George Washington Williams

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
I'm Tracy V.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Wilson and I'm Holly Frye.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
We've both talked about our short lists of episodes before,
which for both of us are really long, and for
a lot of the topics on mine, I remember what
it was that led me to shortlist them. That's not
the case today, which I think might also be our
accidental theme for the week. George Washington Williams is who

(00:40):
we are talking about, and I think I put him
on the list because he was one of the first people,
if not the first, to publicly describe the atrocities that
were being carried out in the Congo Free State under
King Leopold of Belgium. But once I got into it,
there was so much other stuff that happened in his

(01:01):
life before that that could have been what led me
to put him on the list. Various sources have described
George Washington Williams with terms like restless and complicated and
imperfect but also accomplished. He was one of the best
known black men in the United States. When he died. W. E. B.

(01:21):
Du Bois described him as the greatest historian of the race,
but then he fell into obscurity almost immediately after his death,
and almost everything we know about him is thanks to
another historian, which is the late John Hope Franklin, who
did this in an effort that spanned more than four decades.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
George Washington Williams was born in Bedford Springs, Pennsylvania, on
October sixteenth, eighteen forty nine. His parents were Thomas and
Ellen Rouse Williams, and they were both biracial. He was
their second child. He had an older sister and three
younger brothers.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
When George was still a baby, the family moved to
the riverside town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and Thomas started working
as a boatman. In the mid nineteenth century, boatman in
a lot of areas had a reputation for just vulgarity
and drunkenness, and that's the kind of crowd that Thomas
fell in with. Ellen eventually left because of this, and

(02:22):
she took the children to Newcastle, Pennsylvania. It seems like
this was really a wake up call for Thomas, and
eventually he stopped drinking, left Johnstown and rejoined his wife,
becoming a barber and a preacher.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
George also seems to have gotten into some kind of
trouble as a kid, although the details are not clear.
He described himself as wicked and wild, and he was
sent to a quote house of refuge for wayward boys
in his early teens.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
This was the kind of.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Place that would have tried to rehabilitate its residents through
scripture and teaching them a trade, and this was when
George started to develop an interest in religion.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
The US Civil War had started when George was eleven,
and at the age of fourteen, after the US Army
started recruiting black soldiers, he ran away to join. He
was definitely not old enough to enlist, which he knew,
so he went to another town, lied about his age,
and used an uncle's name. It was obvious to the

(03:20):
military surgeon who was doing the physical exams that George
was not old enough to serve, but he begged to
be allowed to, and ultimately he was enlisting under a
false identity, though led to some trouble both for him
and for future historians. Later on, it kept his widow
from being able to collect a pension, and it means

(03:41):
that a lot of the details of this part of
his military service are really impossible to track down at
this point.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
By his account, he was wounded twice in service and
was at the fall of Petersburg on April second, eighteen
sixty five. After the war ended, his unit was sent
to Texas to serve the remainder of their enlistments. He
may have been mustered out, but it's also possible that
he deserted, and after this he crossed the border to
join Mexican troops fighting against Habsburg Emperor Maximilian the First.

(04:13):
In eighteen sixty seven, Williams returned to Pennsylvania and on
August twenty ninth of that year, he joined the tenth
Cavalry that was one of the segregated military units, also known.

Speaker 3 (04:24):
As the Buffalo Soldiers. The legacy of the Buffalo Soldiers
is complicated. Initially, these soldiers were under the command of
white officers, and they faced ongoing racism during their service.
One of the reasons the Buffalo Soldiers were stationed in
more remote areas of what's now Texas, Colorado, and New
Mexico is that white soldiers would not accept their presence

(04:47):
in other parts of the country. These men were also
fighting for a government that generally didn't view them as
equal to white people, but for a lot of them
this was an opportunity for self sufficiency. In the e
writes in a chance to serve with valor. This was
particularly notable since a lot of them had previously been enslaved.

(05:09):
Added to that, the service of the Buffalo soldiers in
the nineteenth century is deeply intertwined with the United States
wars against indigenous nations. The nineteenth century book Men of
Mark Eminent, Progressive and Rising, which is a collection of
biographical sketches of black men by the Reverend William J. Simmons,
describes Williams as quote serving in the Comanche campaign of

(05:32):
eighteen sixty seven with conspicuous bravery. That same account describes
him as later being convinced that quote as a Christian,
killing people in the time of peace was not the
noblest life a man could live. On May nineteenth, eighteen
sixty eight, Williams was shot, and this gunshot badly damaged

(05:54):
the lower lobe of his left lung. There is some
mystery about this injury. According to military records, this did
not happen in the line of duty, but an investigation
into the matter doesn't seem to have led to any
kind of discipline for anybody. As a side note, one
of the investigators into this was Richard Henry Pratt, who

(06:16):
at the time was a first Lieutenant. He would later
be the founder and superintendent of Carlisle Indian Industrial School.
William's injury was disabling and he was in the hospital
for the rest of his service. He was discharged from
the army on September fourth, eighteen sixty eight, at the
age of eighteen. From there, Williams moved to Saint Louis, Missouri,

(06:38):
and started attending a Baptist church. Soon after, he got
a license to preach. Then he heard about Howard University,
which had been established the previous year, and decided to apply,
which he did not by following any typical application process,
but by writing directly to its founder and namesake, General

(06:59):
Oliver Oates Howard. He sent this letter on March eighth,
eighteen sixty nine, and the letter did make its way
to the appropriate people for admissions, with a note that
said answer favorably if qualified. Although Williams was apparently admitted
to Howard, his qualifications were questionable. He had almost no

(07:19):
formal education at this point. He knew how to read
and write, but not very well. This letter is full
of misspellings and unusual usage that go way beyond the
typical nineteenth century idiosyncrasies. There's also no record of him
actually attending Howard during the eighteen sixty nine to eighteen
seventy academic year, and on September ninth, eighteen seventy, he

(07:42):
was examined by the faculty for admission at a different institution,
the Newton Theological Seminary in Newton, Massachusetts. At the Seminary,
Williams was enrolled in a two year general course in English,
which biographer John Hope Franklin describes as a uemism for
the remedial course. The seminary had established this program because

(08:05):
there was a shortage of ministers, but there was also
a shortage of candidates who were academically ready to be enrolled.
After finishing the general English course, Williams moved on to
the three year theological program, which he finished in two
years and at the top of his class. He was
also one of the people who delivered an address at
commencement on June tenth, eighteen seventy four. This sounds like

(08:29):
a very long commencement ceremony. There were twelve addresses from
the graduates. I don't know that I could sit through
twelve addresses. Williams's address was on early Christian missions in Africa.
June of eighteen seventy four was a very busy month
for George Washington Williams. About a week before his graduation,
he had gone to Chicago to marry Sarah A.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
Sterrett.

Speaker 3 (08:53):
They would go on to have one child together in
eighteen seventy five, who was also named George. The day
after graduate, he was ordained at Twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury, Massachusetts,
which was one of the most influential Black churches in
the Northeast. Williams had started working there as acting pastor
in August of eighteen seventy three because the previous pastor,

(09:15):
Leonard Grimes, had died. His position was made permanent on
June twenty fourth. Some of Williams's earliest work as a
historian started while he was pastor at Twelfth Baptist Church.
The congregation had outgrown its building and services were seriously overcrowded,
so he researched and wrote a history of the church.

(09:35):
With proceeds from the sale of the book going to
raise money for improvements on the building. George Washington Williams
did not remain pastor there for very long, though, and
we will talk about his next career move. After a
sponsor break. While working as pastor twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury, Massachusetts,

(10:02):
George Washington Williams started to see the need for a
national newspaper for black readers, as he wrote in a
letter to poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, quote, the time has
come when the Negro must do something. He went on
to describe the United States as in a plastic time
in which black Americans would be making history. A national

(10:26):
journal headquartered in Washington could act as their teacher, their friend,
and their mirror, educating them about social problems, forming the
foundations of enlightened citizenship, and reflecting the virtue, genius, and
industry of the people. Longfellow supported this effort, as did
people like Frederick Douglas and William Lloyd Garrison.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
Garrison also cautioned Williams about the financial risks of trying
to start a newspaper. A lot of periodicals for black
readers had already been established, but had run only a
few issues because they ran out of money. Hoping to
reach a national audience was an even more ambitious goal,
and Garrison's concerns were well founded. The newspaper, called The

(11:09):
Commoner ultimately ran for only eight issues from September fourth
to December eighteenth, eighteen seventy five. Williams had gotten a
lot of high profile support, but he had not gotten
a lot of actual subscribers.

Speaker 3 (11:24):
Williams then worked for the Post Office for a bit
before being called to preach at Union Baptist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio,
starting there in February of eighteen seventy six. An article
about him that ran in the Cincinnati Daily Express several
months later overstated his background in a number of ways,
including saying that he had graduated from Harvard rather than

(11:48):
saying that he had been enrolled at Howard. It is
not really clear where this information came from or whether
these were simply errors, but Williams really does not seemed
to have tried to correct them. Then he started studying
law with Judge Alfonso Taft, former US Attorney General, and

(12:08):
he was called to the bar in Ohio in eighteen
seventy seven. He also became involved in politics, through the
Taft family, joining the Republican Party and making an unsuccessful
run for a seat in the Ohio General Assembly. By
November of eighteen seventy eight, Williams was writing a regular
column for the Cincinnati Commercial Appeal under the pen name Aristites,

(12:31):
making him the first black person known to have had
a column in a white newspaper. He did an assortment
of other jobs. He took on various other projects, including
buying a gym and hiring a manager and a pe
instructor for a Columbus Ohio YMCA to benefit the black
community there. There so much has already happened, and we're

(12:51):
not even halfway through.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
He was a busy man. Williams ran for office again
in eighteen seventy nine, this time winning a seat in
the Ohio Io House of Representatives, making him the first
black member of the Ohio state Legislature. He only served
for one term. At one point he campaigned for a
bill that would have closed a cemetery in a black neighborhood,

(13:13):
and that led to outrage from the community. In eighteen
eighty one, he was appointed as Judge Advocate in the
Grand Army of the Republic, a fraternal organization for veterans
of the US military who served in the Civil War
with the rank of colonel. Andy also had his interest
pulled in another direction. He wanted to write a history

(13:35):
of black people in the United States. At this point,
the field of history was shifting in the United States
and Europe, moving from general histories that usually had very
broad themes, often written to be patriotic or celebratory, to
more detailed work that was grounded in the careful examination
of primary sources, not in repeating what other historians had

(13:59):
our already said. Nineteenth century German historian Leopold von Ranke,
viewed as one of the founders of modern source based history,
described this evolution this way quote, I see the time
approaching when we shall base modern history no longer on
the reports even of contemporary historians, except insofar as they

(14:21):
were in the possession of personal and immediate knowledge of facts,
and still less on work yet more remote from the source,
but rather on the narratives of eyewitnesses and on genuine
and original documents. Colleges and universities in the United States
were just starting to adopt this kind of focus when

(14:42):
Williams started to work on this book, So Most historians
in the US were not formally trained in these kinds
of methods, but Williams was teaching himself to do it
without any formal training in history at all. He not
only taught himself to look for, collect and document primary sources,
but he also made use of sources that were way
ahead of his time. This included newspaper reports, church records,

(15:07):
and oral histories, which many other historians weren't really incorporating
until much later.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
William's use of primary sources was not just happenstance. He
understood that because of his race, his work would face
closer scrutiny than that of a white historian, so it
had to be meticulously documented and substantiated. Beyond that, most
information about black people in the United States was being
kept by other black people, which is why he was

(15:35):
turning to things like newspapers and church records and oral histories.
He traveled all over the United States to do this work,
and it became his almost exclusive focus.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
George Washington Williams's History of the Negro Race in America
from sixteen nineteen to eighteen eighty Negroes as slaves, as soldiers,
and as citizens, together with a Preliminary Consideration of the
Unity of the Human Family and Historical Sketch of Africa,
and an Account of the Negro Government of Sierra Leone
and Liberia. All one title was first published over two volumes,

(16:12):
totally roughly one thousand pages, in eighteen eighty two. This
was not the first ever work about black history to
be published in the US, but it was the first
that was intended to be comprehensive and to encompass the
nation's entire history.

Speaker 3 (16:28):
For the most part, Williamson's work was well reviewed, although
it did face some criticisms. Its first chapter was not
actually rooted in US history, but in theology. It was
building a counter argument to the use of scripture to
dehumanize black people and defend the institution of slavery. Since
Williams's formal education was in seminary, parts of the book,

(16:51):
especially this chapter, were written in a style that was
more dramatic and oratorial than was really expected from a
historical work. He could also be really critical when it
came to correcting errors that had appeared in other people's work,
including other black historians work. It wasn't enough to sort

(17:11):
of say sources said this happened in this year, but
it really happened in this year. Like then there would
need to be commentary about the quality of the intellect
of the person who made that mistake.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
But even though there were people who found fault with
Williams's style or tone, this was still a scholarship by
a black person that white journalists and scholars found worthy
of this kind of analysis and criticism, rather than just
dismissing or ignoring it, And that was notable on its own.
After this book was published, Williams hired a booking agent

(17:45):
and started lecturing widely. In eighteen eighty three, he moved
to Boston and was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar. There
seems to have been some fudging of his credentials here.
He said he had passed the bar in Ohio in
eighteen seventy nine, when really it had been late later
than that and had required more than one attempt. By
this point, he had been estranged from his wife, Sarah.

(18:08):
By eighteen eighty four, they were no longer living together.
She claimed that he was negligent as both a father
and a spouse, and it does seem like he had
been focused on research for his book to the exclusion
of everything else. There's no documentation of a legal separation
or divorce, and later on she was considered his legal
next of kin, but they really were not living as

(18:29):
a couple. That summer, Williams went to Europe with a
letter of introduction from the State Department. He traveled to Switzerland, Germany, France.

Speaker 2 (18:39):
And the UK.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
Word later reached the State Department that he had borrowed
money from various people on this trip, including government officials,
and had not repaid it somehow, though this did not
stop President Chester A. Arthur from appointing Williams to be
Minister to Haiti on March second, eighteen eighty five, and
it did not get in the way of the Senate

(19:02):
confirming that appointment. Williams never assumed his post, though he
was sworn in at about ten in the morning on
March fourth, and inauguration ceremonies for President Grover Cleveland started
about one thirty that afternoon. The Secretary of State had
not issued William's credentials by the time Thomas Francis Bayard
was appointed to that role on March sixth. Then Cleveland

(19:25):
made his own appointment for Minister to Haiti. That was
John Edward Wes Thompson, and he began his service on
June thirtieth, so much about this is weird. Williams was
appointed to replace John Mercer Langston, who had resigned. Langston
had served under a series of Republican presidents, and newly
elected Grover Cleveland was a Democrat, so Langston's resignation was

(19:50):
basically expected in light of this changing presidential administration. Arthur
was not expected to appoint somebody to replace this, you know,
former minister just two days before the inauguration. It's also
not clear why the State Department didn't raise any objections,
considering that Williams had borrowed money on the strength of

(20:12):
their letter of introduction. Plus, Williams had a lot of critics,
including among other black people. There were several black newspapers
that published editorials describing him as arrogant and unqualified for
this role, and having abandoned a wife and a child
and at least one church congregation. Williams doesn't seem to

(20:33):
have known he was being considered for this appointment until
it happened, but having it taken away like this was
also deeply upsetting. In addition to any political aspirations, he
may have had. He was dealing with ongoing respiratory issues,
possibly connected to being shot through the lung, and he
was hoping that Haiti's warm climate would help his health.

(20:55):
He filed suit against the government to try to get
the appointment restored and to collect his pay for it.
He finally lost that suit on January third, eighteen eighty two.
In the midst of all this, on May seventeenth, eighteen
eighty seven, he was awarded an honorary law degree by
the State University of Louisville, Kentucky. He also published another
work of history that year. That was a history of

(21:18):
the Negro troops in the War of the Rebellion eighteen
sixty one to eighteen sixty five. He had used the
same methodology for this work as he had for his
earlier work on black history. After this book was published, W. E. B.
Du Bois, who was nineteen years old, wrote about him
in the Fifth Herald, saying quote, at last we have

(21:38):
a historian, not merely a Negro historian, but a man who,
judged by his merits alone, has written a splendid narrative.
In eighteen eighty eight, Williams also became a published novelist
with The Autocracy of Love coming out serially in a
newspaper called The World. I think this might have actually
stopped before he got to the end of the story,

(22:00):
but a significant amount did come out. Around this time,
Williams also started focusing his attention on Africa, which we
will get to after a sponsor break. Before we talk
about George Washington Williams work involving the Congo Free State,

(22:24):
we need to lay out some context. Over the course
of the nineteenth century, multiple European powers aggressively took control
of territory in Africa and in other parts of the
world too, but Africa is our focus here. This came
to be known as the Scramble for Africa. In eighteen
eighty five, nations assembled at the West African Conference, also

(22:46):
known as the Congo Conference, to formalize these claims and
to agree on borders for some of this territory. This
conference took place in Berlin over a series of sessions
from November of eighteen eighty four to February eighteen eighty five. Austria, Hungary, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy,

(23:07):
the Netherlands, the Ottoman Empire, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, and Norway,
and the United States participated. There were no delegations to
represent the peoples and nations and kingdoms of Africa at
this conference. And at this conference, King Leopold the Second
was recognized as sovereign.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
Of the Congo Free State. This made the Congo Free
State his personal territory, not a Belgian colony. Leopold had
established the Association Internacionale du Congo in eighteen seventy eight,
following Henry Morton Stanley's expedition through the region. About two
years prior. Stanley had returned to the region and convinced

(23:49):
more than four hundred African chiefs to give the Association
and gen Nacionale Ducongo sovereignty over their territory, sovereignty that
then passed to Leepold. The United States was the first
nation to recognize Leopold's claim to the Congo, something that
George Washington Williams had encouraged. If you know anything about

(24:11):
the truly horrific conditions in the Congo Free State under
King Leopold the second, Williams's encouragement of this recognition probably
sounds shocking, but Leopold had framed himself as a philanthropist,
somebody who was working for the best interest of the
people of the Congo. He talked about all the good

(24:32):
that a railroad and free trade would bring to the region,
and he claimed that his involvement would help end slavery
within Africa. Williams was also a devout Christian and he
believed in the idea of Christianizing and quote civilizing Africa.
To be clear, Christian religious practices in this region go

(24:53):
back at least to the fifteenth century, so well before this,
but this would be a massive expansion of Christian missionary efforts.
So when Leopold was talking about things like schools and
hospitals and missions, Williams believed him. Williams even interviewed Leopold
directly and advocated for a program that would bring black

(25:16):
Americans to the Congo to teach and work. When Williams
started talking to Leopold about visiting the Congo so that
he could see the king's success in person, Leopold, of
course did not want him to go, and Leopold eventually
told him explicitly not to go. So William's arranged transport
on his own, accepting a commission from S. S. McClure

(25:39):
on behalf of the Associated Literary Press. He had been
traveling back and forth between Europe and the United States,
including a research trip to Europe and attendance at the
Centenary Conference of Protestant Missions in eighteen eighty eight and
the Anti Slavery Conference in Brussels in eighteen eighty nine.
He departed for the Congo Free State from liver on

(26:00):
January thirtieth, eighteen ninety.

Speaker 3 (26:03):
On July eighteenth, eighteen ninety, in Stanley Falls, Williams wrote
an open letter to his Serene Majesty Leopold, the second
King of the Belgians and Sovereign of the Independent State
of Congo, by Colonel the Honorable George W. Williams of
the United States of America. This letter was based on

(26:24):
his observations and investigations.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
Over the prior few weeks.

Speaker 3 (26:30):
This was both an open letter and a work of
investigative journalism, and it was the first published work to
really call attention to what was happening in the Congo
Free State.

Speaker 1 (26:40):
This letter began quote, good and great friend, I have
the honor to submit for your Majesty's consideration, some reflections
respecting the independent State of Congo, based upon a careful
study and inspection of the country and character of the
personal government you have established upon the African continent. It
afforded me great pleasure to avail myself of the opportunity

(27:02):
afforded me last year of visiting your state in Africa,
and how thoroughly I have been disenchanted, disappointed, and disheartened.
It is now my painful duty to make known to
Your Majesty in plain but respectful language. Williams described Henry
Morton Stanley's use of deception and very stage crafty slide

(27:24):
of hand tricks quote too silly and disgusting to mention
to deceive indigenous chiefs into signing away their land. He
also said he had found no hospitals for Europeans and
only three shacks for treating sick Africans. There were no
Belgian chaplains to console the sick or bury the dead,

(27:44):
and Europeans who died along the road were going unburied.
He went on to write, quote, I was anxious to
see what extent the natives had adopted the fostering care
of Your Majesty's benevolent enterprise question mark. And I was
doomed to bitter disappointment. Instead of the natives of the
Congo adopting the fostering care of your Majesty's government, they

(28:07):
everywhere complained that their land has been taken from them
by force, that the government is cruel and arbitrary, and
declared that they neither love nor respect the government and
its flag. Your Majesty's government has sequestered their land, burned
their towns, stolen their property, enslaved their women and children,

(28:28):
and committed other crimes too numerous to mention in detail.
It is natural that they everywhere shrink from the fostering
care your Majesty's government so eagerly proffers them. After describing
ongoing corruption, negligence, and death, he lay out a series
of charges. To briefly summarize most of them. They were

(28:51):
that Leopold's government did not have the moral or financial
strength to govern the territory that the government had established
nearly fifty staffed by mercenary slave soldiers under the command
of soldiers from Zanzibar who were expected to sustain themselves,
and nearby garrisons of white soldiers through raiding and piracy.

(29:14):
That the government had violated its contracts with soldiers, mechanics,
and workers. That its courts were quote abortive, unjust, partial,
and delinquent, and the government was cruel to prisoners. That
women were being brought into the colony for immoral purposes,
including by falsely accusing native women of crimes and sentencing

(29:37):
them to seven years of servitude. That the Congo Free
State was taxing other nations trading companies while exempting its
own goods from export duties. And that the government was
waging unjust and cruel wars against the natives and was
engaged in the slave trade. He had this to say
about Henry Morton Stanley, who got a brief mention in

(30:00):
in our recent episodes on Natalie Clifford Barney, that, in
addition to his grossly misrepresenting the character of the country, quote,
Henry M. Stanley's name produces a shudder among this simple
folk when mentioned. They remember his broken promises, his copious profanity,
his hot temper, his heavy blows, his severe and rigorous

(30:23):
measures by which they were mulkeded of their lands. His
last appearance in the Congo produced a profound sensation among them,
when he led five hundred Zanzibar soldiers with three hundred
camp followers on his way to relieve a mean pasha.
They thought it meant complete subjugation, and they fled in confusion.

(30:43):
But the only thing they found in the wake of
his march was misery. No white man commanded his rear column,
and his troops were allowed to straggle, sicken, and die,
and their bones were scattered over more than two hundred
miles of territory. We have a two parter on a
Means that came out in September of twenty seventeen. Williams

(31:04):
ended with a series of appeals to the powers that
had entrusted Leopold with this territory at the Berlin Conference,
to the terms of the General Act of the Conference
of Berlin, to the Belgian people and government, to the
world's anti slavery societies, and to God, to quote hasten
the close of the tragedy, your Majesty's unlimited monarchy is

(31:27):
enacting in the Congo. Williams also attached a report on
the proposed Congo Railway, and he wrote a letter to
the President of the United States on the state of
the Congo and his encounters with Leopold. After leaving the
Congo Free State, George Washington Williams toured through other parts
of Africa, arriving in Cairo in January of eighteen ninety one.

(31:50):
He departed for England that May, and aboard the ship
met Alice Fryar, who was returning from India, where she
had been working as a governess. By the time the
ship arrived in England, the two of them were engaged.
Williams was trying to get people to pay attention to
what was happening in the Congo Free State, but he
had also been sick for a lot of his time

(32:12):
in Africa. It's likely that he contracted tuberculosis, which did
not have an effective cure at this point and would
have been particularly dangerous for somebody with serious lung damage
like he had. He may have also developed pleurisy. Alison,
her mother, eventually took him to Blackpool, England, hoping that
the sea air would help him recover. He died there

(32:35):
on August second, eighteen ninety one, at the age of
forty one, and was buried in Blackpool's Layton Cemetery. At
the time of his death, George Washington Williams was one
of the best known Black Americans. For example, in eighteen
ninety the Indianapolis Friedman had polled its readership about the
ten greatest Black people ever to live, and he was

(32:56):
one of them, along with Frederick Douglas and Toussaint lu Vertire.
While he did have critics, especially when it came to
his personal life and his time in politics, newspaper coverage
of his death praised him for his brilliance, but almost
immediately Williams fell into almost total obscurity. That nineteenth century

(33:17):
account that we read from earlier on was, I think
while he was still living, was not afterward. The same
pattern of racism that had led to black people's histories
being kept mainly in the records of things like black
newspapers and churches and their own oral histories meant that
his work quickly fell out of view of white journalists

(33:38):
and historians. So when other people started writing about the
atrocities in the Congo almost a decade later, they didn't
reference him. Not Joseph Conrad, who had followed the same
route as Williams a month later, whose Heart of Darkness
was published serially in eighteen ninety nine, and not Roger Casement,

(33:58):
who's nineteen oh four report commissioned by the British government
helped lead to the end of Leopold's sovereignty over the
Congo Free State. In the words of John Hope Franklin quote,
when the world at long last became concerned with Leopold's
atrocities in the Congo, not one of them referred to
William's pioneer efforts. As we said at the top of

(34:20):
the show, it is thanks to John Hope Franklin that
we know what we do about George Washington Williams. In
nineteen forty six he had gotten a contract to write
a book on black history. That book would be From
Slavery to Freedom, A History of African Americans, and it
was first published in nineteen forty seven, and it's probably
his best known work. Franklin was reading the shelves at

(34:43):
what is now North Carolina Central University when he found
Williams's two volume History of the Negro Race in America,
and at that point Franklin had never heard of Williams.
Franklin's efforts to piece together the details of William's life
took four decades and banned three continents. His biography of

(35:03):
Williams simply titled George Washington Williams, a biography, was first
published in nineteen eighty five, and it's been reprinted several
times since then. It is also thanks to him that
William's gravesite in Blackpool is now marked. He arranged for
a marker to be placed there in nineteen seventy five.
John Hope Franklin died in two thousand and nine. During

(35:26):
his career, he wrote numerous works, many of them about
the US Civil War. He worked with Thurgood Marshall on
the legal case of Lyman T. Johnson, challenging segregation at
the University of Kentucky, and he acted as an expert witness,
and he helped Marshall prepare arguments in Brown versus Board
of Education. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom

(35:46):
in nineteen ninety five.

Speaker 3 (35:49):
Belgium took control of the Congo Free State in nineteen
oh eight, and the region became independent from Belgium in
nineteen sixty. Today it's the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
but there are still ongoing human rights violations there, with
multiple governments and international organizations describing the situation as dire.

(36:10):
Among other things, there is ongoing conflict between the Congolese
government and at least fifteen different significant armed groups. This
is especially in the eastern provinces, and there are massive
issues with child labor. In the mining industry, Congo is
extremely wealthy in terms of natural resources like diamonds and cobalt,

(36:32):
as well as a mineral called cultan, which is refined
into tantalum and used to make electrical components. It's in
huge demand for the manufacture of cell phones and other
electronic devices. Also as an odd coda, George Washington Williams
was a character in the twenty sixteen Legend of Tarzan.

(36:53):
It's pretty odd, and we're going to talk about that
on Friday. Yeah, we sure are. Before listener mail, we
have a trip to announce.

Speaker 1 (37:02):
We sure do.

Speaker 2 (37:04):
We're gonna go to Iceland.

Speaker 3 (37:06):
Yay. We are both very excited about going to Iceland.
Unlike our previous trips, this is somewhere we have each
been before. Well, I have been to the places of
our previous trips.

Speaker 1 (37:17):
It was just so long ago. I don't remember right, right,
but we have both been to Iceland fairly recently. I
went last year.

Speaker 3 (37:25):
Yeah, I went to Iceland in twenty sixteen. And you
went to Iceland last year and we were both very
excited about the idea of returning to Iceland. I don't
know about you, but we're going to some places I've
been before, some places I've not been before. Same, so
very excited about that. This trip is happening November two
through eighth, which means if the solar system and the

(37:49):
weather cooperate, we could see the Northern Lights, which is
very exciting for me. They were actually out when I
was there in the very off season, but we were
in a place that was too cloudy and we did
not even know it was happening until the next day
when we heard about it in a place that had
not been cloudy. Some of the things we're gonna do

(38:11):
we are going to see some things in Reykivic. We
have a couple of nights in Reykievic, so we are
going to see some of the local sites there. We
are going to do some of the places on the
Golden Circle, including Thingvalier National Park, a lot of waterfalls.
There's one day when we have like a more excitement

(38:33):
less excitement option, more excitement option, snowmobiling, Yeah, less excitement option,
geothermal bakery. I will say, having watched videos of the snowmobiling,
it's pretty tame.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
It's very it's not fast.

Speaker 1 (38:50):
You're like single files, so the speed is controlled and
everybody's in the same tracks. Yeah, So if you're not
a thrill seeker, but that sounds cool, it still might
be within your parameter of acceptability, right, And if you
would rather not geothermal bakery, which also sounds very cool
to me, uh huh. And at the end of the trip,

(39:10):
a trip to the Blue Lagoon, which as a geothermal
mineral pool where I went the last time I was
in Iceland, had a great time. See, I did not
do any of those when I was in Iceland because
I'm not like a spawn water baby, right, So we'll
see what happens this time.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
And if you're not into those things that Blue Lagoon.

Speaker 3 (39:31):
Blue Lagoon also has a collection of like restaurants and
cafes and stuff, so there are some other things to
do if that's not what you're really up for. So again,
this is Iceland, November two through eighth, twenty twenty four.
We know that Tuesday, November fifth is election day in

(39:53):
the United States, so make your absentee voting plans ahead
of time. If you you are a US voter and
want to come on this trip with US Defined Destinations
dot com slash Iceland twenty twenty four, You can also
just go to Defineddestinations dot com and click on where

(40:15):
it says Iceland. If you have questions about, like specific
arrangements about the trip, whether it would be fun for you,
whether you know if you just want more details about things,
Defined Destinations is who to contact about that? Because while
Holly and I go on this trip and we pick
the general destination and make feedback on the itinerary, we're

(40:38):
not the ones making the actual day to day arrangements.
So actual day to day arrangements questions Defined Destinations as
who can answer that? And now we will move on
to an equally fun listener mail, which is actually a
Facebook comment that I copied and pasted into the email

(41:00):
so I wouldn't lose it. This is from Sarah, who says, Hey,
I'm the owner of that eighteen eighties dress with the
codes in the pocket. We talked about this in our unearthed.
Sarah continues, I thought i'd weigh in on the speculation
about it being for a woman who was eight months pregnant.
The photos you see everywhere are the ones I took

(41:23):
after buttoning on on the only dress form I have,
so it's not the right hourglass shape for the era.
Even still, the bodice has a maximum waste measurement of
twenty four inches. I can barely get it buttoned on
the form. When you account for a chemise, pantaloons, corset
and corset cover going under the bodice, a woman would

(41:43):
need a waistline not much above twenty three inches to
wear this. I would really love this to be a
maternity dress, but I just can't see it working even
with the right structural undergarments for a woman carrying low.
The skirt construction has some give, but the bodice has
been led out as much as possible to get that
twenty four inch waste. There is no extra fabric there

(42:06):
to allow more room to expand that being said, I
don't really rule out the DC Bennetts as a source
of the dress and code sheets. The theory I keep
coming back to is reuse of the papers. Soft paper
that has served its purpose in the code office might
be the kind of thing you'd bring home to a

(42:27):
house with a newborn in an age before baby wipes
people were using paper for hygiene by then, and these
sheets are much softer than pages from a farmer's almanac.
I also wonder if part of the reason so few
telegraph code sheets survive is that they enjoyed a second
life as toilet paper. My dress would then be kind

(42:49):
of the equivalent of leaving a tissue in your pocket
and forgetting it was there. The pocket wouldn't be something
you'd access in public, but the wearer would know it
was there. Seems like a good spot for an emergency
baby wipe or toilet tissue. To me, Holly has made
the worst face. I'm sorry that we talked about baby poops, Holleen.
I'm gonna need therapy after this. Thank you so much,

(43:13):
Sarah for this comment. I felt very silly after reading
it because I was like I could have literally asked,
like I could have said, hey, you have this dress,
what do you think about this speculation? And first, I
don't know. Asking for help is hard and sometimes I
forget that's.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
A thing that can even be done.

Speaker 3 (43:34):
So thank you so much Sarah for finding this post
on our Facebook.

Speaker 2 (43:37):
And leaving this comment. I loved it so much, And.

Speaker 3 (43:41):
If you would like to write to us, about this
or any other podcasts. We're at History podcast at iHeartRadio
dot com.

Speaker 2 (43:48):
We're also on some social.

Speaker 3 (43:50):
Media, including that Facebook, and you can subscribe to our
show on the iHeartRadio app and wherever else you like
to get your podcasts. Stuff you missed in History Class
is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,

(44:10):
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.

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