My Face Is Black Is True: Callie House and the Struggle for Ex-Slave Reparations by Mary Frances Berry

Author:Mary Frances Berry [Berry, Mary Frances]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-53871-0
Publisher: Vintage Books A Division of Random House, Inc.
Published: 2005-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

Neither the certificate nor the Freedmen’s Headlight asserted that the pension bill had passed. It also specifically affirmed the importance of the mutual-aid function of the association that so attracted members.

The association held a mass meeting in Washington, D.C., at Samaritan Temple between Second and Third on I Street, on February 12,1903, to gather support for the pension bill, which had been reintroduced for the new session of Congress by Congressman Spencer Blackburn of North Carolina. According to The Washington Post, the meeting was attended by “a large gathering of colored citizens of both sexes.” Dickerson told the group, “If the government don’t pay us a cent it will always owe us. The ex-slave bill is not a fraud.” The meeting passed a resolution thanking all those who supported the effort to pass the bill.18

As House continued her Association work, her disappearance from the list of officers confused postal officials. Inspector J. H. Wilson of the Washington, D.C., post office was assigned to solve the mystery. He expressed agreement with his bosses’ suspicions but found nothing illegal. Inspector Wilson wrote to Captain W. B. Smith, inspector in charge, that two ex-slave pension organizations operated in Washington, the Ex-Slave Association and S. P. Mitchell’s Industrial Council, a small expension organization. Wilson thought perhaps House had become active in the council since she was no longer an officer of the association. However, he had no evidence that she was. Whatever her role in the association, everyone knew she spent her time working in the southern states. He read the literature of the Industrial Council and the Association and saw nothing illegal. There simply was no information that would lead to extension of the fraud order against the association or its application to the Industrial Council. The government had no information on mailings or any possible House connection that supported legal action. But they continued to exclude the association from the mails anyway and kept watch on the Industrial Council for any signs of connections with House. The assistant attorney general promised to keep the case open, as “something might develop later.”19

The assistant attorney general and Post Office Department officials continued to reach conclusions about the movement without investigating the association’s local chapters or their activities in local communities. Government officials did not follow up on the names and addresses and other information provided by the association. Instead, the government investigated only to determine whether Callie House, Dickerson, or some individual possibly connected to them was continuing their organizing work. Following a policy of harassment and disdain for the organization’s existence and despite the lack of evidence of illegality and Dick’s assurances, the Post Office Department issued another fraud order against the Ex-Slave Association on October 28, 1903. The order prohibited the payment of money orders or the delivery of letters to the association or to Dickerson, Gilchrist, or any other officers. The 1899 order against House personally still stood. The reorganizations, the full disclosures, and the absence of Mrs. House from the official leadership had no positive effect with regard to relieving the government harassment.

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