I Am Black History

Having spent this past weekend in Manhattan for my daughter’s 25th birthday, I had the opportunity to execute a longstanding wish: recreating the escape-route taken by my 2nd great grandfather when, in 1850, he fled on foot from the Earle’s Hotel on Park Row as he had come face to face with his slaveholder’s brother-in-law, who was authorized to capture him and return him to slavery in Maryland.

As some of you may recall, I happen to be in a unique position: I am the keeper/teller of my family’s extraordinary history and safeguard of a handwritten memoir, dating to 1886, which documents the family legacy of enslavement in Maryland (to the Governor and his family for 5 generations – documented to 1770), the escape(s), the underground railroad experiences, lives in freedom, and, ultimately, the return to Maryland to confront the Governor and his family. The Governor also documented this effort, filed with his ‘papers’ at the University of Maryland, which gives credence to documented legacy.

Great-great grandfather Oliver had gone to great lengths to document his 1850 ?experience in New York City when, at the age of 18 and whilst under the protection of the Underground Railroad (UGRR), he’d encountered his greatest fear. I am hereto sharing his own words, such that you may appreciate his situation. He’d escaped from slavery in 1848. Recall that slavery didn’t end until 1865+.

On Saturday, I positioned myself on Ann Street in Manhattan, at the exact spot of his exit from Earle’s Hotel, and then traced the route on foot, just as it had been documented. I passed St Paul’s church, in the footprint of the former Twin Towers. Imagine that moment, as I glanced up and realized the ‘Freedom Tower’ loomed just above. I got chills.

The escape reenactment ended at the Le Colombe coffee shop, which now occupies the site of the former home of Anthony Ruggles, abolitionist, which was also headquarters of New York’s UGRR.

While there, I sat and quietly, with supreme satisfaction, researched the site and learned that this was also Frederick Douglass’ initial stop after arriving by sea from Baltimore. Douglass had told ‘Stationmaster’ Ruggles of his love for a woman named Anna Murray. Ruggles then sent for Murray and the two were married on this same site.

Here I sat, sipping my espresso, on the site where Douglass had found his freedom and married his bride, and where my 2nd great grandfather, Oliver Cromwell Gilbert, had escaped enslavement for the second time.

I contemplated this moment and reflected.

In the our myopic world of here and how, the impact and experience of enslavement of Africans in American may feel…..distant.

For me, it feels like…yesterday.

I was close to my grandfather, Arthur. He lived until the age of 94 and passed away in 1990. Oliver had been Arthur’s grandfather. The two of them had been close.

As I sipped my coffee on ground zero of the NY UGRR, this phrase came to mind: ‘I’ve touched the hand that touched the hand’.

I have touched Arthur’s hand, and he had touched Oliver’s hand. Enslavement, for us, is one touch away. It has influenced our family’s experiences, conversations, navigation, reaction, proaction, reflection.

In the years following Oliver Gilbert’s escape, he became an orator, lecturer, musician, teacher, politician, abolitionist, and friend of Frederick Douglass, while also holding himself as a Garrisonian (embodying the principles and practices of William Lloyd Garrison who actively worked to free Oliver’s remaining siblings).

Today, Oliver’s memoir is much sought after by publishing houses, authors, historians and producers.

As I sit in meetings and contemplate the future of technology, communications and experiences, I cannot help but draw connection to our family’s recent past…..and marveling in how far we have come in such a brief window, yet, how far we have yet to go.

I know this: if we can survive the experiences depicted in the memoir, we can overcome current-day challenges.

Oliver ‘OC’ Gilbert was relentless for his freedom and that of his siblings. Our nation’s most notable abolitionists wrote of him in their books and letters. He settled for nothing short of true freedom and respect.

As we close on Black History Month, I am pardonably proud to share that ‘I am black history’.

Excerpt below-

“In the Spring of 1849 I got a situation as a waiter on the steamboat Penobscott running from Philadelphia to New York.

The Spring of 1850 I went to Cape May, NJ to wait at the Columbia. Mr. Thomas Dorsey was there to board. He came down the stairs one morning while I was?going up with a tray of breakfast.

I saw it was unsafe to remain here any longer at Cape May so I took the steamboat for New York and got a position at Earles hotel in Park Row in the site where the New York Press now stands.?There I was contented and happy waiting on the guests.

One morning going up the stairs with a lady’s breakfast I meet Mr William Warfield, brother-in-law of my master coming downstairs as I was going up.?He eyes me very sharp. I did not lose my head. I passed on my way up and looked over the stairs railing to see which way he was going. He was standing down in the hall looking up at me. I said to myself take your last look at me for you won’t see me again.

I put the tray of breakfast down and ran down the back stairs and went out the back way.

He knew me. He sent word to my master in Maryland what I was at the hotel where he was staying. He authorized him to have me arrested and put in jail until he could send for me.

I ran down the stairs and came out on Ann St – down Ann Street to Broadway with no hat on, white jacket and apron. I threw away the apron and crossed Broadway to Vesey, down Vesey to Church, up Church to Lizbernard St, there was the headquarters of the Underground Railroad. Mr .Ruggles was the agent. There I was safe for the day.

Reuben, my brother, was now in New York waiting at the Rafburn House below the Trinity Church on Broadway. That day the news came out that two slaves had been taken back to the south.

The abolitionists decided that it was not safe for me to remain any longer in New York, so brother and I were sent that night by way of Brooklyn and Greenport, New London and Providence to Boston to No. 2 Beach St. to an abolitionist by the name of Timothy Gilbert, a piano manufacturer and Deacon of the Tremont Temple. He received us kindly and introduced us to other friends of the slaves.

There I met William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Mrs. H.B. Stowe, Francis Jackson, Chas Sumner, Samuel J. May, Jr., Stephen Foster, Abbey Kelly and his wife, Lucy Stone, Mrs. Wendell Phillips who gave me a hearty welcome to Boston. Such a reception we had never dreamed of”