shock because I always
great
-great
-grandmother Georgia

records but instead must be traced wanted to know my history. ’’ Porter (Above, with her grandmother Leola, Wilcox was born after the Civil War,

through the property ledgers of also found some irony in the story left, and her mother, Debra, middle) in 1885, to
Sandy Wilcox, who was

’

the people who owned them. Berry of Turner s death. ‘‘The interesting born into slavery around 1854, in

often has to work backward through thing was he died without a will, ’’ Hometown: Pompano Beach, Fla. Wilcox County, Ga. (Sandy married
he said. ‘‘The story of me becoming

-school plans: To start

Artimisha Roundtree in 1873,
documents, locating ancestors in an attorney was already written Post -law focusing on environmental but Roundtree is not listed in any

a practice

the 1870 census, when they were before I knew about it. ’’ civil rights and entertainment law. available documents as Georgia’s

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