Man from Metropolis

Metropolis, Illinois in Massac County is a river town on the Ohio River, at the tip of southern Illinois. It’s founders hoped it would become a large city, but it never grew larger than 15,000 people. The founders selected the name "Metropolis," because they hoped the town would become a large hub for commerce on the river.

Fort Massac, a half mile from Metropolis, was a key military fort. The fort was damaged in the New Madrid earthquake of 1811-12, one of the great inland earthquakes in American history. Soldiers had encamped at the Fort during the early years of the Civil War, using it as a training ground. After a deadly measles epidemic swept the area in 1861-62, the soldiers abandoned the fort.

Metropolis was just a few miles from the Mason-Dixon line. From his parent’s humble farm, Oscar could see into the former Confederacy with ease. The Ohio River separated north and south, Illinois and Kentucky. Oscars parents were born in slavery in Kentucky. After the Civil War, the family crossed the river to the free state of Illinois---the land of Lincoln.

Micheaux’s mother, Bell, was a large woman with dark skin. She was deeply religious and served on the Stewardess Board of the local African Methodist Church. She never met a preacher she didn’t like, and she thought the clergy were above reproach. Her most fervent wish for her children was that they follow the Christian faith, but also that they never be lackeys for the white man. Mrs. Micheaux became upset when the oldest son in the family, W.O. (William Owen) quit school in Metropolis and became a waiter in a nearby town. She wanted none of her sons to be lackeys.

Mrs. Micheaux and the family were believers in the Booker T. Washington philosophy of self-help. Education, education, education. Mrs. Micheaux wanted all her kids to learn to read. In fact, the Micheaux’s moved inside the city limits of Metropolis so the kids could attend better schools. (They attended segregated schools.) Mrs. Micheaux could apparently read somewhat, but Mr. Micheaux couldn’t read at all, although both signed their names on deeds instead of making an "X." When Melvina Micheaux (Oscar’s paternal grandmother) signed legal documents, she simply marked an "X" for her signature.

Oscar was crazy about Booker T. Washington, and his book "Up from Slavery." Two passages in the book seemed especially appropriate for Oscar Micheaux: "...the Negro youth must work harder and must perform his tasks even better than a white youth in order to secure recognition." Another quotation from "Up From Slavery," that could well have been Oscar Micheaux’s philosophy was as follows: "Every persecuted individual and race should get much consolation out of the great human law, which is universal and eternal, that merit, no matter under what skin found, is, in the long run, recognized and rewarded." Oscar summarized the Booker T. philosophy with his own credo: "A colored man can be anything."

Education was important to Mrs. Micheaux, but Church was #1 with her. Going to Church was everything for Mrs. Micheaux. She attended Church in Metropolis every time the church doors were open, always with several of her children in tow. When Mrs.. Micheaux began to "get happy" and praise God in discordant tones, her children would often slip out of church quietly while she continued receiving the Holy Ghost. Oscar’s mom would undoubtedly shout "Praise the Lawd!" and would encourage the preacher by shouting "Amen," and "Keep Going, Brother!" at key points in the sermon.

Sitting in the pew Sunday after Sunday, Oscar heard every sermon in the book. David and Goliath. The parting of the Red Sea. Lot’s Wife Turning Into a Pillar of Salt. The most memorable: the sermon on "Dry Bones in the Valley. " Micheaux included a sequence of a jack-leg preacher preaching the "Dry Bones in the Valley" sermon in his silent film Body and Soul (1925).

Oscar’s silent film Within Our Gates (1919) contains a scene which may well have come from Oscar’s youth in Metropolis. "The Lord has revealed to me that someone has stolen money from the collection plate!" thunders the minister. "God has told me that he will strike this sinner down to the grave if the person doesn’t come forward right now and put the money back in the collection plate! Repent!" he shouted. "Let’s all close our eyes in prayer while you examine your consciences," says the minister. Slowly, a man on the third row came forward and placed a dollar bill in the collection plate. Then a woman in the back of church came forward. Soon almost a dozen worshipers had come forward to "come clean" for taking money out of the collection plate!

A fire-breathing evangelist once came to Metropolis, and Oscar sat and watched the faithful shouting, speaking in tongues, and dancing in the Spirit. The church building became a veritable gymnasium, as worshippers flopped on the floor, shouted, and sang in discordant tones. Oscar shook his head in disbelief, and the white neighbors even filed complaints with the City Council in Metropolis about the unruly revival services.

Little Oscar didn’t mind church----what he hated were all the preachers and elders that his mom invited over to the house AFTER church. Mrs. Micheaux catered to the preachers and elders, in their prince Albert coats, feeding them after church before she fed her own family. There were times when little Oscar and the other kids got little to eat because it was all consumed by the preachers and elders. Food was scarce in those days.

Little Oscar quickly saw that the preachers his mom invited home were hypocrites, hogging all the food, and even making sexual advances to attractive females.. Young Oscar told his mom that one of the preachers was "being bad," and his mom beat him. The beating he received at the hands of his mother for questioning the ethics of the preacher was something he would never forget.

Oscar’s suspicion of preachers was fueled by the writings of Booker T. Although Booker T. was a devout Christian, he felt that there were too many corrupt black preachers. As Booker T. put in Up from Slavery, the black preachers were...

... in many cases ignorant and immoral men (who) claimed that they were "called to preach." In the earlier days of freedom almost every colored man who learned to read would receive a "call to preach" within a few days after he began reading...Usually the call came when sitting in church. Without warning the one called would fall upon the floor as if struck by a bullet, and would lie there for hours, speechless and motionless. Then the word would spread all over the neighborhood that this individual had received "the call." p.82

Oscar’s paternal grandmother was a person of mixed race, as was his Dad, Aunts and Uncles. Census records listed them as mulattos. They weren’t light enough to pass for white, but Oscar undoubtedly observed how lighter skin blacks were treated differently than darker skinned blacks both by other blacks and by whites. Oscar’s mother and her descendants were listed in census records as Negroes---not as mulattos. So Oscar had a very dark mother and a light skinned father with blue eyes.

Oscar’s mother ruled the roost, and Oscar’s father, Swan, said very little. The only time he really got angry with the mother was when she beat little Oscar for questioning the preacher. It was a matriarchy. Oscar’s Dad gave Oscar little practical knowledge, and Oscar felt his father had not shown him how to be successful in life.

Oscar’s main beef with the African Methodist Episcopal preachers was that they only preached "pie in the sky," telling worshipers to wait until the next world for any justice. One such preacher in a Micheaux film (Within Our Gates 1919) shouted: "Let the white man go to hell with his money and fancy job.... Give me Jesus!" The AME preachers seemed to blame whites for everything, and the cry of "racism" was a ready made excuse for any failure in the black community. If God wanted white people to have money, why wouldn’t he want black people to have money, also, thought Oscar.

The African Episcopal Methodist Church was a spin-off of the John Wesley-inspired Methodist Church. Actually, John Wesley himself was an Anglican. He sent Dr. Thomas Coke, a white Anglican priest to America to set up churches. Coke called a meeting in 1784 in Baltimore. Richard Allen, a black man, attended the meeting, but not as a voting member.

Racial tension seethed below the surface in the Methodist Church, then known as the Methodist Episcopal Church. St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia segregated its member, like most churches at the time. It was 1787, and the blacks were seated in a separate section of the Church. One Sunday the blacks kneeled down in droves outside of their segregated area of the church, and were forcibly picked up and told to move to the segregated section. Richard Allen organized like-minded blacks to form the African Episcopal Methodist Church in 1816. And the denomination still thrives today.

Oscar had 3 older brothers---W.O., Lawrence and Finis. They often excluded him from activities that the "big boys" engaged in such as hunting. Oh how he longed to join the brothers in hunting wild game. Little Oscar would watch in starry-eyed amazement when the big boys would return from their hunting expeditions with jackrabbits, quail, and even an occasional deer. The Micheaux boys enjoyed hunting, but they also needed to hunt to feed the many mouths at the Micheaux place.

The family had a "truck farming" operation, selling vegetables of all kinds----carrots, tomatoes, lettuce, radishes, watermelon, pumpkins, and other products. They raised chickens, also. Oscar was considered the slacker in the family, complaining that it was too cold to work in the winter, and too hot in the summer. Oscar was a voracious reader, reading anything he could get his hands on. What would Mr. Micheaux do with his lazy son, who would rather sit under a tree re-reading Booker T. Washington’s biography "Up From Slavery," than do farm chores?

Mr. Micheaux had an idea. He would send Oscar to town to do the marketing of the vegetables to local shoppers. The precocious Oscar was a wildly successful salesman where he learned to flatter even the prosperous local women. They enjoyed a few kind words from the handsome farm boy selling vegetables Oscar quickly learned that he had the gift of gab, that he could sell things. "Mrs. Quante, would you care to have a look at our tomatoes and radishes?" said Micheaux. These tomatoes are the best you could get. They taste wonderful and were just picked this morning." he might say. Oscar learned to puff the product, to flatter the customer, and to look them in the eye and give them a smile and a wink.

Oscar Micheaux did well in school, but was considered an oddball for asking too many questions. In the tradition of Booker T. Washington, Micheaux wanted to learn more and more. He wanted to take on the world. He often remembered his mom’s admonition that she wanted none of her children to be lackeys.

Oscar always liked and admired Abraham Lincoln. This was evident in his novel Masquerade (1947), and also by the fact that portraits of Lincoln were placed in the background on Micheaux’s movie sets. According to family legend, Oscar’s grandparents once met the Great Emancipator. While an alleged meeting between Lincoln and the Micheaux family is part of the family oral history, could it have happened? Lincoln died in 1865, and the Micheaux’s were slaves in Kentucky in 1865. Would a slave had received the opportunity to meet a famous politician? One would think it would be unlikely. However, the mere fact that this rumor persists in the family history at least shows how much the family held Lincoln in high esteem.

What are we going to with Oscar? This question seemed to face Oscar’s school, his family and his church. He was intelligent, but asked to many questions. He was a rebel, a gadfly. Some said he was lazy, and that he didn’t pay attention in church. In fact, he was bored with school and church both, and was a dreamer---a day dreamer. His peers in school didn’t like him. While the other kids played at recess, Oscar would play the role of the loner, reading a book on history or geography, sitting Indian-style in the grass while the other children played. "I can’t wait to get out of Metropolis," he probably said many times.

Oscar’s older brothers---W.O., Lawrence and Finis, had no future in Metropolis, Illinois. What were they to do? W.O. had quit school and became a waiter. Lawrence, the second oldest, couldn’t make any money helping on the family farm, so he became a butcher. Finis still helped on the farm, but there was no future there. The family was strapped in debt, and had little profit to share with the adult children.

The U.S. had recently declared War against Spain, and President Roosevelt was organizing his "Rough Riders," to go to Cuba. The two brothers above Oscar, Lawrence and Finis, heard about a colored regiment of volunteer soldiers that was being organized to serve in Cuba in the effort. The brothers discussed the opportunity and decided to volunteer. What did they have to lose?

Prior to the Spanish-American War, black soldiers, known as buffalo soldiers were mostly used in the West to battle Indian tribes. They battled the Comanches and Kiowa in the 1860’s and 1870’s and the Apaches between 1877 and 1886. In the Pine Ridge campaign of 1890-91 they also served with distinction.

Sure enough, both boys went to Springfield, Illinois by train to sign up for the army. There were Negroes from all over Illinois who patriotically signed up for service. Finis, the younger boy backed out and returned back to Metropolis from Springfield by train, but later served with distinction in WWI.

Lawrence joined Company C of the 8th Illinois Infantry, and was off for Cuba. He, along with 2,000 black troopers, fought their way through the hot, steamy jungles of Cuba, and played a key role in the key battles of the war. The efforts of the Buffalo Soldiers in Cuba was a large source of pride within the African American community.

Four months after the famed battle of San Juan Hill, Oscar’s brother, Lawrence, like so many soldiers in the conflict, laid in a makeshift hospital in San Luis, Cuba, dying of typhoid fever. Like the casualties in the Civil War, most of the deaths in the Spanish-American war were due to disease. He died on October 12, 1898.

Oscar was always proud of his older brother who fought with Teddy Roosevelt at San Juan Hill. Less than 25 years after the Civil War, one of the Micheaux’s had given his life for a country that had done little for them. In Within Our Gates (1919) Dr. Vivian mentions the heroism of the African-American soldiers in Cuba. Micheaux was undoubtedly tipping his hat to his older brother Lawrence in that film sequence.

The Buffalo Soldiers never stood taller than when Lt. Co. Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders stormed San Juan Hill. Historian Edward Van Zile Scott says the black soldiers were more responsible for the US victory than any other group of soldiers. Teddy Roosevelt claimed the credit, but it is doubtful that he would have been as successful without soldiers like Lawrence Micheaux, a 5’11’’ butcher from Metropolis, Illinois.

Oscar Micheaux’s grandmother, Melvina Micheaux, had a tough life. She was born in Alabama and was later sold to a plantation owner in Kentucky. Growing up on a plantation in Alabama was extremely difficult for most slaves, as the further south one got, the rougher the Masters were on the slaves

One day on the Micheaux plantation in Graves County, Kentucky, she suffered a trauma she would never get over. Melvina worked side by side on the Micheaux plantation with her husband, David Micheaux. They had five children, Calvin Swan, William, Andrew, and Harriet. Even in the cruel institution of slavery, they had a tight knight family. However, her husband, David Micheaux (Oscar’s grandfather) was sold to Texas slaveowners, never to be seen again. To this day, the finest genealogist haven’t been able to find out what ever happened to Oscar’s grandfather.

In 1878, six years before Oscar Micheaux was born Melvina, and the whole Micheaux family was tired of living just a couple of miles from the confederacy. Not much had changed, even though slavery was abolished. It was still a hand-to-mouth existence.

Word spread in the black community about an opportunity to move to Kansas and obtain a homestead of 160 acres. Kansas meant something highly specific to former slaves. As historian Nell Painter stated, Kansas was a free state in the way that Illinois or other states were not. Considerable blood was shed in Kansas in the period of 1854-1859 in the era known as "Bleeding Kansas." Kansas was land of John Brown! Kansas could be a utopia for blacks who realized after 20 years of reconstruction that the sharecropper system that had replaced slavery was nothing more than warmed over slavery. A hysteria swept the black community. Letters would be read in Church from Exodusters who had already moved to Kansas.

There was an exodus of thousands of blacks to the plains of Kansas. Someone dubbed them "exodusters," as they were like the children of Israel seeking a new life on the high, dusty plains of Kansas. Blacks who were fed up with sharecropping, harassment by the Klan said "Why not move to Kansas?" What did they have to lose?

Word even spread that the federal government had set aside the entire state of Kansas for slaves! This rumor spread like wildfire in the black churches. Although the rumor was false, it fanned the flames of "Kansas Fever." The West was the land of opportunity.

Over 15,000 African Americans flooded into Kansas during 1878-79. The parents of Hattie McDaniel, who won an Oscar in "Gone With the Wind," were exodusters. Gordon Parks’ parents were exoduster. Charlie "Yardbird" Parker’s parents were exodusters. And so were Oscar Micheaux’s grandmother, Uncles and an Aunt.

It seemed that the whole Micheaux clan made the trek to Stafford County, Kansas in 1879 to make homestead claims. This wasn’t just 40 acres and a mule, this was a chance to own a whole quarter section of land-----160 acres-----free, thanks to Abraham Lincoln and the Homestead Act.

But one member of the Micheaux family refused to go. Oscar’s Dad, never a risk taker, decided that he and his eleven kids would stay in Metropolis. The kids were doing well in school, the family’s truck farming operation was going well, and Oscar’s Dad, Swan just wasn’t very adventurous.

In 1900 Oscar’s Uncle William Micheaux, by then a successful Kansas farmer, died. Oscar’s father fell heir to part of his estate. Deeply in debt, Oscar’s parents decided to move to Kansas in approximately 1901. At approximately that same time, Oscar left Metropolis to set out on his own, but his obituary in the New Amsterdam News indicated that Micheaux considered Great Bend, Kansas to be his adopted hometown---along with Harlem.

When Oscar Micheaux became a South Dakota homesteader early in the twentieth century, he was modeling himself after his Uncles who busted the sod in Kansas as homesteaders before he was born. His role models were his Uncles---not his father or brothers. Oscar Micheaux was determined to be the one male member of his immediate family to do "the conquest" of land---just like his Uncles in Kansas. Oscar, however, remained very close to his sisters. His mother and sister always remained close to his heart.