John Berry Meachum, founding pastor of the 500+ member, African Baptist Church in St. Louis, purchased black slaves who were non-family members in the 1840s and 1850s. Meachum put them to work in his barrel-making factory where they could acquire skills and earn money to buy their freedom from him. He also built a school upon his steamship, which he moored in the middle of the federally-owned Mississippi River for black children to be educated. One of his skiffs ferried these students to and from school each day, education being illegal in Missouri after an 1847 statute was passed! Among his students was James Milton Turner, the first U.S. Ambassador to Haiti; the founder of black public schools in Missouri after the Civil War. One such school in Meachum Park, Missouri, was named in his honor, "J. Milton Turner Elementary School"; I attended this school, as a child through the 6th grade. Thus, I am a spiritual heir to the legacies of John Berry Meachum and James Milton Turner, whose bold and righteous efforts now empower me.
Did You Know? Free Blacks Owned Family Members as Slaves to Protect Them | Black Like Moi
Saturday, June 21, 2014
JOHN BERRY MEACHUM, JAMES MILTON TURNER, AND ME.
John Berry Meachum, founding pastor of the 500+ member, African Baptist Church in St. Louis, purchased black slaves who were non-family members in the 1840s and 1850s. Meachum put them to work in his barrel-making factory where they could acquire skills and earn money to buy their freedom from him. He also built a school upon his steamship, which he moored in the middle of the federally-owned Mississippi River for black children to be educated. One of his skiffs ferried these students to and from school each day, education being illegal in Missouri after an 1847 statute was passed! Among his students was James Milton Turner, the first U.S. Ambassador to Haiti; the founder of black public schools in Missouri after the Civil War. One such school in Meachum Park, Missouri, was named in his honor, "J. Milton Turner Elementary School"; I attended this school, as a child through the 6th grade. Thus, I am a spiritual heir to the legacies of John Berry Meachum and James Milton Turner, whose bold and righteous efforts now empower me.
Did You Know? Free Blacks Owned Family Members as Slaves to Protect Them | Black Like Moi