ROUGH AND RUGGED STAGECOACH MARY

"I am bold, smoke a big black cigar, I drink whiskey, I carry a pistol, I love adventure, I am independent.  Nobody tells me what to do, nobody tells me where to go." -- Mary Fields.

Hello Lovelies!

Another legend of the Old West was a gun-totin' six foot tall, two hundred pound Black woman better known as Stagecoach Mary.  She made all of her deliveries on time regardless of the weather and she was never robbed during her tenure as a star route carrier.  She was two-fisted and powerful, packed a pair of six shooters and eight gauge shotgun. Who was going to mess with her?

She was not officially an employee of the US Postal Service, because they did not hire or employ mail carriers for star routes.  Star routes were contracted out to bid and in accordance with the Department’s application process posted bonds and sureties to substantiate their ability to finance the route.  Once a contract was obtained, the contractor could drive the route themselves, subcontract or hire an experience driver for the route.  Mary Fields was the first Black person and second woman, Sarah Black was the first woman in 1845, to obtain a star route mail and package carrier service in the United States. 

Born around 1832 on a plantation in Hickman County, Tennessee, she lived there with her parents until the end of the Civil War.  As a free Black woman, she worked various labor jobs throughout the south.  She worked on the estate of Judge Edmund Dunne, performing menial chores, until the death of his wife Josephine. Mary was then tasked to deliver his five children from San Antonio, Florida to his sister Sarah “Dolly” Dunne in Toledo, Ohio.  Mary lived in Toledo, did the hard labor at the convent while becoming good friends with Dolly.  Dolly Dunne, Mother Mary Amadeus, left to start a children’s boarding school in Montana for the settlers at St. Peter’s Mission and convinced Mary to join her. Once she arrived at the mission it was badly in need of repair.  Mary organized and supervised a team of men to make the improvements.

On one occasion a male worker resented her telling him what to do and backhanded her across the mouth.  Mary shot at the man when he reached for his gun, scared him away  and never messed with her again.  Despite working for the mission for many years, the altercation led to her being asked to leave.  I have read many variations of this story, as well as other stories of her exploits, not sure which one is true, but it makes for interesting tall tales.

Mary applied for work as a star route mail carrier on the new United States Mail Service route opening in the Cascade Mountains.  After having to prove she could defend herself  and her cargo from highwaymen, demonstrating her talent with horses and driving a stage, Mary Fields, who was the oldest person (she was 63 years old), to get the star route contract for the delivery of U. S. mail from Cascade, Montana to Saint Peter's Mission in 1885. She drove the route on with a wagon with a team of horses from 1885 to 1903. Although the snow was too high for the wagon, she and her trusted mule, Moses, never missed a day, it was in this aptitude that she became known as Stagecoach Mary for her unfailing reliability. 

The Mary Fields of legend is often described as a masculine imposing figure, however her traditionally feminine attributes were typically underplayed, she favored wearing skirts, loved growing flowers and she enjoyed playing with the neighbor's children.  Mary, a proud and independent woman, retired with the Postal Service after ten years of service.  She settled down in Cascade owning a laundry and babysitting her neighbor’s children whenever needed.  As a big baseball fan, she past her time by socializing with the men at the baseball field and drank hard liquor with them at the saloon.  In 1914 she became very ill and was taken to Columbus Hospital in Great Falls where she later died of liver failure at the age of 82.  A simple wooden cross marks her grave site at the Hillside Cemetery, located at the foot of the peaceful trail between Cascade and St. Peter’s Mission, a trail she has traveled for many years with the US Postal Service.

Stagecoach Mary Fields was well loved by the residents of Cascade, Montana, they celebrate her birthday every year in honor of her.  Author Miantae Metcalf McConnell provided documentation she discovered during her research about Mary Fields to the United States Postal Service Archives Historian in 2006. This enabled USPS to establish Mary Fields' contribution as the first African American woman star route mail in the United States.

To read more on this feisty woman, Mary Fields check out these sites:

Black Cowboys
The Black West, by William Katz
Deliverance Mary Fields, by Miantae Metcalf McConnell

BLACK PANTHERS, THE 761st TANK BATTALION

“At this moment, then, the Negroes must begin to do the very thing which they have been taught that they cannot do” – Carter G. Woodson

Hello Lovelies!

I love war movies, watching freedom fighters fight against tyranny. Cheering the Americans when they blow up the enemy.  I enjoyed seeing good versus evil, of course good always wins in the movies.  The reality, the good had lost several times before they could prevail.  We were taught in school that America was the ‘Home of the brave, the land of the free’.  During World War II that was not always the case, especially the land of the free when it pertained to Black Americans.

During World War II, officials in Washington, DC, debated whether Black soldiers should be used in armored units.  As was the times, many military personnel and politicians believed that Blacks did not have the brains, quickness or moral stamina to fight in a war.   They believed that Blacks would better serve in non-combat labor positions.  The armed force embraced these beliefs even though Blacks have fought with courage and distinction in every war and conflict ever waged by the United States.  ‘In the selection and training of men under this act, there shall be o discrimination against any person because of race and color’.   In October, however, the White House issued a statement that, while ‘the services of Negroes would be utilized on fair and equitable basis,’ the policy of segregation in the armed forces (segregated training and housing) would continue.

Lieutenant General Leslie J. McNair, chief of the US Army ground forces, was the main proponent of allowing Blacks to serve in armored units.  He believed this nation could exclude such a potentially important source of manpower.  Black organizations, such as the Black Press and NAACP to name a few, increased pressure on the War Department and President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration to allow Black soldiers to serve on an equal footing with white soldiers.  In the summer of 1940, Congress passed into law the Selective Training and Service Act, which state,

“The 761st Tank Battalion has trained for two years at a time when armor crewmen were getting as little as three months of training due to the pressures of the war.  Because they were Black, the Army didn’t quite know what to do with them,” said former Sgt. Wayne D. Robinson, historian for the 761st Tank Battalion Association.  The Battalion trained at Camp Hood, Texas, where they were rated superior by 2nd Lt. General Ben Lear.  The 761st was the first of its kind, the first Black American tank unit to go into combat.  The tankers were steely and battle-hardened, by the time they were activated on April 1, 1942 at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, and deployed to Europe landing at Omaha Beach in France on October 10, 1944.

Later referred to as the Black Panther Tank Battalion, the 761st was attached to the XII Corps’26th Infantry Division assigned to General George S. Patton, Jr.’s Third Army, an army already racing eastward across France.  Gen. Patton said “Men, you’re the first Negro tankers to ever fight in the American Army.  I would never have asked for you if you weren’t good.  I have nothing but the best in my Army.  I don’t care what color you are as long as you go up there and kill those Kraut sons of bitches.  Everyone has their eyes on you and is expecting great things from you.  Most of all your race is looking forward to you.  Don’t let them down and damn you, don’t let me down!”  As a result, their great fighting abilities spearheaded a number of Patton’s moves into enemy territory.  They fought in France, Belgium, and Germany and were among the first American forces to link up with the Soviet Army (Ukrainians) at the River Steyr in Austria.

After decades of racial tension in the United States began to ease, the battalion was belatedly awarded the Presidential Unit Citation by President Jimmy Carter on 24 January 1978, for their World War II service.  The 761st Tank Battalion’s award became official on 10 April 1978 by the Department of the Army under General Orders Number 5.  I will always be a proud American, home of the brave and land of the free.  These men gave all that they had to give and be all that they can be so they would finally be recognized as True Americans, True Patriots, worthy of respect, for that I am forever proud. 

I encourage you to read further about the Black Panthers 761^st Tank Battalion, start with these web sites:

761st Black Panther Tank Battalion

World War II: 761st Tank Battalion

The Flames of War

Come Out Fighting

Many Blessings!

THE LONE RANGER...FACT OR FICTION

"Maybe the law ain't perfect, but it's the only one we got, and without it we got nuthin'." -Bass Reeves

United States Deputy Marshal Bass Reeves

Hello Lovelies! 

I am a big Old West, cowboys and Indians shoot 'em up kinda gal.  I love old western movies, the ones without The Duke John Wayne, sorry, I think he was over rated as an actor and Gene Autry, singing on a horse in the old west is like singing in a drive by in gang territory, just doesn't mix.  IMHO!!!

Anyway, I spent many years researching the Old West, I wanted to know where were all of the black people and why were they written out of history.  I came across the name Bass Reeves, the most feared lawman of the Old West.  The years after his death, decades, the name and the man Bass Reeves, has faded like the once thriving Ghost Towns of the Wild West.  While researching Bass Reeves, it has come to my attention that he may have been the inspiration to the Lone Ranger series.  The Lone Ranger was a long-running American old-time radio and early television show.  The title character is a masked Texas Ranger in the American Old West who gallops about righting injustices with the aid of his clever, laconic American Indian assistant, Tonto.  I began to probe deeper into the life of Marshal Reeves I desired to learn more about this man.  I happened upon a site that ‘debunked the myth’ stating that the inspiration of the Lone Ranger was complete fabrication and disputing any achievements that US Deputy Marshal Bass Reeves accomplished.  What I found to be most interesting about the debunking theory is that there would not have been anything to debunk if Bass Reeves remained unknown and forgotten by history until a biographer wrote about his bold and daring feats.  What did we know of this man’s greatness before Gary Paulsen wrote the Legend of Bass Reeves?

Bass Reeves born a slave in 1832 in Crawford County Arkansas, Bass Reeves would become the first Black Commissioned United States Deputy Marshall west of the Mississippi River and one of the greatest frontier heroes in our nation's history.  An imposing figure, standing at 6'2" tall and over 190 lbs. with wide shoulders and large hands always rode a large gray stallion.  Reeves began to earn a reputation for his courage and success at bringing in or killing many desperadoes of the Indian Territory.  Wearing a large hat, Reeves was usually a spiffy dresser, with his boots polished to a gleaming shine. He was known for his politeness and courteous manner.  However, when the purpose served him, he was a master of disguises and often utilized aliases. Sometimes appearing as a cowboy, farmer, gunslinger, or outlaw, himself, he always wore two colt pistols butt forward for a fast draw.  He was ambidextrous and rarely missed his mark.

In 1907, law enforcement was assumed by the state agencies and Reeves' duties as a deputy marshal came to an end.  Bass took a job as a patrolman with the Muskogee Oklahoma Police Department.  During the two years that he served in this capacity there were no reported crimes on his beat.  Bass Reeves was diagnosis with Bright's disease and finally ended his law enforcement career in 1909 and died January 12, 1910.

Over the 35 years that Bass Reeves served as a Deputy United States Marshal, he earned his place in history by being one of the most effective lawmen in Indian Territory, bringing in more than 3,000 outlaws and helping to tame the lawless territory.  Killing some 14 men during his service, Reeves always said that he "never shot a man when it was not necessary for him to do so in the discharge of his duty to save his own life".

Many argue, including Bill O'Reilly (Fox News, self-proclaim expert on Black experience, who recently stated that the slaves that built the White House was given lodging and was well fed) that there is no evidence that Bass Reeves was the basis of the classic radio and television series.  Black deputy US Marshals who worked the Indian Territory had the authority to arrest whites, blacks or Indians who broke federal laws, a very rare reality given the Jim Crow laws of the US after the end of Reconstruction in 1877.  In my opinion, what white man is going to admit at that time in America that he based his idea of the Lone Ranger on a black deputy marshal who, was famous for fair-mindedness and was impossible to bribe or corrupt, arrested white outlaws. That would defeat the purpose of the Jim Crow laws in America that kept Blacks submissive and oppressed.  With key similarities between the character and the real legend, however that claim is debated by others, I tend to believe he really was the Lone Ranger.

Draw your own conclusions, read further about Bass Reeves:
Bass Reeves American Lawman

The Legend of Bass Reeves, Gary Paulsen
Was the Lone Ranger Black?

Legends of America

Best Lawman of the Old West

Many Blessings!

NAT KING COLE AFRAID OF THE DARK

“As long as we are not ourselves, we will try to be what other people are.” -Malidoma Patrice Somé (Of Water and the Spirit)


Hello Lovelies!

I watched a documentary about the Incomparable Nat King Cole. It was so enlightening as well as disturbing.  Nat King Cole was a prominent jazz pianist, gifted crooner and the first black to host a TV variety show.  Although I knew he had several struggles with white america's acceptance of his blackness, I never knew to what extent of their fear.  He dealt with the usual racism and discrimination of the times such as a petition circulating to have him evicted from his home in a predominately white area of LA because they didn't want any undesirables (meaning blacks) living in their community.   But in true Nat King Cole fashion, he attended the town hall meeting and in a soft spoken voice he said "I don't want any undesirables either and will be the first to petition to have them removed".

The ultimate disrespect was when they insisted that this, beautiful very shiny black as patent leather shoes, American Man dismiss his blackness.  The studio executives saw his darkness as too offensive for white audiences, that they put white pancake makeup on him for several of his TV appearances.   Mr. Cole called it "Afraid of the Dark".  He tolerated the indignities of being in white face to fulfill his goal of sharing his music with the world. This mild mannered gentleman endured racist taunts and attacks from white crowds while on tour in the south.  He experienced injustices over and over again so he can perform in front of segregated crowds that later attacked him.  He never complained when these venues told him to enter and exit through the back door.  He bowed gracefully at the end of each performance even though he was not allowed to patronize the hotel lounges, restaurants or their pools.  They treated his blackness as a contagious disease, a disease that would spread through the air.  They were afraid to breath in his blackness, afraid the dark would slaughter them if they sat next to him, ate next to him or swam in the same pool.   Being afraid of the darkness of Nat King Cole, while disturbing,  encouraged the renowned jazz pianist crooner to pave the path for our young gifted black musicians to embrace their blackness.  

I encourage you to research Nat King Cole, rediscover his music and check out the NAT KING COLE: AFRAID OF THE DARK documentary.

Many Blessings!