Imprisoned for helping a teenager....Part Two

Brooklyn’s Raymond Street jail had a horrible reputation.? The New York State Prison Commission condemned the prison in 1900, but was unable to close it. William Johnson and the other male prisoners were crammed together onto benches in tiny cells which made moving around nearly impossible. The section for women was called “demoralizing” and overcrowded, stuffy, and dirty with each woman trapped on a small cot in large rectangular cells.?

1900 was a tough year for doctors like Verina as well as midwives who assisted women who had miscarriages and needed treatment or women who asked for an abortion. Brooklyn’s newspapers reported that year that in rural Gillman Illinois 16-year-old Dessie Salter died after receiving care from Dr. Charlotte M. Wright.? A mob then gathered outside of Dr. Wright’s house and office, burned it down, and murdered Dr. Wright and three men who tried to defend her.? In 1901 a midwife from Worcester Massachusetts, Mary Schofield was charged with manslaughter for causing the death of 23-year-old, Mrs. Edna McKee after an abortion.

?On November 1, 1900, William and Verina were brought out of prison and taken to the courthouse on Adams Street.? Impeccably dressed supporters of Verina and William filled the courthouse.? Verina was permitted to change into an elegant dress, and William into a fine suit for their court appearance.? Sitting together at the front of the courtroom, Judge Brenner formally charged the two with their crime: “Performing, advising, or aiding in an operation that caused the death of Rhoda Newby.”? No amount of fine dress or good education could spare Verina or William from prison.? Fellow doctors were brought in to testify against Verina, a common practice when a doctor was accused of performing an abortion.? Dr. Van Zile tried to stay neutral, saying only that he knew that Dr. Morton was treating Rhoda for an infection. The coroner Dr. Hartung said that Rhoda died from an infection following a miscarriage but he said there was no evidence that Verina had conducted an illegal operation.? The Brooklyn police officers assigned to the case were determined to convict the two of murder.? As Rhoda lay dying, they interviewed Verina and Rhoda together and tried to get Rhoda to confess to requesting an abortion.? After arresting Verina, the officers continued to visit Rhoda, trying to get her to confess. Before she died, officer John F. Noonan stated that when Rhoda realized that she was dying she told him “That Dr. Morton operated on her with instruments.”? The officer stated that William told him that “for a whole month before she went to see Verina, he kept advising her to go get help from Dr. Morton, who he said was “as good as gold.”? After these statements, Judge Brenner sent both Verina and William back to prison to await their trial which was set for January 28, 1901.

?What happened next was strangely not covered in any of Brooklyn’s three major newspapers at that time.? All three extensively covered the death of Rhoda and the arrest of Verina and William but nothing of the trial.? What the newspapers do reveal is that by July 7, 1901 the Brooklyn Daily Eagle was reporting that Dr. Morton was among the women in Brooklyn best known “for their philanthropic and charitable endeavors.”?? In November 1901 she married for a second time, this time to a fellow widower, Emory James.? Emory was a book-keeper for the New York Produce Exchange and a community leader.?? Whatever the result of the January trial, Verina was free from prison and suffered no damage to her position as a leader in her community.? Did her fine dress and respectable position in the community shield her from punishment?? Did the white police officers pressure Rhoda Newby to accuse Dr. Morton?? How did criminalizing abortion change the way that doctors like Verina treated her patients?? How did Verina adjust to many months living in the horrid conditions at Raymond Street Jail?? How did her mother and son cope?? These questions are difficult to answer without more information.

What is certain is that Verina Harris Morton Jones devoted much of the rest of her life helping young women like Rhoda. Working closely with Reverend AJ Henry and his wife Mary, Verina managed to find time between bringing up her son Franklin and practicing medicine to raise money to create Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) branches in Brooklyn.? More and more Black women from the South, like Rhoda, were heading to Brooklyn to escape racism and to find better paying work.? Verina, who frequently gave speeches at community gatherings said: “Our community is made up of a conglomeration of peoples, coming to us for help.? American white girls coming from the South and West are helped, cared for and given pleasant surroundings, but it is not so with our colored girls.? They come into the meshes of strong, evil influence, heretofore unknown and unheard of to them, alone and unprotected.? Their moral and religious training has been very vague and has had very little influence on the home life.? What is being done for them?? The preachers can’t do everything.? The establishment of the two colored branches have opened our eyes more to our opportunities in the YWCA…”??Verina made sure that the YWCA branches provided clean affordable housing for women as well as recreational, vocational, and spiritual growth opportunities, all designed to give young women a better chance at life than the one Rhoda Newby had.? Perhaps her lifelong effort to build up YWCA’s helped Verina recover from the trauma of Raymond Street Prison.

?Verina did not forget about her good experience collaborating with white doctor Hannah Brinton Carter.? Over the rest of her life Verina collaborated with white women interested in ending racism and improving the lives of Black people.?

Together with Mary White Ovington, the daughter of a once wealthy white family, Verina opened up the Lincoln Settlement House. There she provided medical care, training classes, day care, meeting spaces and entertainment for Brooklyn’s Black community.?Verina and Mary also helped in 1907 start the Cosmopolitan Society, a group that held dinners where influential Black and white leaders could eat, talk, get to know one another, and solve problems together. For decades Verina served as the only Black female board member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).?

The Lincoln Settlement House would go on to become the home of the Brooklyn Urban League (BUL). The BUL along with Brooklyn's Black-led Carleton Avenue YMCA and Ashland Place YWCA and the NAACP would act in powerful ways in the 1940s to start the long process of ending racist hiring practices in Brooklyn. Verina was heavily involved in creating and empowering all of these organizations.

?In 1917 Verina played a crucial role in the struggle to give New York women the right to vote.? For years Verina Morton Jones and her Equal Suffrage League diligently worked to convince Black men in New York City to support voting rights for women.? In 1917 for the first time, large numbers of Black male voters went to election booths and voted yes to granting all New York women the right to vote.? Voting rights for women had been defeated just two years before, but Black and Jewish men in Brooklyn and the Lower Eastside finally brought victory to the cause of voting rights for women. New York State showed the nation that it was time to rethink bans on women voting.? Voting rights for women nationwide followed soon after.? Verina was there, as she was for so many causes, to make change happen.