Ordinary and Extraordinary

 The nature and needs of a Black university must be based on an educational ideology grounded in an uncompromising goal of psychological independence from the oppressor (and his oppressive system).” Gerald McWorter

The title of Saturday Evening Club speaker David Scuphan’s talk was “Ordinary and Extraordinary.” Using a diagram known as a Purnett Square originally designed to demonstrate probability of particular genotypes and phenotypes (observable individual characteristics resulting from one’s interaction with the environment), VU biologist Scupham’s four variables were ordinary and extraordinary persons and ordinary and extraordinary times in which people lived. Thus, he posited that those most remembered for their influence on history have been extraordinary individuals who lived in extraordinary times. For example, the three U.S. Presidents considered by historians to have been the most influential (and successful) were George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, who guided the country at its birth, during the Civil War, and in the time of the Great Depression and World War II. Theodore Roosevelt once lamented that no great crisis had occurred during the Presidency that would have similarly tested his mettle and destined him for true greatness.

 

Professor Scupham asked the 18 of us tuned in on zoom to consider the life of “Free Frank” McWorter. He first learned about “Free Frank” from a highway marker encountered in Southwest Illinois not far from Hannibal, Missouri. Curious, he learned that McWorter’s mother, Juda, had been abducted from West Africa, and his father was her master, a Scotch-Irish South Carolina planter named George McWorter. Impressed with Frank’s talents and leadership skills, McWorter relied on him to manage one of his properties in Kentucky. Frank eventually was able to purchase his own freedom and that of his wife and several offspring. He designed a planned community that he named New Philadelphia, which attracted both white and free black residents. His home served as a link on the Underground Railroad, and prior to his death in 1854, Free Frank, as he liked to call himself, had purchased the freedom of over a dozen former slaves. Without question, Free Frank McWorter was an extraordinary man who lived in extraordinary times. Why then, Scupham asked the audience, isn’t he better known?

 

As the marker Scupham observed indicates, in recent years Free Frank McWorter is beginning to receive the recognition he deserves. His grave site in 1988 was listed on the U.S. National Register, and in 2009 the New Philadelphia town site was designated a National Historic Landmark. Researchers have donated 11 volumes of documents about McWorter and New Philadelphia to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Chicago’s DuSable museum recently held an exhibit in his honor. When my turn came to critique Scupham’s provocative and thought-provoking talk, I mentioned that Free Frank’s great-great-great grandson, University of Illinois emeritus professor of African-American studies Gerald McWorter, who goes by the name Abdul Alkalimat, spoke at IU Northwest last year during Black History month. He told students not to rely on their professors for enlightenment but to form study groups to discuss meaningful issues in their lives. During Q and A some crazy guy who always shows up at such gatherings rambled on about the theory that Black people (Moors) were the first Americans. Alkalimat, then 76 years old, deftly shut him up. Like him, I believe that history needs to be told “from the bottom up” rather than, as too often is the case, merely about rich white men, and that oral testimony should have a prominent place in the historical record of change over time. Interestingly, as Pat Bankston subsequently informed SEC members, the day after Scupham’s talk, the Chicago Tribune ran a feature article on Free Frank McWorter that included a photo of a half-dozen great-great-great grandchildren, including Professor Alkalimat, at the 2009 town site dedication.

 

I also brought up that former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass was a truly extraordinary historical figure universally recognized as such by historians and that another extraordinary person, Gary-born actor William Marshall, deserves a more prominent place in history. A Gary Roosevelt graduate whose father Vereen was a dentist and mother Thelma a social worker and peace activist, he starred in such Broadway productions as “Carmen Jones” and Shakespeare’s “Othello.” He co-starred in a TV series “Harlem Detective” before being blacklisted after marrying alleged communist Sylvia Jarrico. Marshall is chiefly remembered today for starring in the Blaxploitation film “Blacula” and playing the King of Cartoons on “Pee Wee’s Playhouse.” In later years he toured in one-man shows as Paul Robeson, like him an operatic singer, actor, and activist, and the iconic Frederick Douglass. In fact, he returned to Gary to reprise his Frederick Douglass performance for children attending Frederick Douglas School. How I wish I’d been there. William Marshall died in 2003 at age 79.

Sen. Mitch McConnell reminds me of former House Speaker (2011-2015) John Boehner (below), who tried to please both principled Republicans and Tea Party fanatics and ended up pleasing neither. In McConnell's case, the Trumpster true believers and conspiracy nuts will seek vengeance, and cynical sheep-like lawmakers who have kowtowed will never please them. To their leader, loyalty runs just one way. Ask Bill Barr and Mike Pence if you believe it ain't so.  As Boehner recently said, "The GOP must awaken. The invasion of our Capitol by a mob, incited by lies by someone entrusted with power, is a disgrace to all those who sacrificed to build our Republic."

 

Dean Bottorff commented: “Sadly, the debacle that masquerades as the Republican Party, with their failure to hold Donald Trump accountable has now updated the playbook for any future unscrupulous despot who wants to seize power. It's not a new playbook. Think of the Roman Senate in 49 BCE and the Reichstag in 1933. Sadly the next Donald Trump -- and make no mistake there will be one -- will not be as clownish, inept or stupid as Trump and may well succeed. Anyone who cannot see this potential is ignorant of history.”

 

In the wake of IU trustees voting to change the names of a classroom building formerly named for racist President David Starr Jordan (a eugenicist who favored sterilizing “inferior” peoples) and an intramural center originally dedicated to segregationist board member Ora Wildermuth (a Gary attorney credited with being the Steel City’s first librarian), President Michael McRobbie ordered an all-campus review of building names. At IU Northwest the only building not named for a plant species or geological formation (i.e., Hawthorn, Raintree, Moraine, Marram) was the John Wall Anderson library, dedicated in 2011 to a Gary auto parts entrepreneur whose foundation has awarded over four million dollars to Indiana University Northwest and even more to IU. 

Born on an Iroquois County (IL) farm in 1882, the inventive Anderson, who secured over a thousand patents in his lifetime, founded Anderson Company, known as ANCO, in 1918 after signing a contract to supply Ford Motor Company with manifolds and ignition timers. In 1925 Anderson moved his plant and headquarters from Michigan City to Gary’s Tolleston neighborhood and turned the company’s focus to replacement windshield wiper blades. Anderson claimed the design came to him after he was caught in a storm and his car wipers became shredded and were rendered useless. Childless himself, Anderson supported a Gary Little League program that produced state champions in 1954 and 1960, paid for a field with grandstands, and before his death, set up a foundation with instructions to fund Boys Clubs in Gary and elsewhere in the Calumet Region. Now named the Boys and Girls Club, this organization has provided recreational and other services for countless area youth.

 

Though not on the committee, as a Gary historian I was asked what I knew about John Will Anderson, whose papers have been deposited in IUN’s Calumet Regional Archives. I noted that my centennial history, “Gary’s First Hundred Years,’ contains this information:

On August 2, 1961, pickets from attorney Hilbert Bradley’s Fair Share Organization appeared at the Anderson Company, which had only three African Americans on its 1,250-member staff. One placard asked: “Mr. Anderson, Why does Gary’s FEPC (Fair Employment Practice Commission) tolerate your unfair hiring policy.”

Meeting personally with John W. Anderson, FEPC director Edward E. Smith, a former Urban League official, tried to persuade the patriarch to stop selecting applicants on the basis of recommendations from present employees. Anderson was cordial but noncommittal. Unhappy with the slow pace of change, the Fair Share Organization and NAACP Young Adults Council picketed City Hall, demanding public hearings. Smith ultimately took this course and secured an agreement from the company to accept an open application system of hiring. The Fair Share Organization demanded further action, but Smith declared that Anderson should have the opportunity to demonstrate his good faith.

 

Invited to the subsequent committee meeting, I stated that I did not oppose having the library named for Anderson and, so far as I knew, there had not been any opposition from community groups. I noted that Anderson’s original hiring policy, favoring relatives of employees, was, in all likelihood, not discriminatory in intent, and, so far as I knew, Anderson had accepted the FEPC’s recommendations. Since his death in 1967, the Anderson Foundation has funded organizations that have benefitted Gary greatly, both children in poor neighborhoods and college students attending IUN. The committee members appeared to agree and will touch base with local civil rights groups to ensure that there is no meaningful opposition to retaining the name John Will Anderson Library.

 

By 1984 Champion Spark Plugs had purchased ANCO and decided to move its facilities to Michigan City. A United Auto Workers spokesman representing the employees claimed this was being done in part to bust the union. In 2012, lured by the prospect of cheap labor and few government regulations, the company, now owned by Federal Mogul, relocated to Mexico. Had Mr. Anderson lived to see what happened to his family business, I’m quite certain he would not have been pleased. On the other hand, he surely would have been proud of the accomplishments his foundation trustees have made to Gary and the Calumet Region.

 

Doreen Carey informed me: “A side note to the company history: The former Anderson Company building at 11th and Grant in Gary also housed the D-Orum hair products company for several years in the 1990's. When D-Orum closed they left rooms full of barrels and bottles of chemicals that ultimately were removed with funding from the Indiana Dept. of Environmental Management. Under new ownership the property then became a massive truck junk yard where vehicles are stripped for parts. Sadly another clean up will likely be required if the property is ever considered for a new future use.”

 

A note about Ora Wildermuth, also one of Gary’s first teachers, whose letters vehemently opposing integration of Bloomington dorms recently came to light: the intramural center named in his honor now bears the name of IU’s first African-American basketball player, Bill Garrett. The former Wildermuth Library in Miller now bears the name of Carter G. Woodson, known as the “father of Negro history.” For a brief period it bore both names, Wildermuth-Woodson. I loved it.