>> a panel of historians talked about race relations in the post-civil war memphis and it looked at the lives of three in the city both before and after the riot that resulted in the massacre of african-americans. they discussed the testimonies of women who were assaulted and the role of several colored troops near the city. this event was hosted by the university of memphis and is a little over two hours. >> first, let us thank all of the organizers of this conference.

it is really a great conference, something that really needed to be done in the country. i just said to a couple of people that the best memory is to write it down. and so, this important history, the people on this panel have been writing it down so that it will be preserved, not just for us, but for the next generation and the next generation. one german historian said that history always must be revised. it must always be rewritten, because even we in this generation cannot write the final part of the story. because new resources are coming up, new interpretations, and consequently we must keep working at the same topics and subtopics until we get it, and

until we get it right. frederick douglas visited tennessee three times before he died in 1895. he came in 1873, 1882, and in 1892, 3 years before he died. he did not come to memphis in 1892 because of the riots. and massacres that took place. he had visited chattanooga, knoxville, nashville, as he did on his 1882 tour. one of them asked douglas, what "what must we do after slavery?" and frederick douglass said, "we must learn or die." that is still true today.

we have to learn our history, keep writing and rewriting it until we get it right. and we have to learn what has happened in the past in order to be able to govern ourselves in the present, and to plan for the future. so, these three scholars that have come to us in memphis really have done their work and i have used a lot of their work in my own research in writing, to give us important information today. and what i am going to do is to introduce all three of them now and they will copmeme to you you in that order and at the end of the presentations we will have plenty of time for you to give comments and for you to ask the scholars questions, about their presentations or other information they may have.

stephen ash is here on your far left. stephen ash is a professor at the university of tennessee, knoxville. he is a specialist in the history of civil war and. emancipation. he is the author of a long list of books on the civil war era, including most recently the book "a massacre in memphis: the race riot that shook the nation one year after the civil war." today's presentation will explore the central themes of the book, laying bare the forces that converged in memphis in may 1-3, 1856. almost exactly 150 years ago, that we are now re-exploring

this history. hannah rosen who is next to the left, going toward the right. she is an associate professor of history at the college of william and mary. her work focuses on the intersection of race and gender, with a history of slavery and emancipation. she writes about citizenship, sexual violence, and the meaning of race in the post emancipation south. which i consider we are still living in, 150 years later. her current research explores african-american experiences surrounding death and mourning. her talk today will focus on the

interplay of race, gender, and violence during the memphis massacre. andrew slap, the last person on the panel, is a professor of history at east tennessee state university in johnson city. his research focuses on 19th century american history, particularly the civil war era. he has published books on reconstruction politics, appalachia, still a study that we need to do a lot in. since the civil war, and the urban south. he is currently at work on a history of african-american communities in memphis. and today's talk will focus on the black soldiers who

garrisoned fort pickering at the time of the memphis massacre. a fort like the one in nashville, still difficult to identify in the city, but the one of the largest for the union army in the civil war. so today, you will get some very valuable information, not only as tennesseans and memphians, but all of you that are interested in american history. so, we will start with professor ash and his presentation. [applause]

professor ash: i would like to add my thanks, the thanks of some any of our other speakers who have extended gratitude to susan, beverly, andre and others who made this a reality. what i am going to talk about today is one of the uglier chapters in american history. a fascinating chapter, but not a comfortable one to contemplate. but it is an important story to know if we are going to fully understand how significant racial hatred and violence has been in shaping our national experience. it is important to note, too, if we are to fully understand how americans grapple with the issues that grew out of the civil war, 1861-1865, what happened briefly was this. in may 1866, one year after the civil war ended, mobs of white men in memphis went on a 36 hour

rampage through the city. by the time this race riot, which by any reckoning was a racial massacre, ended, approximately four dozen black people had been murdered, men, women and children. many others had been assaulted, robbed, or raped. every black church and every black school was burned to the ground, along with nearly 100 black homes. as they went about their work, the rioters were heard boasting that they would kill every black person in the city, or drive them out of the city. they heard, "kill every negro, no matter who. men and women."

another was heard proclaiming, "it is the white man's day now." to understand how such a thing could happen, we need to understand how profoundly unsettled the south was in the wake of the civil war. we have to understand how the defeat of the confederacy and emancipation of the slaves had revolutionized the south, opening up opportunities for black people that they could have hardly dreamed of before the war. while at the same time, threatening everything that is southern whites believed in. the northern victory had decided two things, two great issues that had troubled the nation. the attempt of the southern states to leave the union and form their own republic had been crashed, and slavery had been abolished. but the war left unsettled certain other great questions, questions that would have to be addressed in the postwar era of reconstruction. among these was exactly what kinds of freedom the south's 4 million liberated slaves would have. it was not certain when the war ended in the spring of 1865 just

what the status of the free people would be in the postwar south. southern whites, in the aftermath of the civil war, had their own ideas about this key question. they had a very narrow definition of black freedom. southern whites had always thought that blacks were inherently inferior and potentially dangerous and emancipation did not change that. now, with emancipation as the law of the land, they conceded only that blacks could no longer be bought and sold. and that their marriages and parenthood would be legally recognized. in all other ways, southern whites insisted that blacks must remain subservient and in no way equal citizens. this kind of racism strikes us as appalling today, but before we condemn it too harshly we need to see it in historical

context. the belief in black inferiority was the norm among the white people in that era, i mean those above the mason-dixon line as well is below. north and south. the idea of black inferiority was taken for granted. it was taught to white children from the cradle. very few americans, in the north or south, in the era managed to rise above this racism. even those that were sympathetic to the black people, very few managed to rise above that and embrace black people as their full equals. this is not to excuse the white racism of that era. it is to make it understandable and it is certainly not to excuse the violence and even cruelty with which some southern whites tried to impose their vision on black freedom in the postwar south. what about the emancipated slaves? how did they view the situation? not surprisingly, they had a far more expansive definition of

freedom, compared to the southern whites. to the liberated people of the south, it was not enough that they could no longer be put on the auction block. it was not enough that they no longer had to endure the separation of families, the husband taken from wives, children taken from parents and sold away. the emancipated black people sought to make the most of their freedom in the postwar years. they wanted to achieve fully equality. they were restless and hopeful. southerners, both black and white in those months immediately after the war, were also watching events in

washington, d.c. where president andrew johnson, the successor of president lincoln, was locked in battle with the republican dominated congress over the question of how the south would be reconstructed, how the seceded states would be restored, how the former confederate would be dealt with, and how the former slaves would be dealt with. so, this period, about a year after the war, from the spring 1865 through the spring of 1866, was a time of great uncertainty. a time of death for both whites and blacks, a time of uncertainty, of hope, of fear, everybody anxious about the future. amid the turmoil, the southern cities, including memphis became

magnets for the free slaves, drawing them from the tens of thousands from the country. why? what did the city have to offer? what was so attractive for the newly liberated people? for one thing, it was in the cities where the troops were posted. it was also in the city where the offices of the freedom's located.eau was an agency created by congress as the war ended. agency set up to aid the slaves and their transition from slavery to freedom.

and they had offices across the south, all of them in towns and cities. also, they were northern missionaries. idealistic men and women who came south during and after the war to set up goals to teach the slaves how to read and write and how to achieve full potential after the war. to the former slaves in the postwar south, the cities seems to offer safety and opportunity. in contrast to the countryside, where white continued to dominate local affairs and continued to lord it over the free people. in the cities, the freed slaves could enjoy both freedom and real security, or so they thought. in the postwar months, free people flocked from the plantation to the cities, and methods was one of these magnets . the black population of memphis when the civil war began was about 4000. by the spring of 1866, it was probably around 20,000. these free people flocked to the city, even though the living conditions were wretched. most of the newcomers had to

live in shanties, the city was crowded, it was filthy, plagued with disease and there were not enough jobs to go around. but to most of these black newcomers, it was worth it. they celebrated their freedom in the city. exuberant, they established churches, they enrolled their children in missionary schools, they sought justice in the court, andreau they abandoned the deference that whites had always expected of them and that they had to exhibit as slaves. they demanded that whites treat them with respect. now, look at the situation through the eyes of white

memphis. white memphians reacted bitterly, to say the least, over what they saw as an invasion of their city by lazy and insulin olent former slaves. they saw black assertion as proof that emancipation had been a terrible mistake and that the freed people were dangerously out of control. certain memphis newspapers stoked this white anger. editorializing continually on the alleged threat posed by the blacks and their yankee friends, freedman's bureau and the missionaries, which they refused stirring up the black people.

every instance of black crime and rowdiness was played up sensationally, in the newspapers, to the point that many white people became convinced that their city was about to be overwhelmed by black crime and violence. some of these newspapers virtually dehumanized the blacks, showing them as thieves motivated by passion, living in vice idleness and infamy. these are some of the words from the newspaper editorials of the day. the most bitter and angry of the whites where the working class -- were the working class men, particularly the large population of irish immigrants who competed with the blacks for jobs. the irish dominated the ranks of the city police department and routinely brutalize the free people. -- brutalized the freed people.

this racial animosity, i must say, was mutual. it was repaid in kind by the black population of memphis, by the spring of 1866 had decided that they were no longer going to take the abuse of whites, especially the police. the racial atmosphere in the city by that point, the spring of 1866, it was so tense and volatile that a lot of people had come to the conclusion that a racial explosion of some sort was inevitable. so, to some people, it was not a surprise when it did explode. some people had seen it coming for a long time. the prophecy was fulfilled on the afternoon of may 1, 1866 irish policeman confronted a crowd of black men who were carousing on the street

in the black section of town. there was a confrontation. angry words were exchanged, insults were exchanged and it quickly escalated into a shootout. policemen and some of the black men drew pistols and in the shootout, to policeman were wo policemen were wounded. word of the encounter spread like lightning through the city. the rumor that went around was that a full-scale black uprising had begun. and that the blacks intended to murder the white population of the city. many whites, as i said were already primed for this, this fear all along that this would happen, many whites thought -- this is really happening, it in uprising. and they panicked. mobs of white men armed with

pistols and clubs, formed downtown core march two the , marched to the scene of the shootout, and began shooting and beating every black person they could find on the street. men, women and children. over the next 36 hours, other mobs roamed through the city attacking black people on the street and in their homes, and setting fires. prominent among the rioters, very often leaving them, were the city police. why was it allowed to go on for so long? the city authorities, who were mostly irish, took no action to restore order. the mayor of the city was drunk during the whole time of the riot. but even had he been sober he could not have restored order,

because as i said, his police force was involved in the rioting. that left it up to the u.s. army, but they were slow to respond. the army commandant in the city that had several companies of troops at his disposal, kept making excuses for not deploying them until that riot reached such intensity that he could no longer remain aloof. he was never held accountable, nor was any rioter punished. not one of them. nor was there restitution made it to the victims and survivors y restitution made to the victims and survivors of the massacre. so that in brief is the story of the memphis massacre, one of the bloodiest and destructive riots in american history. if i had more time, i would discuss its impact on national politics. it was widely reported across the country, extensively

reported. it was the most insatiable news sensational news event outside of washington, d.c. since the surrender of the confederate armies. the massacre was the subject of no fewer than three federal investigations, with hundreds interviewed. and it also played a key role in the battle between presidents and congress over the reconstruction of the south, and it helped shape the reconstruction of the south. but, as i said, i have no time to do that. that is another story. thank you. [applause]

hannah: i will take a moment. is this on? amazing, ok. thank you. good morning, everyone. my name is hannah rosen. it is lovely to see you here. before i begin with my comments, i just want to say how really thrilled i am about this conference. how very grateful i am to beverly and susan and their partners for organizing it. it has been a long time coming, an event to mark the memphis massacre. thank you for creating this stage for us to think about is this important event together and make it for inviting me to

and thank you for inviting me to be a part of it. early in may, 1866, rebecca ann bloom and her husband peter went to the streets of memphis. they were once enslaved club but , but they were now free people. although their freedom had been a tremendous victory, it was terrifying times for the blooms and others that were facing daily life or death struggles. several days before the community had been any murderous

assault by gangs of white men that roamed south memphis and went into free people's homes, robbing, assaulting and murdering residents and burning houses and churches to the ground, they were heading now to the office of the freedom bureau to testify to what had happened when five of those men entered the room on the second night of the violence. seated before an agent, peter blum explained that they had barged into the room and the pretext of searching for weapons. instead, they still $50 in cash, tole $50 in cash, a gold watch and a packet of razors, which were peter's because of his trade as a berber. -- as a barber. and they said that the men were upset that there was no candle in the room, so they took peter outside to look for one. she explained that she was raped by one of the men that was remaining behind. rebecca describes his actions and this is what she said -- this isn't working. sorry. i am very sorry. you do not have her words on the

screen. oh. can we get this? ok. well, that was easy. so, i will click here. it is moving on the laptop, not moving on the screen. ok. you her words.do her wordad "he wanted to know if i had anything to do with white men. i said, no. he held a knife and said he would kill me if i did not let him do what he wanted to. i refuse. he said, you must pay then he

got into bed with me. still holding the knife." she was among five women among to sexual violence during the memphis massacre. not only through memphis, but throughout the state during reconstruction, three people -- freed people testified of sexual attacks by white men. three people spoke about the vilest mehta had either witnessed or separate. the investigation committee, as bloom did to those agents. three pupils determination for

the abuse of their rights, coincided with federal interest and documenting of violence by the former confederates. together, this phenomenon created a unique record of black women speaking about rape. freed women's testimony of rape can be painful to hear. i intended to display her words on the screen today, despite the fact that they would be painful to read. still not working. i have done this, speaking about this, reading her words despite the discomfort, because it is crucial we examine the testimony. it is crucial first, because it was not easy for the women who recorded these words to do so. a woman named cynthia townsend told the committee that a group of white men had raped a free woman living near her. she also explained that she found it difficult to speak about such things, telling the committee, i do not believe i can express what i saw. townsend nonetheless fell it was

t it was her duty to do so and she added, "i am telling the truth and i know i have to give an account of it." other women who testified were forthright, and they often meant officials efforts to shape their testimony with resistance. for those women, they clearly wanted these stories told from their perspective, to be heard. so it is hard to hear them. i also think that examining the testimony about rape in particular is important, because acknowledging the full history of the massacre and the violence more generallyon were general y means acknowledging the role of gender and sexuality in those life and death struggles that they were engaged in. and free women's words about rape help us do that. we can see the importance of bodily integrity and lives free of sexual abuse. they can help us see gender and the efforts of white southerners

to reestablish difference and hierarchy after the emancipation. in order to get testimony about sexual violence during the memphis massacre, we have to place that testimony in the context of the everyday memphis, leading up to those days. of memphis conflicts leading up to those days. particularly, over the meaning of race that transpired in various arenas of the public space. public life in memphis had been dramatically transformed by the civil war and emancipation. in the antebellum years, the city's relatively small black population had been almost entirely slaves and public conduct was regulated and circumscribed by city ordinances. kate described in her presentation yesterday, as being the case and most southern cities. memphis laws prohibited slaves

traveling to the city without a pass, or congregating for social or political activities. though these laws can never be fully enforced, the police were empowered to interfere where they sought the action of restrain thet to actions of african-americans in the city, at all times. moving about the streets of memphis, white and black people experience racial difference in their everyday lives. in the power of utilizing public spaces. and by now we were supposed to be looking at cynthia townsend. the civil war permanently altered these racial dynamics. thank you. the occupation of the city by the union army in june 1862, brought thousands of african-american migrants to the city, who increased the black population four times. the significance of the

migration process relations and -- in the past, african-americans were brought to be sold in slave markets and in homes. after the union occupation, the african-americans came to memphis seeking as one former slave described it, a city of refuge. or a space where they would be free. during the civil war and reconstruction, refugees rapidly entered spaces in memphis and the anticipation of new freedom. -- in anticipation of new rights and freedom. at the time, the former status of them was certain, they were no longer slaves. they had no former political rights. and until the civil rights act was passed, weeks before the massacre, african-americans were denied recognition as legal citizens. nonetheless, people made use of the power available to them to

claim many aspects of citizenship. they began lives with expectations for freedom that included the ability to enjoy free movement, socializing, and family life in the urban community of their choosing. to be compensated for labor and to have rights protected by the freedmen's bureau and the occupying army. they expected to be citizens of the city. the reaction of many whites of o african-americans shows how powerfully their activities disrupted the racial difference that was rated in slavery. they wanted to discredit the ir public presence of the blacks -- the public presence of the

blacks and what was embodied in what they felt. african-american women were key participants in these conflicts. they constituted a sizable version of the former slaves that came to memphis during the war and after. an affidavit indicated that many women migrated specifically in search of a free life. they fled conditions in the countryside, physical violence, work without pay him a , forced separation from family, and once in the city, they took advantage of the opportunity to socialize with other african-americans. women were at the center of many of the public spaces of the black community, such as picnics and fairs they sponsored to raise money for churches. they often gathered and danced with soldiers into the morning hours. black women further undermined the monopoly on public life, by utilizing the power of black union soldiers. and the federal authority of the

bureau to secure and defended their rights. the bureau held jurisdiction and all legal conflicts in memphis. it was established because the states continue to refuse to hear the testimony of black witnesses. in court, women press charges on whites to protest assaults, which were frequent. the impact of the legal action spilled over into the street, when whites resisted black soldiers who came to make arrests or collect fines. these clashes were for the reported in comments in the city newspaper. so even when cases did not lead to convictions, the action brought charges of the way abuse and that means evidence of the new rights and power of former slaves predominately in public view. white men quickly experienced the changed meaning of race

through african-american women's movement and to their use of public authority. some whites responded by attacking the women and putting them in a disparaging light. the rhetoric of the newspaper editors and focus on the reporting in the conservative press suggests efforts to -- activities of black women in the city. same kind of newspaper reports that professor ash referred to. and there was an elected alleged increase of crime and disorder competently threatening white americans in the street. and in all of their unpredictability, the papers and ofosed a bifurcated concept anhood.a this was common in the 19th century, divisions of herbalife

urban life in general, women showing that they inhabited one or two realities. the delicate lady, or the vicious public woman or prostitute. post emancipation memphis, the imagery operated the long arm, by representing black women as bad women and often as sexually indiscriminate and dangerous , these newspapers cast their presence as illegitimate and challenged their claim of equal citizens. this is evident in knowing what of the conservative press, that was used to describe black women. examples like the following were common -- a free woman with the assistance of a soldier, force her way into the house of a white family because she believed they were holding her child against its will. using state power to assert her rights as a mother, she was subsequently characterized by the memphis

"memphis daily appeal" as a negress who was raving and threatening and using very abusive and insulting language, all quotes from the press, in contrast to those described from the ladies of the house is delicate constitutions were unsettled. she may have been a very angry, she certainly had reason to be angry. but when the press identified assertive black women, calling them negress, it avoided calling them women. these items described blacks as wenches, a term meaning female , but also denoting servitude. women arrested for disorderly named women of

.frican descent the papers offered the interpretation that freedom seemed to have an intoxicating effect on the free females. that is their words. images associated black women circulating in the press or reinforced by police action against these women, including frequent arrests for just that drunk and disorderly conduct. they were then highlighted and exaggerated in the newspaper

accounts. reports such as six more prostitutes were arrested -- negro prostitutes were arrested yesterday, indicated an epidemic of prostitution that was not indicated by other sources. another report that "free color prostitutes were charged with vagrancy and hired out to contractors." no doubt, some women in memphis exchanged sex for money when necessary to survive. and others worked in prostitution, but many went to the freedmen's bureau to complain that an officer was harassing her and her home. she recounted that a city police man came to my house and compelled me to give him $22. at the same time, falsely charging me with keeping a house -- the police man told her that it would cover fines for the charge. but when she went to court the next morning, she testified "she was ready for an investigation of these false charges and the police man did not appear, nor had he made a report of the case." and there are several accounts of extortion. and similar efforts like this, under charges of prostitution, were reported as having occurred

the midst of the massacre. many of the women that were attacked understood that they were targets of violence because of their relationship to the black community. -- the black union soldiers. and such a connection figured prominently into the testimony of four of the five women that testified about having been raped. one example, harriet, that was who soldier. -- who was married into an to an african-american soldier. early on wednesday morning, two men carrying revolvers came to her room. molly hayes, a white woman in the adjacent house, heard them confronting area. and she told the congressional

there were two men who asked her where her husband was. she said, he was in the fort. they said, was he a soldier? she said yes. the last word i heard was, shut the door. she testified that after they barred the door shut, both men raped her. white men are dissipating in the massacre, encountered the soldiers in the city streets as representatives of free people in the public and of authority in memphis. by telling women that they were suffering because of their relationship with the soldiers, the assailants traded their actions as assertion of power over these men. it is important that these assailants at the size in the assailantsized -- attacks that the particular relationship between black men and black women. you can see it in the fact that assailants often initiated

interaction with black women with an oddly casual request for sex, that seemed to presume that the black women being solicited were always available for sex with the men. for instance, a 16-year-old testified that men broke into the home that she shared with a man. first insisting that she serve dinner. she remembers them saying, you must have eggs and ham. they sat down and ate. and after finished eating, they announced, that they wanted women to sleep with. thompson later testified to the congressional committee that "we were not that sort of women." yet, her refusal to have sex was unacceptable to the intruders. one of the men physically attacked her. smith refused the intruders and she testified, when they tried to take advantage of me, i told them that i would not. in response, one of the men choked me by the neck and said he would make me. like the men that attacked

thompson, and those that attacked rebecca, first solicited for sex, asking if she had anything to do with white men before using force. her answer was, no. it was also repeated in testimony, referring to sexual intercourse. by asking bloom if she had intercourse with white men, they is man forced her to engage in a dialogue that position her as a strange manhom a would talk about sex.

she refused to recognize her identity as a white, even though her husband had just been dragged from the bed in which she lay. when bloom refused to participate, he forced her under the threat of violence. these sexual assaults were not spontaneous acts of aggression release from normal restraint in the pandemonium of a riot. they were enactments of fantasy of racial superiority, operated around the gender constructions of difference. it placed black women in the role of the kind of woman that would not refuse sexual advances of a white man. and white men demanded sex, black women acquiesced under force, and they show their dominance and the woman's lack of virtue. in this sense, the men wanted to make meaningful for themselves but of racial discourse on the black women's gender and sexuality already going around memphis at the time copy eagerly

in the conservative press. and these assailants joined with the press in asserting that these women had been in the public spaces of memphis, identifying them as lewd women, implying they were the kind of women that were a danger to the community if unconstrained in public. now, although generally unable to prevent rape in the massacre, women were able to resist -- assailants entered but it to the attributed to the violence. they did this by refusing the request for sex. and subsequently, by narrating the events from their own perspective when they had the chance to testify. in the days and weeks after the massacre, the women told their stories to the committee sent to memphis from congress to investigate. the free women that testified about the sexual violence, the committee created a forum of state power in which to counter the narrative. it employed a language of violation and harm, and felt that the assailants actions as a rape, rather than sex. rebecca bloom said that the man that got into bed with her,

had violated her person. before the congressional committee, thompson said that she and smith were violated by the men that intruded upon their home. and they used similar words, they said, he tried to violate me and he hurt me. another freed woman testified about rape, reporting, and had i had to give up to them. they said they would kill me. sex was imposed against their will.

comments that she had to give up were made in response to a question of the congressional committee about the assault she described. the question was, did you make any resistance? harriet also came under this kind of questioning by a committee member. when she explained that she had seen no possibility of escape from the men, because one of them had barred the door shut, one congressman asked, what did he do with the window? she explained, she could have not have fled through the window. and he asked, you made no resistance? no, she repeated, i could not get out and i could not help myself. suspicions from the committee continued. as i understand, you do not try to prevent them from doing these things to you, another congressman said. could not have somebody outside try to help you? she explained the attack again.

this is what she said. "no, sir. i did not know what to do. i was there alone, i was sick and i thought i would rather let them do it to me rather than be hurt or punish. i would be afraid to call for help. i do not like to do it, but i thought it would be best." in order to protect herself from other forms of violence, yet her judgment on what to do in this situation did not conform to the page you are cool -- patriarchal framework that

these men on the committee had. about the uneasiness of the testimony, she defended her actions and made clear that as she did not share the assumption that rape would damage her in ways that were worse than death. the struggle to make intelligible to the committee the perspective that she experienced in the massacre, but also possibly her experience watching was enslaved. all the women that testified had recently lived under a system in which many women faced the choice between submitting to intercourse with white men or risking other harm to themselves or their loved ones. for them, honor may have depended on surviving and protecting the injustice, then on protecting the notion of women's sexual virtue. despite their efforts, the women's testimony did not relate to their arrest -- the arrest of the men in the assault.

and the final report highlights as thee of black women crowning acts of atrocity. this characterization appeared in thousands of copies of the report that was distributed by congress and it was distributed in the newspapers across the country. they forcefully challenged conservative public discourse discourseabout black women in -- public discourse about black women in memphis. they had successfully represented themselves as honorable women, and those white men as criminal. they had circulated the notion that black women -- it was a reality and was never possible before. 10 years later, however, conservatives in memphis stumbled on their chance to vindicate white men in their town. in 1876, francis thompson, the woman who shared a home with

lucy smith who testified about them being raped, was arrested. she was charged as being a man wearing a woman's clothing. because of the testimony before the committee had occupied a prevalent place in the report, her arrest for cross-dressing, which may have only filled a part of an article under different circumstances, filled the newspapers for days. it served the interests of conservatives in the election campaign that would lead it to the end of the military occupation in the south. the official reconstruction. in this context, the conservative papers contended that the cross-dressing proved that her testimony on the rape had been a lie. she was forced to pay for her crime. after her arrest, she was placed

in the city chain gang where she from theridicule crowds. in jail, she wrote a message to the newspaper reported that she was being treated, very grossly, never an opportunity presented to my taking evidence to light and exhibiting her to the curious public. she alleged further abuse of two other acts that you cannot place in print. imprisonment and hard labor, it was possible that she suffered violence from those in jail. as she did a decade earlier, she testified against the violence. there was a congressional investigation unit was the far left defecation of a curious newspaper -- thompson was defiled, but she was weakened by her time in prison. soon after she completed her sentence, she moved to a cabin by herself in north memphis and

it was there that she was discovered seriously ill by members of the free community. these people moved her to the city hospital where she died of dysentery in november 1876. the men who intruded on her home during the massacre may well have known of her mail or male or ambiguous body, and her probable transgender identity may have led them to target her home. it is also possible that it would have mattered very little to the assailants. most important to them where the

-- was the domination that they put on their victims. we may never know. the newspapers vilified the southern brutality against black americans. not only did the press to cry decry thompson's depravity and accuse her of using her appearance to learn women into prostitution. and not only did the paper review the charges to condemn opponents, reminding readers that now what they referred to as the francis thompson radical party, had relied upon thompson's words to condemn white men in memphis. they used her arrest to discredit all the black women who had testified. the memphis appeals claim is a similar report. whenever you hear radicals talking of the persecution of the black race in the south, ask them what they think about francis thompson and outrageous s against her in the riots.

in these final years of as politicaln leaders' ability began to wane, and the stage at which black women could testify to rape, the conservative press in memphis declared the all black women that testified had lied. and perhaps most important about this, for our concerns today, the ways that thompson's history speaks to memory. the testimony about the sexual violence allows us to know that the white men's politicalization

-- exuality defenders of the agents of that massacre try in the late 1870's to take that history from us and claim it was not true.

tothat is to develop your -- follow. i knew what it was going to be like. i have use that article and teaching several times and have had some of the most jobs in discussions to have with students in class discussing the material. andy slap from east tennessee state. certainly it is important to remember an important event that had blistered the crack of history and the something important to member. come from thee to east part of the state. this is my first time in memphis even know i have been studying it for six years now. i would also like to thank my panelist. this is one of the few times where i've actually use the scholarship of everything the person on this panel both of my own research and in teaching.

when i mean everybody, i mean everybody. i'm going to bring convention here for just a minute. don'tly per presenters introduce the moderator. i want to knowledge the work -- of one of my colleagues here. a copy of his books sits in my office. i have consulted that on many occasions. his articles one of the first scholarly treatments upon which everyone has been at this pit in posey him is building upon network. i want to knowledge that is groundbreaking work. [applause] glad that this is working

because i do have lots of slides to show. these are actual photographs of soldiers from the third united states heavy artillery who are gerson here. -- garrison here. with sidneyart mcardle. aten known as sidney mac times. he was born in montgomery, alabama sometime in the 1840's. in 1863, he was among the first wave of african-americans enlisting in the union army in y. in 1864, he spent time in the withtable -- hospital smallpox. he recovered and continue to serve and he was discharged on april 30th, 1866. of course we all know the day

after him and his fellow, as we we have at the symposium is about, the memphis massacre. despite the terrible events of that day, he stayed in memphis. he married in 1882. some point, him and his moved up to chicago. they lived there for several years. before he died. there is a copy of his death certificate. familymcardle and his are just one of thousands of of thesel stories african-american soldiers and their families who were garrisoned during the course of the civil war and were here

during the memphis race massacre. when i started this project, i fell into it by accident. i had no idea what i would find. i had no intention of studying african-american cultures, studying memphis, studying the memphis race massacre. i've found is starting to study the soldiers going to the pension records, service records, was connections. strong and vibrant communities stretching from annabella. -- antebellum period. into some cases into the 20th century. there are also lots of connections made during the service at fort pickering. what i would like to do this morning is talk about some of these individual stories and also talk about the communities

in the connections that were formed between the soldiers and their families. this may seem like an odd place to start we are talking about unities. normallyt desertion, that is the antithesis of community. when i started this research, this is a regimental book and i was surprised by the number of desertions. -- this just one page for one company. it seemed like a lot when i counted them all up and try doing some averages, to give you an idea all african-american soldiers during the world -- war, a little over 6% desertion rate. the third u.s. calvary -- colored artillery over 19%. i was a little surprise that first that they had almost three times the desertion rate of african -- average american --

average african-american units. i started looking more the numbers. you see here 41% of all of the desertion and this regimen of african-american soldiers in memphis were from two soldiers deserting from the same company on the same day. unlikely.d a bit it was not just coincidence. i worked with a friend who does a lot of statistics feared we came up with a rough probability of two soldiers from the same company deserting on the exact same day. 01at we came up with is .00 probability. that they would choose that day independently and just happened to be deserting. this is borne out when we look at some of the stories. for instance, two people deserted company f in 1863. they had many other

similarities. besides the last name, both were born in the same county in mississippi. they enlisted on the same day and took their physicals one after another. they were probably from the same plantation and knew each other from before the war. another pair were born in franklin county, tennessee. deserted on july 19, 1863 while on guard duty. one of the most remarkable cases was john and james alexander. they both deserted. they took their physicals with only one person in between in line. both returned from desertion over a year later on the same day. my guess is they spent much of that year together. it wasn't just

pairs of people deserting to often pairs of people who had , known each other and enlisted together. a larger percentage of desertions, where you have groups of three or four or five soldiers deserting from the same company on the same day. the biggest one was february, 1866. you have 14 soldiers deserting the same day. the probability is .001 the 14th power. that is not coincidence. these are communities, coming into the army from the surrounding countryside. and desertion is in many ways a form of community, keeping that community together. that was more import and then serving in

the union army. take a look at another specific case. how these bonds of community help them in getting pensions and deserting. william sykes, this is his pension application. he may have deserted to support his fiancee who he married right after coming out of the army. they spent the rest of their lives in memphis red both the company books and military service records are clear, he stated he had been discharged. several veterans from the regiment testified on behalf of. him. all of them lived in memphis in the late 19th century. most had been in the city before the war. a corporal was typical. testifying, i knew the claimant before the war. he was a free man. we both lived in memphis. i

saw him frequently in the service. these communities helped soldiers to desert continued to protect them for decades afterwards. this did not go unnoticed. george westfield, a special examiner for the pension bureau in memphis, had a case in 1899. he had to determine whether mary johnson's deceased husband was identical to either of the men who served in african-american regiments civil war. after examining records and opposing 14 witnesses, he reported to the commissioner, i'm convinced the husband is not identical with either of said soldiers. his reasoning, is important for understanding memphis in the african-american soldiers who

garrisoned it. the most convincing fact indicated the husband did not serve in either companies, as if there are hundreds of regiments in memphis. it is hardly conceivable he would live here from discharge to 1887 without being known to many of them. and having them at his house. this was not just combined people living in memphis. considering people living in the outskirts and surrounding countryside. to give you an idea of some street views of memphis from the time, we are talking about the commissioner going through. veterans of where they are living and staying. even further out in the country, there were veterans who had connections with those veterans in memphis.

alex jones recalled, i lived most of my time in desoto county, mississippi until i move to memphis. i was in and out of memphis every three or four months during that time. similarly, tony jordan reported, i lived in fayette county, tennessee. until 1882 when i moved back to memphis. it was then that i saw robert johnson, another veteran. coming into the city regularly. these may seem simple. they point to the interconnection between memphis and the surrounding countryside for the veterans. henry hart's experience shows the importance of african and american veteran communities. he was born in henderson county

where he lived on a plantation. the 25-year-old heaart enlisted in the summer of 1883. that is where many african-americans joined the army. they were sent to other parts of the south. he was put in the heavy artillery. he met henrietta who worked in the hospital when he recovered from smallpox. by 1864, they were married and eventually had five children. he tried his hand at several different occupations during the course of his life. he spent most of his life living right there in that circle area in the map of memphis. he try keeping a grocery store. in 1870, listed as a laborer. 1880, a candy maker. sometime,

he learned how to read and write. we heard yesterday about how important education was. he obviously made an effort to learn. they did have a fractious relationship, to put it mildly. separated in 1885. four years later, he remarried. soon after that, him and his new lif wife -- new wife moved to 13 jefferson avenue. he was near several comrades including robert pyles, living less than 350 feet away. who was also a veteran of the third u.s. colored artillery. robert pyles testified later about knowing henry hart. henry

hart had taken care of him when he had been in the hospital for smallpox. he was as well acclaimed with him as he could be with any man. the area in memphis where most of the veterans and widows lived, not surprising, south memphis where fort pickering was in the race massacre occurred. an area right down here. i will show a close up. this is about eight blocks south of jefferson avenue. through combination of an incomplete veteran census of 1890 and going through veterans records, i found exact addresses for 30 widows and veterans. as i continued doing this project, there are going to be seven or eightfold more will be able to

find. it will be much denser than we see this morning. almost half of all the veterans or widows were living within a few block radius. not coincidentally, at the center of this cluster was the colored church. in the center of where these veterans were living in the widows were living. henry lived at 44 hayden avenue. over there to the right. next door, two regimental widows. a few a few blocks east on disordered street joseph ferguson lived next door to emily martin. livedock north of them

company i who testified on behalf of william sykes. four blocks south of the church robert joseph company agent alex jones of company i were together at the rear. right, while george washington of company c lived within a few hundred feet of them down there on saint guangxi. southwest miller colored church, there appears to be another small cluster of veterans. stationcalvin street 1894. idea of what they're seeing on a daily basis as they were walking around memphis. cluster abouther

10 blocks away. this shows some of the connections is african-american veterans and widows move throughout the city often moving from one group of veterans to another. but maintaining the connections. she was living down the southwest cluster area when her husband died of yellow fever during an epidemic of 1878. by early 1890's she was living much further north in the city on the same block as henry pyles and henry hart. later that year, she moved back to her old neighborhood. there she was living next door to henry beaumont of company i in pennsylvania avenue. a couple blocks north of john abernathy. i talked about arts. memphis has a population of

65,000. what is the chance they are coincidentally living on the same block, testifying for each other to get pensions. i want to and with a slightly longer individual story, partly because of the wonderful image. this is david warrington. he probably had this photograph taken soon after enlisting. in late october, 1864. i found this image in his pension file. this is, from my perspective, and incredibly rare finding. a photograph of an african-american soldier, pretty early in the pension file. he was stationed in memphis. even

for the mid-19th century, they had much in common. they were 28-year-old farmers. they were both on the short side, standing at 5'5" and 5'4". a neighbor recalled, he was black, not very tall, heavy set. in and his brother agreed to serve ad substitutes for men who had been drafted but did not want to serve. they were sent south where they joined a different companies. the only thing of note in his service record was some clerk incorrectly listed him as david washington. a seemingly inoculated mistake -- and oculus mistake. both of them settled down just

south of st. louis. the area was described as wilderness where few men owned good land. it was not all hard work for the warrington's. i'm going to put this up because i like the photograph so much. david warrington soon met charlotte, a young woman who may have been the sister of frank grimes, who had served with them in memphis. after a few years of courtship, they married on july 25, 1872. she gave birth to a daughter, sylvia, 10 months later. around 1878, they had a second daughter who was always a little weak

thing. by all accounts, the family was happy. and neighbor recalled, i remember him going long distances home at night. saying he had a little baby at home and had to go. i know he was referring to this diana. another neighbor gave a similar account. he would walk home for or five miles from his work, just to be with his said wife and children. treasuries struck in 1882 when charlotte died from pneumonia at age 28. mary warrington, the sister, moved in to help her brother with the young girl. david warrington remained devoted to his daughters. a neighbor recalled, i used to see him out on the lake. fishing with his two children. their mother charlotte was dead and

gone. he took them along to get them out of the way of his sister, mary. seven months later, david warrington became with tuberculosis and died. james warrington, who served with david warrant income helped barry his brother. diana was young and she later said, she had no memory of her parents. the first thing i remember, i was living in st. louis in the house of my uncle. in 1893, frank grimes applied to get a pension. small problem. do you notice that little and -- innocent mistake from the clerk

30 years earlier. he was applying from a pension for david warrington. the records were for david washington. despite correspondents, he did not -- she did not get the pension. she probably needed to get support. she is in a week physical pattern according to a relative. diana wrote the pension office, inquiring about the pension. special examiners investigated the claim, interviewing people from illinois to california. one of the key pieces of evidence was this photograph. this photograph was one of the key pieces of evidence. a picture of a man which my mother always

taught me is a lifeless -- likeness of her brother. they took the photograph to try and corroborate that david washington and washington were the same person. upon being shown the photograph, a former neighbor said, i can easily tell you who's like this -- likeness that is. i did not need to have you or anyone tell me who's picture that is. diana warrington not only received the pension at that point but the pension office backdated it to the t 94, when she should have first gotten it. david warrington had taken care of his little girl with the photograph taken almost 60 years earlier. this was probably the only image she had of her father. she told the special

examiner, he must have been a soldier. i will lend this picture to you. but wish it returned to me. the unreturned picture remained buried in the files for almost a century. i found it about three years ago. you are among the first people seeing this. in almost a century. now the difficult thy she had getting a pension was not unusual. widows and children had a more difficult time than white veterans and their families of getting pensions. some of the reason for this, you can see in the angry letter. the

census taker wrote. they were doing a special census. the person responsible for memphis, bitterly complained to his supervisor that he could not do his job because african-americans in the city did not have documentation to prove their connections or service. some of this is reminiscent of slavery. not having brought certificates or marriage records. some of it probably did not have , -- it probably did not help to have whites riding to the neighborhood in 1866. some of the documentation was destroyed. fortunately, this case was not unique. there are hundreds of cases of african-american soldiers and their families coming together, working together to make sure they got

at least some of what they deserved for their service to the union. thank you. [applause] >> let's give another applause. [applause] >> dr. ash, dr. rosen, and dr. slap. now is the time for us to reflect on what we have learned. also present some questions and comments to the presenters because of all this valuable information they have provided us. especially, professor slap's presentation shows how we can still do

research on african-american soldiers and families in tennessee and memphis. you can use the pension applications as well as portfolios of each of those african american soldiers. much of which is online now. and on microfilm. there is a tennessee genealogical society, african american genealogical society, that meets in nashville every month at the downtown public library. the annual meeting of the african-american genealogical society, where more african-americans are been able to trace their roots back to this time that we are talking about. professor professor rosen, very interesting report

on african-american women and the sexual brutality they suffered after the civil war. sometimes in studying history, we forget that 49.7%, according to my calculations, but the slaves were women and children. -- of the slaves were women and children. we have this erroneous perception that most of the slaves were men/ most of the abuse that she talks about was going on before 1866. black women were still continuing after the 1865 emancipation to suffer these brutalities. we still need some of you to do studies on african-american children because they have made

up a tremendous percentage of those we call slaves. those enslaved, 280,000 people in tennessee. 4 million across the united states. we still don't know a lot about them and what happened to them. during and after slavery. now children's history is a subject that some historians like you are getting into to teach us more about what happened to the population of those enslaved in emancipated. dr. ash has brought together a good and definitive synopsis of what happened in the race riot of 1866. we will turn it over to

you to ask some questions. any comments you may make, make them brief. but we want to know what you have to ask. history is about asking the best questions in order to get the band's answers -- the best answers. that is all we historians do. we go around asking questions all the time. one question leads to another. and we learn more and we get better answers. so i think there are some monitors around with microphones. as he raise your hand, please stand, repeat your name, and ask your question to one of the three panelists. >> i don't want to get ahead of anyone. my question is to dr. rosen. in looking at the action

and violence against women, i wonder if your research shed any light on whether there was any involvement with courts in those matters. i know there was testimony in the investigations. but i'm interested in the role of courts, and what, if anything happened in the legal system with respect to those actions. prof. rosen: the only evidence of any kind of legal action that i found against someone who participated, maybe professor ash found others, was an indictment against one of the men who had been very prominent in the events. he was the son of a grocer in south memphis who had been a ringleader. but the indictment did not necessarily go anywhere, it was just an indictment. the answer, have i

found anything? no. the common presumption is there was no legal action, either in the local or state courts or federal action against those who participated. it is also true -- i remember when i first came to memphis years ago to start my dissertation research. i spoke to an archivist before the shelby county archives was in the building. it was in the back of the library downtown. i spoke to the archivist at the time, because i was looking for local court records. i wanted to find information of african-american women bringing charges for violence somehow in memphis or in the county. she told me at a certain point of moving from one place to another, that tons of individual criminal records have been thrown away. the property

records had all been kept, but that criminal records have been put in. she said she saw them in a big dumpster behind the library. might have there been stories there? it is possible. one of the legacies from the massacre and by the end of reconstruction was that it was difficult for african-american women to bring charges, especially against wightman, for sexual assault. -- against white men, for sexual assault. the trauma of simply going through that, being disbelieved or having no one respond with any sense of your veracity, that probably did not meet people to seek out the authority. the evidence of such rich and tight communities as dr. slack has found is marvelous -- dr. sl ap has found is marvelous. on the date that a woman testified,

usually another one did too. people are coming to the setting together, supporting each other. these are the women in the community they turned you to deal with this kind of violence, subsequently outside of the law. there were ways people don't with it, but legal recognition, i found no evidence. >> we should recall this is may 1866, and of course african-americans have only been emancipated, so they are not citizens. they are not handled in any courts differently from the tennessee slave laws. not until the freedmen's bureau freeman spiro comes online in march of 1865.-- freeman 's bureau comes online in march of 1855. they were very

active in memphis. they would have records on some of that. but we were not citizens really until the 14th amendment of 1868. that is one of the problems with this history. we are free, but we are not citizens. so we can be treated any kind of way that they wish according to the legal record. do you have another question? >> if i could say more about the court system. the problem with using the local courts was that they were under control of the irish, basically. but whole city was basely under control of the irish. they in the germans were the only ones who could vote and to serve on juries. at any case been brought against a writer either in civil or criminal court -- against a rioter either

in civil or criminal court it , would've gone against an irish court and irish jury. that led up to the federal government. the question was taken up to the white house. andrew johnson, the long-lived states right democrat that he was, his attorney general says the federal government has no business interfering. i have to disagree with dr. lovett on one point. civil rights act had been past three weeks before the massacre. that did overturn the dred scott decision and created that black people were citizens. it was not firmly entrenched in american law until the 14th amendment was ratified in 1868.

>> at any rate we have to wait , until tennessee actually recognizes that. the courts are -- the riots are going to do that. tennessee is going to pass legislation to make that recognition in july. the congress readmit tennessee into the union because they do give blacks protection. but before the riots, there were no legal protections. prof. rosen: one thing that does come out of the follow-up after the massacre is that the metropolitan police bill is passed in a tennessee. i don't know much about it, but it essentially was a state law which abolished the control of local police. his title was recorder of the court, who had been a terrible thorn in the side of free people in the city.

he had lost his position. there have maybe in a transition after the massacre in which free people in the city might have seen a new set of police and a new legal structure possibly available to them. i've not found any records from that, nonetheless, there may have been a time when things look possibly as if they could be better. has that point, the freedman's courts had cleared up. >> one more thing about the courts is that in the 6-7 months before the race massacre, there are 2 different police forces and judicial systems operating in memphis. one is civil, but there is also the army. they are busy arresting people. in military commission cases. to get some sense of the chaos in memphis, there are cases where irish cops are arresting black soldiers and

trying them in civil courts, while black soldiers are arresting irish cops, trying them in military courts. so there are some testimonies that stopped at the memphis race riots because of the unit being discharged. there are at least a hundred 60 cases tried. >> in other words, you have to go through 2-3 different sources in order to put that kind of a study together. we are still in the confusion of war, and reconstruction is not complete yet in tennessee. >> the only other point i wanted to make is an editorial comment. dr. slap, you mentioned compound interest. i wanted to add, i want to comment on the power of stereotypes. as dr. rosen talked about, the way african-american

women were characterized in those hearings, looking at their status even today, in many instances, when it comes to allegations or testimony about victimization, especially sexual victimization. there is often a discount. it is difficult for those people's voices to be heard with credibility. thank you. >> good morning. i want to thank the panel, the moderator dr. lovett, for such exemplary research. i am from the historic orange mountain community, the first community in america founded and developed exclusively for african-americans to buy land and own their own homes circa

1890. so actually, under half of my lineage, my ancestors, i want to thank you for such exemplary research. we know that there is more to come. i would certainly like to get a composition of that and all of the high schools in memphis, as well as other areas. our young people need to know what great great people they came from. thank you. [applause] >> we have about 15 more minutes, so if you have any more questions, please. direct them to one of the panelists. yes? if you can get to a mic. >> okay, my question is for all of you concerning the research methods of those who did these

interviews. do you know how they chose people to interview? the sick ability -- specifically for women, where they interview in their homes or they asked to go to someplace for testimony? prof. rosen: i should have explained that. how each woman came to be at the freedmen's bureau or the investigation is not indicated. either they volunteered. we have lots of evidence from other congressional investigations that freed people were aware of the movement of congress and these committees, and were eager to tell their stories. some people traveled great distances to get to committees. they were not interviewed in their home. memphis, they had to go to the guy yoga house where the congressional committee had rented out a room where they

conducted these interviews. -- had rented out a room where they conducted these interviews. the freedmen's bureau, the day after the massacre ended, agents were out in the streets taking notes about what happened, creating lists of those whom they had spoken to, tabulating the property stolen and destroyed and the assaults made. some people may have been on that list and then called by the congressionalcommittee because they already knew that those people were witnesses. francis thompson herself appears on that very first list from the freedmen's bureau. but we don't know exactly how they got there. my presumption tends to be it is because it was important for them to testify. the committee was in town, they saw it out. --when the committee was in town, they sought it out. but we don't have exact records. >> sometimes pension examiners would go through company lists.

whoever was applying for a pension would give them names. that person would suggest somebody else that they could talk to. in some cases they interviewed a few, sometimes it was 15-20. some cases even more. pensionapplications were sometimes 700 800 pages long, testimony going back and forth. something difficult with the method, is trying to understand the work that these are supposedly direct testimonies supposedly verbatim, but a lot of these, particularly with african american women trying to prove they were married -- trying to keep as a historian in mind, you have a white man and an african-american woman asking her questions about her sexual life. and bringing their judgment to this, and how that affects what that person is saying and what is being recorded. so there are a lot of challenges in using the testimony, not just taking them

at face value. prof. lovett: in the back? yes. >> i want to echo the comments of the excellent work that you do. and the fact that you devote your life to bring in attention to areas of truth and justice. my question is about the women's movement itself, addressed to dr. rosen. was there any evidence of white women standing in solidarity with the attacks against the black women? i know there were women's movements already. they cared about abolition itself.

could you speak to that? prof. rosen: certainly. professor ash has done a deeper research into the white community in memphis, and may have something to add. i don't have any evidence of early women's rights groups being involved at all in the supporting people who suffered violence during the memphis massacre. on rare occasions, you see white residents of south memphis. i mentioned molly hayes, who had testified to one of her black neighbors. they had shared a side-by-side shanty of some kind. and she expressed her for about what was happening -- expressed her horror about what was happening. you can imagine in that community that she provided her with some comfort. i don't know that. i only know

that because she told the story with sympathy to federal officials. but there isn't any evidence in relationship to this particular event, or these cases of sexual violence that i have come across from the women's rights taking of it. but it is quite possible that it happened. prof. lovett: we have two more questions. >> i want to thank everybody that is involved in this symposium. i was a senior in high school in 1968 when martin luther king was assassinated. ever since, i have been interested in race relations and why those that look like me have had the experiences that we have had. i really appreciate everything that i have heard. all of the work and exquisite research. i am a researcher myself. i want

to see if i could get professor rosen to react to something that i was thinking about as i was listening. as i read history, it seems that many of the race riots in this country recur as a result of allegations of black men raping white women. as i was sitting here, the scottsboro boys and in it till came to mind. and admit -- emitt till came to mind. i was wondering if you could react to that in terms of contrast between race riots and what we are experiences today with the symposium. >> thank you for your question. certainly false accusations that black men were somehow sexually threatening white women have led to racial violence in american history. i think what is

interestingto me is that, certainly in the newspapers you would see a reference to a charge. but what is interesting is that that did not come into play in any of the explicit rhetoric explaining, justifying the massacre in the white papers. fo many daysr during the events and afterwards, conservative papers were claiming that this had been an uprising of black soldiers, and that it was necessary to suppress that violence. i never came across evidence that anyone was accusing people of sexual assault. it's interesting that that particular rhetoric in general, how white racist's depictions of african-americans have evolved over time responding to things-- certainly black men were represented in these papers as kernels, as out

of control, as drinking too much. a lot of talk about black men and guns and how dangerous it was that black men were armed and were frequent shooting off their guns in celebration. sexual assault did not come into it. the representations become much more intense and powerful by the turn-of-the-century. >> i agree with the professor. i have never come across any explicitaccusation that black men were raping white women as an excuse for the massacre. you might remember in my talk when i was quoting the newspapers, the white conservative newspapers, some of those editorials had a subtext. that quotation i said about the beastly passion --

that is codeword for black men lusting for white women. so that was there as a subtext all along. but as professor rosen said, no explicit accusation. prof. lovett: we have two more questions. please, this side first. >> i have a civil question, where was for triggering -- fort pickering? >> it was on the southern part of the city. if you want, afterwards, i can show you on a map. it was on the southern edge of the mississippi. >> that would be riverside drive, and self main -- and south main and that area today. >> wasn't there some issue with black soldiers

having been put in fort pickering somewhere because there was some mutinous action? many of these black soldiers, mostly put away, and how this affected the security situation. and when you think about the fort pillow assault, i have heard some people say that memphis was the epicenter of the backlash against black soldiery. when you look at those two events, is there anything to that? >> i will refer to dr. slap about fort pillow. about mutinous black soldiers and fort pickering, are you referring to be for the right? -- before the riot? >> mutinous black soldiers in fort pickering. >> there were

complaints, and this was going on both in the newspapers and through formal channels, that african-american soldiers were acting out, breaking curfew. shooting guns. some of this needs to be put into context that the freedmen's bureau was sending contraband. soldiers families were trying to send them out of memphis. there was a lot of discord with the soldiers and freedmen's bureau. when you drill down, it's understandable why there was -- why they were upset. i would not characterize it as mutinous. one last thing about records. every

single service record for every african-american soldier in the third artillery is available on ancestry.com. it is probably 20,000-30,000 documents at least. for some, it is a few pages, for others, it is 20-25 pages. prof. rosen: the way that the violence of the first day, and even though they had been discharged, for black soldiers to go back into the fort. is that what you are thinking about? many testified subsequently they were enormously frustrated and trying to lead to check on their families and helped protect those in the community. they were not allowed to leave. the commanders of the fort

resuming her same in that they presume that would only escalate the violence. but from their part, they represented dean heller against their will when they wanted to be out there with whatever weapons i still had left protecting the family. to thank the panel is again. i'm going to turn this over now to print -- professor o'donovan. up this weekend on american history tv on c-span3. i look into organized crime in the south during the 19 -- 1950's. 1951file report issued in concluded that organized crime syndicates really did exist. and that they depended upon the support and the cooperation of public officials around the country. >> author tammy ingram discusses her upcoming book the wickedest city in america, sex, race, and organized crime in the jim crow south.

american university history professor peter cosmic argues whether the atomic bomb was needed to end the war in the pacific. >> former japanese prime he wrote shuta -- the soviet ambassador in tokyo to discuss the possibility of ending the war. the soviet ambassador rights back to his survey in and saying the japanese are desperate to end the war. it was becoming clear to them. american leaders knew that too. 10:30 at 10:30 p.m. -- a.m., the 50th anniversary of the national organization for women. then, a woman lost her credit card if she was divorced in -- or if her husband died. ae fair housing act -- landlord could say i don't lend to women. that became illegal. which finally

prohibited sex discrimination in education it's a lot more than sports. it's women's promotion, women's advancement. >> and sunday, a right to the white house we want. the 1954 democratic and republican national convention with lyndon johnson accepting the democratic nomination and arizona senator barry goldwater accepting the republican nomination. >> i would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. [applause] let me remind you all, that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. over the last four years, the world had begun to respond to a simple american belief. the belief that strength and

responsibility are the keys to peace. forever complete american history to be schedule, betty c-span.org. c-span makes it easy for you to keep up of all the latest convention developments. this is possible with the c-span radio at. it is available for download off of your mobile device app store. you can get scheduled information about important speeches and events. get c-span on the go with the c-span radio app. >> each week, "american history tv's reel america" brings you archival films. before 1964 and 1969, the white house naval photographic unit created monthly film reports on the activities of president johnson.