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Introduction
- The University Press of Kentucky
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1 Introduction I do not forget the prejudice of the American people; I could not if I would. I am sore from sole to crown with its blows. Peter Clark, 1873 Black Ohioans traveled to Dayton on September 22, 1873, to commemorate Emancipation Day—the day President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. The celebration began on the railcars carrying African Americans into the city. People dressed in their Sunday best could hardly contain their excitement as the trains pulled into the station. The revelry followed them from the trains into the depot, where arriving travelers were greeted by two different bands blaring popular tunes. People gaily danced in the station. The Sons of Protection and Lincoln Guards, two black militia groups, wearing brightly colored regalia, marched with muskets resting against one shoulder. The sky was remarkably clear; the mood, exuberant and festive. The 1873 Emancipation Day celebration drew a daunting three thousand people—the biggest Emancipation Day celebration on record. A Cincinnatian named Peter H. Clark, one of the most popular and electrifyingAfricanAmerican orators in the state, was scheduled to deliver the keynote address. After his arrival on a special train, the Sons of Protection and Lincoln Guards, marching in step, led the procession toward the county fairgrounds. There, African Americans enjoyed an entire day of music, speeches, dancing, and food, and other activities in celebration of Emancipation.1 The keynote address—the centerpiece of such celebrations —bridged two aspects of African American public culture: black festive culture and public oratory. No stranger to Emancipation Day celebrations or public orations, Clark frequently had been called upon to deliver the keynote address at these events. This time, his speech was about a broader type of freedom than Emancipation: he articulated a vision of a fuller realization of black freedom through political power. He told his enormous audience that 2 America’s First Black Socialist African Americans “do not demand one-eighth of the offices of the land, or . . . any of the offices, on the ground of color; but we do demand that color shall not be a bar to office; that the political rights of the colored man shall not be exhausted when he has cast his ballot. . . . The offices do not belong to the whites of this land, but to the people of this land [emphasis added].” Clark went on to criticize the Republican Party for taking black voters for granted: “We protest against the colored man being listed in the assets of the Republican party as a voting machine, which simply does the work of its master, and is then shelved until next election, as is the case in Ohio.”2 Such blunt critiques of the Republican Party, coupled with public demands for political opportunities for African Americans, were a constant throughout Clark’s political life. In fact, he is one of a very small number of black nineteenth-century activists who identified political opportunities as a necessary condition of full freedom and equality. Such powerfully incisive public lectures made Peter H. Clark (1829– 1925) one of the foremost public intellectuals in nineteenth-century African American history. As an eloquent and persuasive public speaker, he was often called upon to deliver keynote addresses to a multiplicity of interracial and interethnic audiences. As a journalist, Clark penned editorials that captured America’s attention and provoked debate in Cincinnati and beyond. He used the press and podium not only as forums for discussing African Americans’ status, but as vehicles to lobby for their freedom. Of all his intellectual activities, Clark was most committed to education. For him, education was more than just a profession: he considered it essential for improving the African American condition and forging a path to full and equal citizenship. As a young man, he led the fight for African Americans ’ access to public schools—a fight that included the bold decision to sue the City of Cincinnati to release tax monies paid by African American taxpayers for schools. After a victory that literally thrust open the doors of local public schools in the 1850s, Clark became the first African American to teach in Ohio’s Colored Schools, and later, the first principal of the first black high school (1866) in the state. In his more than fifty-year teaching career, he educated hundreds of African American children. Both his peers and students commended him as one of the finest educators in the nation. Moreover, Clark participated in some of the major intellectual conversations of his day...