GEORGE WASHINGTON WILLIAMS

GEORGE WASHINGTON WILLIAMS

The Greatest Man You Never Knew Corneal Harper neal1719@gmail.com Northeastern Illinois University

GEORGE WASHINGTON WILLIAMS

The Greatest Man You Never Knew George Washington Williams was a race man of his times. And like so many of the race men and women of the 19th century, he had a fearlessness that was beyond comprehension. In 42 years of life he achieved excellence as a soldier, minister, journalist, politician, freelance diplomat, lawyer, African traveler and historian. An unrepentant Republican, Williams was the first African American to hold government office in Ohio and the first man of any color to compile a history of the African American and the African American soldier. He fought in the Civil War and the Mexican Revolution and travelled the length and breadth of the country, and the world, on the force of his personality and his oratorical skills. He was installed as pastor to two of the most important African American congregations in the country and wrote the church history for one of them. He looked the King of Belgium in the eye, when other men could not even get an audience with him, and told him his concept of the Congo was a fantasy, and then, against the Kings orders, went to the Congo to compile evidence to prove his point. This is the story of a man of immense talent and a love of history who died much too soon. George Washington Williams was born on October 16, 1849 in Bedford Springs, Pennsylvania to mulatto parents Thomas and Ellen Williams. He was the first of four boys and the most rambunctious. He had wanderlust from an early age. After falling on hard times the family ended up in Pittsburg where much of Williams adolescence was spent. His parents never encouraged his education, but he was clearly an inquisitive boy as shown by his interest in his fathers barber business where he learned his first trade.

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Soon the Civil War became the focus of the country and 14 year old Williams was keen to enlist just to have a change of scenery. He was well under age but large enough in body structure to convince enlistment officers in Meadville, Pennsylvania he was eligible. Under the name of William (or Charles) Steward, the 14 years old George Washington Williams went to war. After a year of service, Williams reenlisted under his own name and served out the remainder of the war, enlisted in the Mexican Revolution and gained notoriety for his shooting skill, then came home to reenlist in the regular Army in 1867. He was picked for a special assignment: guarding Fort Arbuckle, a notorious den of bootleggers and horse thieves. Williams was wounded by a gunshot to the lung under mysterious circumstances, effectively ending his military career. While recovering from his Fort Arbuckle experience, Williams went full speed into a new interest: the ministry. After a stop in St. Louis, he settled in Hannibal, Missouri where he was licensed as a Baptist minister. He then moved to Quincy, Illinois where he learned of the founding of Howard University. His familiarity with General Oliver Otis Howard, as a fellow Negro soldier, made Williams eager to participate and he felt the best way to do this was to introduce himself to General Howard in a letter. Unfortunately, the level of Williams education was revealed for the first time to his detriment. John Hope Franklin, Williams biographer, says about the letter, It was written so badly, I had real trouble getting through it1 It was not only badly written, with words spelled phonetically, it went on forever. Williams was accepted to Howard, however he never attended. He was passed on to the Newton Theological Seminary, whose curriculum include a remedial English class that was sorely needed for Williams

GEORGE WASHINGTON WILLIAMS to continue his college career. Williams not only completed the English course on schedule, he graduated from the Seminary in two years.

GEORGE WASHINGTON WILLIAMS Most of the graduates took three years. Williams was also chosen as one of the commencement address speakers at his graduation and gave thanks to Athanasius, Origen, Tertullian, Augustine and Cyprian: the African fathers of Christianity.

GEORGE WASHINGTON WILLIAMS Ten years had passed since that rambunctious 14 year old ran off and joined the union army, but according to John Hope Franklin: The twenty-four-year-old graduate, with the help of his mentors, had transformed himself in the short span of four years from an uninformed, raw youth to a well educated man with a felicitous writing style and a refinement that reflected itself in his bearing and his manners.2 While still a student, Williams developed and maintained a relationship with the Twelfth Baptist Church of Boston and their pastor Leonard Grimes who Williams admired greatly.

After graduation, Williams joined the church in earnest and became known throughout Boston for his oratorical skills and his community service. When Grimes suddenly passed away, Williams was picked to replace him and, after a probationary period, with his brand new Chicago-born bride, Sarah Sterrett in tow, was installed as pastor. He

GEORGE WASHINGTON WILLIAMS immediately compiled the first history of the Twelfth Baptist Church. Williams flourished there. Under his leadership the congregation increased by hundreds and the church business had never run smoother. Alas, after months of success, Williams

wanderlust kicked in. His letter to none other than William Wadsworth Longfellow was a clue to his future plans: The time has come when the Negro must do something This is a plastic period. The Negro will begin to make history. What manner of history will it be? That is the questionTo this end, I will go to Washington and edit a journal. It will be their teacher, their friend, their mirror.3 Once again Williams rushed headlong into his goal of creating a news journal unlike anything ever published for the Negro community. He traveled to Washington to talk to Fredrick Douglass and John Mercer Langston about his plans to produce a Negro periodical to fill the void left by the demise of the New National Era, the newspaper supported by Douglass himself. Williams works up interest in a meeting with these and other men who had wanted to establish a Negro journal. On July 12, 1875, Douglass, Mercer and a host of the most prominent men of the city and of the country4 met in Washington to consider Williams proposal. When Langston presented Williams he was impressive from the start. He made a solid, eloquent argument for the need for this journal and won over Fredrick Douglass and everyone there. The meeting ended with monthly financial pledges and a letter of authority for Williams to begin his quest. On September 4, 1875, Williams printed the specimen issue of The Commoner and traveled cross country to meet with an impressive list of supporters to secure subscribers. Williams met with William Lloyd Garrison, Louisiana Lieutenant Governor P.B.S. Pinchback, Mississippi Secretary of State James Hill and a host of others.

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On November 6, 1875, the first regular issue of The Commoner appeared to less than enthusiastic crowds. It was obscure with little of the content even focused on Negro issues. The second edition was not much better, although it did contain a story by Richard T Greener, the first Negro graduate of Harvard. Couple a low quality publication with low literacy to begin with and you get the failure of another Negro journal. On December 18, 1875, the last issue of the Commoner was released. Williams was bowed but unbroken. On February 10, 1876, Williams was called to pastor the Union Baptist Church of Cincinnati, the oldest Negro Baptist Church in Cincinnati and the second oldest in the state. Williams, again, fit right into church life and began to transform Union Baptist Church into a force for politics and civil rights. Williams was beginning to feel for the plight of his congregation. He began to write critical columns in the Cincinnati Commercial under the pen name Aristides and gain a great deal of popularity. He was so popular outside of Union Baptist, some members plotted his demise from within. Although they were only rumors, combined with his new found political popularity, they were enough for Williams wanderlust to kick in. On December 1, 1877, Williams resigned his Pastorate of Union Baptist Church. In his business with the Cincinnati Commercial, Williams became acquainted with Cincinnatis most prominent lawyer, Alphonso Taft, father of President William Howard Taft. Taft became a friend, mentor and benefactor to Williams. His first foray into politics ended in failure as he lost in his first bid for a seat in the Ohio legislature, but with the help of Alphonso Taft and others, he ran again in 1879 and won in one of the nastiest campaigns in Ohio history.

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Williams was called every name but his own, but he persevered and gave as good as he got. With the support of The Cincinnati Commercial, Alphonso Taft, The Union Baptist Church and friends inside and outside the Republican party, Williams became the first African American legislator from Ohio. Little did Williams know the fight was just beginning. Williams dove into his new job with as much vigor as ever, stepping on toes along the way. His bill to repeal the ban on interracial marriage was met with little enthusiasm. Add to that a hometown newspaper called the Enquirer, whose sole purpose it seemed was to bring George Washington Williams to his knees using fiction if necessary and racial insults from every side. Williams did not make things better by siding with well-to-do white Cincinnatians about whether an African American cemetery in Avondale was a nuisance. The people who were out to get him sharpened their knives and buried him in a pile of negative press he could not escape from. Although he had

GEORGE WASHINGTON WILLIAMS been admitted to the Ohio bar and been given the honorary rank of Colonel, these incidents forced him into his historian phase. Williams had begun to compile Negro history even in his job as Ohio legislator. He now had the time to devote to a serious effort at doing what no other historian had done; compile a comprehensive of the American Negro. While he was no longer a politician, he was still a sought after speaker. He traveled extensively and used his

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speaking engagements and other travel opportunities to do historical research. He wrote to General Sherman and received information about Negro soldiers and toured New Mexico, Texas and the Indian Territories for empirical data. He pioneered the use of the press to compile history. He consulted the preeminent historians and writers of his time including George Bancroft and Horace Greeley. He researched and complied in solitude so long the hometown newspapers accused him of disappearing into thin air and leaving his wife and children. Finally, in December 1882 Williams releases the first of two volumes called History of the Negro Race in America from 1619-1880 and as you can imagine they met with great praise and great criticism. Review from the Cincinnati Commercial, the Kansas City Review of Science and Industry, Atlantic Monthly and the Nation were glowing and supportive. Reviews, however, by journals like the Washington Bee, edited by William Calvin Chase, seemed to go out of its way to abuse Williams. Williams describes a debate, in 1879, between Fredrick Douglass and Richard T. Greener over the exodus of Negros from the South. Douglass, ever the integrationist, opposed the exodus. The Washington Bee, thinking they have caught Williams in a falsehood, reported that Douglass never showed up for that debate, so how could Greener have cut right through the sophistries of Mr. Douglass5 as Williams had reported?

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GEORGE WASHINGTON WILLIAMS Douglass himself weighed in. I dont know how you expect to win a reputation for honesty and veracity while you allow your pen to write deliberate falsehoods. I admire your talents and am proud of your accomplishments, but I warn you that all success obtained by smartness uncoupled with truth will be transient.6 Williams went on the offensive. In his usual, highly polished tone, he took both

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the Washington Bee and Frederick Douglass to task. He dismissed the Bee with this short statement: The writer cannot get high enough to reach my level of contempt. I proffer him the mercy of my silence.7 He then corrected Mr. Douglass by reminding him: Although more that three hundred magazines and newspapers had thought The History of the Negro Race worthy of review, the Bee had not seen fit to review the first volume.8 He continued to explain that Mr. Douglass was expected at the debate up until the day of. When he did not show up, Francis Wayland, Dean of the Yale Law School, was asked to read Douglass position paper. Mr. Greener, who did show up, refuted Douglass concepts point by point. The decision that Greener was the clear winner was not just held by Williams. It was unanimous. Even though Williams was accurate, his popularity took a hit on his criticism of Douglass. Douglass was held in such high esteem even when he was wrong, as he was on this issue, it was considered in bad taste to treat him with less than kid gloves. Regardless, Williams released his second work, History of the Negro Troops in the War of Rebellion in 1887. Williams success as a historian was undeniable. Book clubs studied his works, his contemporaries considered him at the head of the bookmaking class among us9, even a young graduating senior at Fisk University by the name of W. E. B. DuBois called him

GEORGE WASHINGTON WILLIAMS the greatest historian of the race10. Williams spent the next years living off of his

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soaring oratorical skill. He stumped for Republican candidates and spoke at major events across the nation. A reporter covering one of his speeches said of him: No man of our race with whom we are acquainted possesses his particular power in public speaking.11 James B. Pond, the most successful lecture manager in the country, with clients like Mark Twain and Arthur Conan Doyle, took Williams on as a client. Distractions and declining health, however, limited his ability to put together a full tour. His published speeches sold well and he continued to write for the Cincinnati Commercial under the pen name Aristides and was probably the first African American to contribute regularly to a daily newspaper.

GEORGE WASHINGTON WILLIAMS On March 2, 1885 President Chester Arthur nominated Williams to be Ambassador to Haiti, a move that was roundly criticized by everyone but Republicans. First, President Arthur made the appointment in the last year of his Republican presidency with a Democratic administration following him. The chance that Williams

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would ever serve was slim. Second, Williams past came back to haunt him. The minions against him compiled a list of his creditors to support their assertion that Williams was not of high enough character to be grant such a lofty position. To add insult to injury, Williams was in Europe while all of this was occurring and could not refute the accusations in the press, lead by the Washington Bee. Upon his return, Williams was able to provide proof against some of the falsehoods, but he knew his chances of an ambassadorship were almost non existent.

GEORGE WASHINGTON WILLIAMS Williams continued to lecture and gain prestige until 1889 when he received a commission from S. S. McClure of the Associated Literary Press to write articles on Europe and Africa. His first interview was with King Leopold II of Belgium. Besides

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doing an excellent article, Williams manner struck a chord with the King and he quickly became one of the Kings favorites. He actually convinced the King to recruit African Americans to administer the offices of the Belgium Commercial Companies in the Congo. At the behest of Collis P. Huntington, railroad magnate and board member of the Hampton Institute, he even left Africa for Hampton, Virginia to recruit able-bodied workers. Alas, this was 1889 and few Negros, if any, were concerned with going back to Africa to do anything.

Through rumor inside his court, King Leopold learned of Williams intention to survey the Congo for Collis Huntington and the Southern Pacific Railroad Line.

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Although the rumors were constructed to shed a negative light on Williams, the fact that he was going to the Congo was true and unchangeable. Without the Kings blessing, but with financial support from Huntington, Williams made his way to the Congo.

On May 15, 1890, with an eighty-five man caravan, and a palpable fear for his life, Williams began his Congo journey. He immediately noticed the descriptions of the noted explorer Henry M. Stanley, of Stanley and Livingston fame, were absurdly inaccurate. Not only were the distances of the roads between villages off by miles, Stanley had estimated the population at between forty nine and fifty million where Williams put it at fifteen million while traveling the same route as Mr. Stanley12. Williams wrote his famous Open Letter to His Serene Majesty Leopold II, under Stanley Falls, before leaving the Congo. The letter was a scathing, 12 point refutation of

GEORGE WASHINGTON WILLIAMS everything the King had been told by Mr. Stanley, Henry S. Sanford, American expatriate, and others who had a financial interest in the Congo.

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GEORGE WASHINGTON WILLIAMS Williams was so thorough in his point-by-point, lawyerly presentation, by the

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time Stanley received a copy and the letter was printed in the New York Herald, the only defense offered by the accused was to attack the character and race of Williams. Unfortunately for the King and Mr. Stanley, three other people, Rev. George Grenfell, who actually travelled with Williams through Africa, British Foreign Service Officer Roger Casement and author Joseph Conrad of Heart of Darkness fame supported Williams account of the Congo with their own independent reports. In his book, King Leopolds Ghost, Adam Hochschild writes: By the time he went to the Congo in 1890, close to a thousand Europeans and Americans had visited the territory or worked there. Williams was the only one to speak out passionately and repeatedly about what others denied or ignored. The years to come would make his words even more prophetic. 13 While the hornets buzzed from the nest Williams had opened, he used the occasion to be well received in other African countries including Angola and South Africa. By the time he made his last stop in Egypt, his health was rapidly deteriorating and his financial support had dwindled to almost nothing. He worked his way onto a British steamer bound for London and met Alice Fryer, a governess for a British family in India. They fell in love almost immediately and were engaged to be married. Williams, probably sensing his own waning mortality, neglected to tell her about his wife and fifteen year old son back in the U.S. Alice and her family moved Williams to Blackpool and cared for him until he passed away at 4:45 am on Sunday, August 2, 1891.

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George Washington Williams was described as a flawed man by his detractors both black and white. But I tend to favor the explanation by Hochschild when he says: in a sense this was the flip side of an extraordinary boldness that enabled him to defy a king, his officials and the entire racial order of the day.14

GEORGE WASHINGTON WILLIAMS Regardless, there was never a man like Williams before or since. His ability to get it done with excellence and do whatever he needed to do to get it done was

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unmatched. His work was the basis of books by both Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois as well as a reference by Carter G. Woodson. He served his country and his people without fear. He cried loud and spared not which is why he made enemies he had never even met and were it not for his fragile health, he would most definitely have toured the rest of the continent of Africa and made more enemies. All of America is better for the gift of his presence.

GEORGE WASHINGTON WILLIAMS Reference Notes

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Duke University (2008). George Washington Williams: The Case of a Neglected American Hero. Retrieved 2011, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8WC5l2unNA John Hope Franklin (1998). George Washington Williams: A Biography. North Carolina: Duke University Press. p. 11

3 4

Ibid, p. 20 Ibid, p. 24 5 George Washington Williams (1883). History of the Negro Race in America: 1619 to 1880 Negros as Slaves and as Citizens Vol 2. New York: G.P. Putnam And Sons. p 441
6 7

Franklin, op. cit., pg 122 Ibid, p 123 8 Ibid, p.123 9 Ibid, p.133 10 Ibid, p.133 11 Ibid, p.140 12 Ibid, p.195 13 Adam Hochschild (1998). King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa. New York, NY: Houghton Mufflin. P. 312
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Ibid, p.313