Hidden Figures: Callie House #BlackHERstoryMonth 10/28 (Patreon)

Hidden Figures: Callie House #BlackHERstoryMonth 10/28

Callie House (1861–1928) was a leader of the National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association, one of the first organizations to campaign for reparations for slavery in the United States. Callie House is most famous for her efforts to gain reparations for former slaves and is regarded as the early leader of the reparations movement among African American political activists. Callie Guy was born a slave in Rutherford Country near Nashville, Tennessee. Her date of birth is usually assumed to be 1861 but due to the lack of birth records for slaves, this date is not certain. She was raised in a household that included her widowed mother, sister, and her sister’s husband. House received some primary school education. At the age of 22, she married William House and moved to Nashville, where she raised five children. To support her family, House worked at home as a washerwoman and seamstress. In 1891, a pamphlet entitled Freedmen’s Pension Bill: A Plea for American Freedmen began circulating around the black communities in central Tennessee. This pamphlet, which espoused the idea of financial compensation as a means of rectifying past exploitation of slavery, persuaded House to become involved in the cause that would become her life’s work. With the help of Isaiah Dickerson, House chartered the National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association in 1898, and was named the secretary of this new organization. Eventually House became the leader of the organization. In this position she traveled across the South, spreading the idea of reparations in every former slave state with relentless zeal. During her 1897-1899 lecture tour the Association’s membership by 34,000 mainly through her efforts. By 1900 its nationwide membership was estimated to be around 300,000. House and Dickerson were known for visiting black churches—one of the few places blacks could organize without white interference. The National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association was known by the acronym MRB&PA, and was chartered August 7, 1897 with the goal of providing compensation to ex-slaves, mutual aid, and burial costs. At its peak, it claimed membership in the hundreds of thousands. As their number grew, newspapers of the time often ridiculed House's efforts and the federal government attempted to arrest her and other leaders of the Association. Despite lack of evidence, the federal Post Office Department accused slavery reparation organizations like MRB&PA of frauding their members, and in 1899, the MRB&PA was forbidden to send mail or cash money orders. The Department of Justice opened an official investigation of the MRB&PA, and in 1901, Isaiah Dickerson was found guilty of “swindling” for encouraging former slaves to seek reparations. The conviction was later overturned. When Dickerson died in 1909, Callie House become the official leader of the MRB&PA. She, too, was convicted and served time in the Jefferson City, Missouri penitentiary from November 1917 to August 1918. Callie House died in Nashville at the age of 67 on June 6, 1928 from cancer. In 2015 Vanderbilt University's African American and Diaspora Studies Program renamed its research arm the Callie House Research Center for the Study of Black Cultures and Politics. #CallieHouse #HiddenFigures ****************** Merchandise! MAKE SURE U GETTA SHIRT!! https://www.teepublic.com/user/sssseren Follow me on social media! Instagram: @sensei_aishitemasu Personal Tumblr: http://sensei-aishitemasu.tumblr.com Tumblr for my work: https://sssseren.tumblr.com Snapchat: sssseren GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/tc5wh7q Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/seren_sensei ****************** Did you know I wrote a book? ☺️ 'So, About That... A Year of Contemporary Essays on Race and Pop Culture' Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/About-That-Contemporary-Essays-Culture-ebook/dp/B013V0CHK6 Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B013V0CHK6 Digital download (e-book): https://gumroad.com/l/IkUa ****************** Links: My Face Is Black Is True: Callie House and the Struggle for Ex-Slave Reparations (Amazon): https://www.amazon.com/My-Face-Black-True-Reparations/dp/0307277054 Callie House Research Center for the Study of Global Black Cultures and Politics: https://as.vanderbilt.edu/aads/calliehousecenter/ 'DID YOU KNOW “CALLIE HOUSE” WANTED REPARATIONS FOR SLAVERY MANY YEARS AGO?' https://blackthen.com/did-you-know-callie-house-wanted-reparations-for-slavery-many-years-ago/ 'Little Known Black History Fact: Callie House' https://blackamericaweb.com/2018/08/15/little-known-black-history-fact-callie-house/ CALLIE GUY HOUSE (C. 1861-1928): https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/callie-house-c-1861-1928/ Callie House (Wikipedia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callie_House