Posted on 02/16/2004 10:22:09 AM PST by Between the Lines
For half a century, from 1870 to 1920, a black man lived in Rock Hill who was a remarkable leader, admired by both blacks and whites. J. Henry Toole was born about 1852. The U.S. Census gives his birthplace as North Carolina and another source says he was born in Raleigh.
As soon as Toole arrived in town, he opened Rock Hill's first barber shop, which was for white men only. Each customer had his own shaving mug with gold lettering. No doubt this allowed Toole to gather much useful information from the town's business community.
In 1872, Toole was arrested with 194 others by Union officers and charged with being a member of the Ku Klux Klan. For 41 days, Toole shared a Yorkville jail cell with Capt. Iredell Jones of Mount Gallant plantation and Samuel Fewell of Ebenezer. He was not charged but the three other black men arrested at the same time were sent to Columbia for prosecution.
In 1876, the S.C. Democratic Party endorsed the Confederate hero Gen. Wade Hampton for S.C. governor with rallies and parades by white men sporting red shirts. Hampton was present in Rock Hill to launch the parade. The Rock Hill Red Shirts, a group organized to remove Federal troops from the state during Reconstruction, included a cavalry unit of black men led by Toole.
Toole was the only black Episcopalian in Rock Hill until the Rev. Edmond Joyner established St. Paul's Mission for Blacks on West Black Street in 1884. Toole became the leader of the Mission, which operated a Sunday school, and a trade and day school. The mission closed in 1921, shortly after Toole's death.
In 1894, Toole sought a position as Register of Deeds for the District of Columbia, but he did not get the job. Toole probably was attracted to Washington because he had a brother, Gray Toole, who was President Cleveland's personal barber. Gray Toole even had a room in the White House. Charlotte directories show that Gray Toole had two barber shops in Charlotte in 1890.
During the 1880s and 1890s, J. Henry Toole purchased a number of Rock Hill lots, losing at least two buildings to fires that swept off one side or the other of Main Street. Maybe this is what tempted him to open a barber shop in Yorkville in 1901, "under the Parish Hotel."
But he must have returned to Rock Hill by 1904 when Gov. D.C. Heyward appointed him notary public.
Toole was one of the founders of Rock Hill's first black newspaper, the Rock Hill Messenger.
When Toole endorsed the Rev. P.J. Drayton to be president of Claflin College in Orangeburg, C.P.T. White, editor of the Messenger, thundered against him. White wrote that he was voicing the "sentiments of every self-respecting colored citizen in South Carolina" who would rise up against the recommendation by a "Negro Democrat, a Ku Klux... ." Toole, calling the editorial "malicious slander" sued White for $5,000 and was represented by the Rock Hill law firm Spencer and Dunlap. White was defended by Wilson and Wilson of Rock Hill. The case was settled out of court.
In 1911, Toole sold his barber shop to Albert Collins of Indian Land in Lancaster County. The 1913, the Rock Hill Directory stated that Toole owned a grocery store at 101 Main St. In 1913-15, Toole petitioned for a black school and offered three rooms in a building he owned.
Toole died Oct. 15, 1920. The funeral was at the Church of Our Savior with assistance by the pastors of First Presbyterian and St. John's Methodist. The honorary pall bearers were Gilbert Greene, John Roddey, Ben Fewell, Henry Massey, Capt. J.W. Marshall, John Black, Julius Friedheim, W.W. Gill, David Hutchison, William Hutchison and Col. W. J. Rawlinson, all of whom were white business leaders, an indication of the high status that Toole attained with that group.
Toole was buried in Charlotte at St. Peters Episcopal Cemetery. Toole's first wife, Lucy, died in January 1893. He was survived by his second wife, the former Ella Mikell of Charleston, three sons and a daughter.
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Americans have the best public education system in the world, far exceeding that of any other country.
I learned that in school ;)
Ya, you got it. One story proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that there never was slavery, the Klan was a kindly benevolent society that only sought to help the less fortunate, and that the thousands of blacks found hanging from trees were all suicides. The damn Yankees just made all that other stuff up. < / sarcasm >
No, it was from Logic 101. You read a sappy story written only because it is exceptional and turn that exception into a rule (everything you learned in school was a lie) that fits your preconceived notions.
Actually I was taught that there were never any blacks in the KKK nor were there any blacks belonging to the red-shirts. Today, I find out not only were there blacks in the KKK but in Rock Hill there were over 800 blacks who marched as red-shirts in a parade of only 2000 marchers. 800 is a far cry from none. Especially when you take into account that Rock Hill had a black population of only 1500 at the time.
I know that one should not use absolutes in making a statement, but I did not learn that in school. And it seems the schools did not learn this lesson of absolutes, when they state that there were never any blacks in the KKK.
(everything you learned in school was a lie)
I never said that. Much of history taught is a lie though.
You read a sappy story written only because it is exceptional and turn that exception into a rule
Actually, the history you and I have been taught makes the exception the rule, and not I. For instance, you mentioned the blacks that had been lynched. These 2,518 blacks lynched by white mobs in 10 southern states are well documented and widely published in the history books. But have you ever heard of the 20,000+ blacks killed by whites in the more than 300 race riots that took place outside of the southern states? Surely you have. If the deaths of 2,518 blacks in the south is important enough to have whole chapters dedicated to the subject in history books, then the death of 20,000+ blacks outside of the south during the same period would be of even greater importance. Yet this fact in history is blatantly missing from the history books. Found only in a footnote here and there. For you see, it cannot be known that the great northern people who fought to free the slaves and to give them equal protection under the law, has a just as hateful and bigoted history as the south.
My education must have been really bad. I never learned a thing about Rock Hill. ;~))
If the deaths of 2,518 blacks in the south is important enough to have whole chapters dedicated to the subject in history books, then the death of 20,000+ blacks outside of the south during the same period would be of even greater importance. Yet this fact in history is blatantly missing from the history books.
20,000? I'd like to see that source. That number seems wildly inflated to me. But your point is taken that the lynchings have generated more history. Partly, however, that is justifiable. First of all, not all lynchings were in the "south" although the majority were. Secondly, lynchings, unlike "race riots" (which occurred in both the north and south) typically required the cooperation of state and local law enforcement. They were typically not simple mob actions but a form of organized and tacitly sanctioned actions designed specifically to intimidate a class of citizens. Local and state law enforcement usually protected instead of prosecuting the offenders. That makes them a more serious violation of rights than drunken mobs clashing in the streets.
I also see that you immediately reverted to the poor picked on south defense by saying that the north is just as bad. You don't have an argument from me, but pointing to the historical sins of one side does nothing to lesson the sins of the other. Be as proud as you like of your state or region, but learn to accept that not all of the history is honorable.
But is that really the response you get? I'd say most Americans accept that slavery was a national wrong, not a peculiarly Southern sin. Most people would probably agree with you if you said that today Blacks are better integrated into Southern society than Northern. If you want to go further than this and attack Northerners or Unionists and try to mount a case for the Confederacy as the right side in the Civil War, people will rightfully object, but that's a different question.
A lot of charges get thrown around here, and people lose track of just what they prove or justify. It becomes an "us agin' them" thing that very quickly gets separated from specific propositions and hypotheses. Some people simply point out that no region can claim perfect righteousness and that good and evil are more mixed in the world. Others promote a "the South was right!" ideology that looks like another form of arrogant, self-righteous triumphalism. Often the response that people get depends on which contention they're making.
It probably is wildly inflated, I find most history written by any side of the issue prone to exaggeration. I got it from some black holocaust web sites but then I got the number of lynchings there also. Here is one of these sites: http://www.blackwallstreet.freeservers.com/
Race riots (which occurred mostly in the north) unlike lynchings, usually required the cooperation of state and local law enforcement. They were typically not simple mob actions but a form of organized and tacitly sanctioned actions designed specifically to intimidate a class of citizens. Local state and even federal law enforcement usually protected instead of prosecuting the offenders, even the US congress has sealed documents to prevent the knowledge of these atrocities from reaching the public (ie the East Saint Louis Riots). That makes them a much more serious violation of rights than drunken lynch mobs accosting the occasional black man.
I also see that you immediately reverted to the poor picked on south defense by saying that the north is just as bad.
No, I did not mean to insinuate that the the north was just as bad as the south. In the south all the sins are laid open to see in the history books, yet in the north everything is a secret, so the north is much worse in that they are so hypocritical.
I would say most Americans see the Klan, segregation and Jim Crow-ism as mostly a southern thing, if not totally unique to the South. Never realizing how blacks and others were "kept in their place" in there own hometowns and states, or the fact that the US government openly embraced segregation before WWII and secretly well into the 1960s.
the FACT that between 100,000 and 150,000 black men (and NOT a few women) HONORABLY served the CSA as soldiers,sailors & marines is one of those UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTHS!
as the late/great professor Arnold Toynbee of Oxford Univ. said,
free dixie,sw "History is FICTION, popularly agreed on by tyrants & conquerers."
the FACT that between 100,000 and 150,000 black men (and NOT a few women) HONORABLY served the CSA as soldiers,sailors & marines is one of those UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTHS!
as the late/great professor Arnold Toynbee of Oxford Univ. said,
"History is FICTION, popularly agreed on by tyrants & conquerers."
free dixie,sw
according to the SCLC in the 1970s, the largest DOCUMENTED number of lynchings in the USA was about 500.
ONE was too many, but your "thousands" makes you look ignorant and/or UNtruthful.
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
The knowledge that African Americans were excluded from many opportunities and received little acceptance or encouragement from the White population anywhere in the country, shouldn't obscure the fact that the Mason-Dixon line did mark a real divide in much of the last century. The difference certainly doesn't give Northerners any right to crow, but historically, it shouldn't be ignored or denied.
There's a tendency to argue that because one can't totally separate different things that there aren't distinctions. Morally, perhaps, no region of the country can legitimately look down on another. We're all in this together and there's enough guilt to go around, but the result may be to bleach away details and distinctions that did exist.
As we shouldn't have any trouble admitting today that Whites and Blacks probably do get along better in the South today, what's the problem with admitting that in the past there were serious problems? Those who say that Northerners are morally arrogant or self-righteous or unwilling to look seriously at their own faults, may have the same problems themselves in assuming that today's greater racial harmony in the South was always the case.
Those who saw the events of the 1950s and 1960s graphically enacted on their television screens naturally formed conclusions based on what they saw. And many haven't had their minds changed by the revelation of racial conflicts and hostility in other parts of the country. They stick with what they saw a generation or two ago.
But for younger people, the main dividing line is betwen Black and White, not South and North, and there's much less of a desire to draw invidious distinctions between North and South. Either the kids know nothing about history, or racial issues have been so stressed over sectional ones in their education that they have little sectional arrogance or chauvinism.
Maybe I'm wrong, but it certainly looks like North-South animosities seem to have been eclipsed by other divisions in the population in recent decades. Such conflicts come out in an election year, and people do try to justify their political preferences by reference to sectional divisions, but I doubt regional consciousness or animosity are as much a part of people's lives as they once were.
the HQ of the KKK is in OH, which is NOT a dixie state. there are more KKK-cretins in NYC than in all of LA & MS combined.
further, my business partner, who is beautiful,conservative, religious, educated & Jewish is discriminated against all over the north.
there are MANY places in the northeat that i, as a NONwhite can go where she is NOT welcome!
NOBODY in dixie cares what religion you are!
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
Talk to the oher guy Chief. He's the guy who posted a link to all the race riots deaths about a riot in the Confederate/Cherokee state of Oklahoma.
Did any of your "ancestors" drop any bombs on "Little Wall Steet?"
BTW. Get a life.
I don't know how to get beyond such ongoing reproaches thrown at one part of the country or another. One thing is to focus on what we can do now, rather than on past animosities. Another is to try to deal with questions of fact and moral judgments separately -- both are important, but each has its own place. I don't think most Americans are hung up on regional conflicts today, though. For better or worse, television and other media have made us one nation.
A country is a little like a team. We each bring different strengths and weaknesses to the enterprise, and hopefully the strengths of one member compensate for the weaknesses of another. Someone may be right today, but that doesn't mean that they were always right or will always be right in the future. The various parts of our country may come into conflict, but on the whole we benefit from our union. That may be hard to see today, because of divisive political issues, but over the long run, it's incontestable.
It was funny. Kids that were not even citizens yet discriminated against kids whose family dated back 400 years. Go figure.
free dixie,sw
I have visited both, but I don't know much about Boston or Atlanta. I'll say that in the 50s, I would absolutly pick any Northern city over any Southern one. It wasn't perfect in the North, but there were no "back of the bus" laws either.
BTW. I grew up in an integrated blue collar neighborhood in a Northern blue collar city and played with black kids, went to school and church with them, went through Scouts with them, had dinner at their homes and they had dinner at mine. Yes, there was discrimination. But there was no government imposed segregation that I ever saw in my city or state. The discrimination was in the hearts of individuals, not imposed by politicians.
If you are a conservative, you should understand the difference between how individuals treat their fellow citizens, and government mandating how they treat each other through anti-American segregation laws.
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