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The true story, and the black citizens, behind the evolution of racial equality in MinnesotaHe had just given a rousing speech to a packed assembly in St. Paul, but Frederick Douglass, confidant to the Great Emancipator and conscience of the Republican Party, was denied a hotel room because he was black. This was Minnesota in 1873, four years after the state had approved black suffrage-a state where "freedom" meant being unshackled from slavery but not social restrictions, where "equality" meant access to the ballot but not to a restaurant downtown. Spanning the half-century after the Civil War, Degrees of Freedom draws a rare picture of black experience in a northern state and of the nature of black discontent and action within a predominantly white, ostensibly progressive society. William D. Green reveals little-known historical characters among the black men and women who moved to Minnesota following the Fifteenth Amendment; worked as farmhands and laborers; built communities (such as Pig's Eye Landing, later renamed St. Paul), businesses, and a newspaper (the Western Appeal); and embodied the slow but inexorable advancement of race relations in the state over time. Within this absorbing, often surprising, narrative we meet "ordinary" citizens, like former slave and early settler Jim Thompson and black barbers catering to a white clientele, but also personages of national stature, such as Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and W. E. B. Du Bois, all of whom championed civil rights in Minnesota. And we see how, in a state where racial prejudice and oppression wore a liberal mask, black settlers and entrepreneurs, politicians, and activists maneuvered within a restricted political arena to bring about real and lasting change.
Contents
ContentsPreface Part I. The Barbers 1. When America Came to St. Paul 2. Maurice Jernigan Takes a Stand3. On Becoming a Good Republican4. The Sons of FreedomPart II. The Entrepreneurs5. Mr. Douglass and the Civilizable Characteristics of the Colored Race6. Senate Bill No. 1817. A Certain Class of Citizens8. Professor Washington, Leader of the Race9. The Renaissance of the Cake WalkPart III. The Radicals10. Wheaton and McGhee: A Tale of Two Leaders11. The Election of J. Frank Wheaton12. A Call to Action13. A Defining Moment for McGhee14. After St. Paul, Niagara15. The LegacyEpilogue: Time for a Different Tone of AdvocacyNotesIndex
