Students across New Hampshire head back to school this week. One woman in Portsmouth has devoted her life to teaching children and adults alike about the state's African-American history. Valerie Cunningham recently took NHPR's Trish Anderton on a tour of Portsmouth's Black Heritage Trail.
Amb: birds etc.
THE WHARF AT PRESCOTT PARK IS ONE OF THE LOVELIEST SPOTS IN PORTSMOUTH. THE GRASS IS LUSH, FLOWERS BLOOM IN WELL-KEPT BEDS, AND SHIPS PASS GRANDLY ON THE PISCATAQUA RIVER. IT?S HARD TO IMAGINE THAT 300-YEARS AGO, SHIPS CAME IN TO PORTSMOUTH TO DROP OFF SLAVES. THIS IS THE FIRST STOP ON PORTSMOUTH?S BLACK HERITAGE TRAIL. VALERIE CUNNINGHAM IS THE TRAIL?S FOUNDER.
It must have been partially a relief to see land but I just can?t imagine the kind of terrror they must have been living in, because from the time they left africa many aboard had already jumped out of fear
THE SLAVE TRADE IN NEW HAMPSHIRE BEGAN IN THE 1600?S. SLAVES WERE BROUGHT FROM AFRICA AND THE WEST INDIES. THEY DIDN?T KNOW WHERE THEY WERE GOING. CUNNINGHAM SAYS SOME EVEN FEARED THEY HAD FALLEN PREY TO CANNIBALS.
they had been kept in pens until it was time to be sold to traders and then they were cleaned and their bodies were oiled to look good. Well why would you wash and oil something unless you were going to eat it?
MOST SLAVES BUT SOME WERE SOLD HERE, TO PEOPLE LIKE FARMERS, MERCHANTS AND TAVERN OWNERS. WE?LL HEAR SOME OF THEIR STORIES FARTHER ALONG THE TRAIL.
Amb: car door slam, beeping, engine starts
VALERIE CUNNINGHAM BEGAN RESEARCHING PORTSMOUTH?S BLACK HISTORY IN THE EARLY 1960?S. DRIVEN BY A BARELY-UNDERSTOOD COMPULSION, SHE COMBED THROUGH RECORDS AT THE LIBRARY. SHE HAD NO PLAN. SHE JUST WANTED TO UNCOVER EVIDENCE OF BLACK PEOPLE IN PORTSMOUTH HISTORY. SHE REMEMBERS HER FIRST FIND: AN ENTRY IN A RECEIPT BOOK AT ST. JOHNS CHURCH. IT READ: VENUS, A BLACK, ONE DOLLAR.
It was a contribution from the poor fund to venus and I was so excited. I didn?t know what it meant but venus was black and that?s what I was looking for.
NEARLY 40 YEARS LATER, SHE?S STILL LOOKING. NAVIGATING THE NARROW STREETS OF PORTSMOUTH, CUNNINGHAM SAYS SLAVERY HERE WAS PRACTICED ON A MUCH SMALLER SCALE THAN IN THE SOUTH. BUT SHE ADDS SLAVES DIDN?T NECESSARILY GET BETTER TREATMENT.
34 30 like most things it was individual. All slaves were not mistreated in the south. All slaves not well treated in the north. You can?t make a general statement. One general statement I can make is slavery is slavery.
DESPITE THEIR STATUS, SOME SLAVES ROSE TO PROMINENCE. OUR NEXT STOP ON THE BLACK HERITAGE TRAIL IS A HOUSE ON HIGH STREET. A SLAVE NAMED PRINCE WHIPPLE LIVED ON THIS SPOT. HIS OWNER WAS THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR HERO, GENERAL WILLIAM WHIPPLE. LEGEND HAS IT, WHEN GENERAL WHIPPLE WAS ABOUT TO DEPART FOR THE WAR, PRINCE BECAME UNCHARACTERISTICALLY SULKY.
So general whipple said what?s the matter with you and prince said you?re going to fight for liberty and I have nothing to fight for. So gen whipple supposedly said if you go fight like a man I will free you.
THE STORY IS APOCRYPHAL, BUT CUNNINGHAM SAYS IT DOES REFLECT THE FEELING OF THE BLACK COMMUNITY.
black people were already making note of the irony of this event of the revolutionar war fighting for independence ? for SOME.
PRINCE WHIPPLE DID GO TO WAR. IN FACT, HE?S SAID TO BE THE MAN AT THE FRONT OF THE BOAT IN THE FAMOUS PAINTING OF WASHINGTON CROSSING THE DELAWARE RIVER. BY THE TURN OF THE CENTURY, MOST NEW HAMPSHIRE SLAVES WERE FREE, AND BY THE 1830?S ABOLITIONISM WAS BECOMING A MAJOR NATIONAL MOVEMENT. BLACK ACTIVISTS LIKE FREDERICK DOUGLASS SPOKE IN PORTSMOUTH. THERE ARE SOME WHO BELIEVE THE CITY WAS ALSO A STOP ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD. BUT CUNNINGHAM SAYS SHE?S BEEN UNABLE TO PROVE THERE WERE SAFEHOUSES HERE.
That doesn?t mean they didn?t exist I blieve they did, especially since there was a larger black population. I?m sure they were involved in some way in helping fugitive slaves but we just don?t have any documentation.
MEANWHILE THROUGH THE 1800?S PORTSMOUTH?S BLACK COMMUNITY BECAME MORE COHESIVE. BY THE 1920?S, SEVERAL SOCIAL ORGANIZATIONS EVOLVED.
23 58 this is daniel street and it?s the café ¢rioche building.
AT THIS BUILDING IN THE HEART OF MARKET SQUARE, BLACK GROUPS LIKE THE COLORED KNIGHTS OF PYTHIUS MET. CUNNINGHAM SAYS IT WAS A HOPEFUL TIME. BLACK SOLDIERS HAD COME HOME FROM THE FIRST WORLD WAR FEELING THEY?D PROVED THEMSELVES.
Some people might remember the harlem renaissance. It was a national renaissance after WWI when the hopes of blacks were high, we hoped for voting rights and equal rights.
WHILE BLACK ORGANIZATIONS LOBBIED FOR CIVIL RIGHTS, THE KU KLUX KLAN WAS ALSO BOOMING. THEIR OFFICE WAS JUST ACROSS MARKET SQUARE ON CONGRESS STREET.
They?d have their ads for Sunday picnic, reverend so and so will be speaking, and the people along the road in uniforms will show you the way.
WORLD WAR 2 FUELED FURTHER SOCIAL CHANGE. NEW OPPORTUNITIES OPENED FOR WOMEN ? EVEN FOR SOME BLACK WOMEN. DRIVING DOWN WASHINGTON STREET, CUNNINGHAM POINTS TO A LARGE BUILDING UNDER RENOVATION. THIS WAS THE HOME OF ROSARY COOPER, WHO TRAINED AS A CRANE OPERATOR AT THE PORTSMOUTH NAVAL SHIPYARD. SHE ENDED UP RUNNING ONE OF THE BIGGEST CRANES ON THE BASE.
She said she was so far up in that crane she couldn?t see what she was doing. But there were flagmen down below giving directions. She was laying keels for the submarine.
THOSE SOCIETAL CHANGES WERE PUT ON HOLD AFTER THE WAR. IN THE 50s, COOPER HUNG UP HER HARD HAT AND OPENED A BEAUTY SHOP. VALERIE CUNNINGHAM WAS GROWING UP THEN, WATCHING THE SOUTHERN CIVIL RIGHTS BATTLES ON TV.
My parents were also here in portsmouth struggling to get the branch of the NAACP here because black people couldn?t get their hair cut in the white barbershop, and because black people couldn?t go to dinner at the rockingham hotel or the wentworth by the sea, because a black kid couldn?t get a job as a bag boy at the stupid grocery store (laughs).
THAT FRUSTRATION FUELED A NEED ? A NEED THAT SOON FOUND CUNNINGHAM AT ST JOHN?S CHURCH, CLUTCHING A RECEIPT BOOK THAT READ ?VENUS, A BLACK, ONE DOLLAR.? CUNNINGHAM WROTE THE NAME IN HER NOTEBOOK. THEN SHE FOUND MORE NAMES.
And when I realized I had a notebook full of names, and some of them were connected to each other, that?s when I started realizing there were famlies and this was a community of people it wasn?t a person here or there, this was real.
YEARS OF RESEARCH CULMINATED IN THE OPENING OF THE BLACK HERITAGE TRAIL IN 1995. THESE DAYS WHEN VALERIE CUNNINGHAM TALKS ABOUT BLACK HISTORY IN HER TOWN, SHE NOT ONLY HAS NAMES AND FACTS AT HER FINGERTIPS. SHE SOUNDS LIKE SHE?S TALKING ABOUT OLD FRIENDS. IN A SENSE, SHE IS. CUNNINGHAM USED TO HAVE INTENSE ANXIETY ABOUT PUBLIC SPEAKING. SOME YEARS AGO AN INVITATION TO DISCUSS HER WORK AT THE PORTSMOUTH ATHANAEUM REDUCED HER TO A STATE OF ABJECT FEAR.
And the afternoon I was to give this talk I was compelled to go down to visit prince whipples grave at north church and I went down there. it was a nice autumn day and I sat there and it just calmed me down. And I thought okay, I?m going to speak for them, and I can do it. And somehow I?ve been able to do it since then. I feel like I have to speak for them.
CUNNINGHAM AND OTHERS ARE NOW AT WORK ON A NEW PROJECT: ESTABLISHING AN AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURAL CENTER IN PORTSMOUTH. FOR NHPR NEWS I?M
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
Google
Yahoo