Posted on 02/16/2004 10:22:09 AM PST by Between the Lines
For half a century, from 1870 to 1920, a black man lived in Rock Hill who was a remarkable leader, admired by both blacks and whites. J. Henry Toole was born about 1852. The U.S. Census gives his birthplace as North Carolina and another source says he was born in Raleigh.
As soon as Toole arrived in town, he opened Rock Hill's first barber shop, which was for white men only. Each customer had his own shaving mug with gold lettering. No doubt this allowed Toole to gather much useful information from the town's business community.
In 1872, Toole was arrested with 194 others by Union officers and charged with being a member of the Ku Klux Klan. For 41 days, Toole shared a Yorkville jail cell with Capt. Iredell Jones of Mount Gallant plantation and Samuel Fewell of Ebenezer. He was not charged but the three other black men arrested at the same time were sent to Columbia for prosecution.
In 1876, the S.C. Democratic Party endorsed the Confederate hero Gen. Wade Hampton for S.C. governor with rallies and parades by white men sporting red shirts. Hampton was present in Rock Hill to launch the parade. The Rock Hill Red Shirts, a group organized to remove Federal troops from the state during Reconstruction, included a cavalry unit of black men led by Toole.
Toole was the only black Episcopalian in Rock Hill until the Rev. Edmond Joyner established St. Paul's Mission for Blacks on West Black Street in 1884. Toole became the leader of the Mission, which operated a Sunday school, and a trade and day school. The mission closed in 1921, shortly after Toole's death.
In 1894, Toole sought a position as Register of Deeds for the District of Columbia, but he did not get the job. Toole probably was attracted to Washington because he had a brother, Gray Toole, who was President Cleveland's personal barber. Gray Toole even had a room in the White House. Charlotte directories show that Gray Toole had two barber shops in Charlotte in 1890.
During the 1880s and 1890s, J. Henry Toole purchased a number of Rock Hill lots, losing at least two buildings to fires that swept off one side or the other of Main Street. Maybe this is what tempted him to open a barber shop in Yorkville in 1901, "under the Parish Hotel."
But he must have returned to Rock Hill by 1904 when Gov. D.C. Heyward appointed him notary public.
Toole was one of the founders of Rock Hill's first black newspaper, the Rock Hill Messenger.
When Toole endorsed the Rev. P.J. Drayton to be president of Claflin College in Orangeburg, C.P.T. White, editor of the Messenger, thundered against him. White wrote that he was voicing the "sentiments of every self-respecting colored citizen in South Carolina" who would rise up against the recommendation by a "Negro Democrat, a Ku Klux... ." Toole, calling the editorial "malicious slander" sued White for $5,000 and was represented by the Rock Hill law firm Spencer and Dunlap. White was defended by Wilson and Wilson of Rock Hill. The case was settled out of court.
In 1911, Toole sold his barber shop to Albert Collins of Indian Land in Lancaster County. The 1913, the Rock Hill Directory stated that Toole owned a grocery store at 101 Main St. In 1913-15, Toole petitioned for a black school and offered three rooms in a building he owned.
Toole died Oct. 15, 1920. The funeral was at the Church of Our Savior with assistance by the pastors of First Presbyterian and St. John's Methodist. The honorary pall bearers were Gilbert Greene, John Roddey, Ben Fewell, Henry Massey, Capt. J.W. Marshall, John Black, Julius Friedheim, W.W. Gill, David Hutchison, William Hutchison and Col. W. J. Rawlinson, all of whom were white business leaders, an indication of the high status that Toole attained with that group.
Toole was buried in Charlotte at St. Peters Episcopal Cemetery. Toole's first wife, Lucy, died in January 1893. He was survived by his second wife, the former Ella Mikell of Charleston, three sons and a daughter.
I don't know how to get beyond such ongoing reproaches thrown at one part of the country or another. One thing is to focus on what we can do now, rather than on past animosities. Another is to try to deal with questions of fact and moral judgments separately -- both are important, but each has its own place. I don't think most Americans are hung up on regional conflicts today, though. For better or worse, television and other media have made us one nation.
A country is a little like a team. We each bring different strengths and weaknesses to the enterprise, and hopefully the strengths of one member compensate for the weaknesses of another. Someone may be right today, but that doesn't mean that they were always right or will always be right in the future. The various parts of our country may come into conflict, but on the whole we benefit from our union. That may be hard to see today, because of divisive political issues, but over the long run, it's incontestable.
It was funny. Kids that were not even citizens yet discriminated against kids whose family dated back 400 years. Go figure.
free dixie,sw
I have visited both, but I don't know much about Boston or Atlanta. I'll say that in the 50s, I would absolutly pick any Northern city over any Southern one. It wasn't perfect in the North, but there were no "back of the bus" laws either.
BTW. I grew up in an integrated blue collar neighborhood in a Northern blue collar city and played with black kids, went to school and church with them, went through Scouts with them, had dinner at their homes and they had dinner at mine. Yes, there was discrimination. But there was no government imposed segregation that I ever saw in my city or state. The discrimination was in the hearts of individuals, not imposed by politicians.
If you are a conservative, you should understand the difference between how individuals treat their fellow citizens, and government mandating how they treat each other through anti-American segregation laws.
In as late as 1949, only 15 states had no segregation laws in effect. States outside the South enacted 23 percent of the laws that authorized segregated schools, 7 of the 12 laws that required race to be considered in adoption petitions, and 37 percent of the statutes prohibiting interracial marriage and cohabitation. California passed more Jim Crow laws than any other non-southern state in the country and surpassed many southern states. Also it was the only state having laws about what section of town one was permitted to live in.
Interestingly enough to make sure that the South has more Jim Crow laws than the rest of the nation, the border states of Missouri and Kentucky must be included in the South, along with the non confederate states of Maryland, Oklahoma, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. Without these areas it comes close to 50% of all Jim Crow laws having been passed in states outside of the South.
I’m the last person to imply there isn’t a vast expanse of history we’re never taught in school, because I know better. There are vast resources even the most dedicated autodidact will never breach. Millions of lives and perspectives making up thousands of years, and it’s all relevant. To that end, however, I’m posting here about caution:
At no time does this article (originally printed by a local history group) say this individual was a part of the vigilante group that was the Ku Klux Klan. If he was a business owner who didn’t want occupying forces interfering with his new business ventures, that’s another matter all together.
The subject heading used by the poster gives the impression of membership, and the comments continue as if they understood that as truth — even though the subject line does not appear to be intended as a statement. It is an interesting article, and well written, and neither should we assume it’s completely wrong, but it’s a local narrative; not intended to function a primary source, or proof. It’s better to be careful how we read things, especially when that reading might promote historical inaccuracies and mistakes of identity.
This individual was arrested with hundreds of others, including other black citizens and those of mixed race, including native. He was also released, along with hundreds of others. He later sued over the exact assumptive leap people are making here. This community, this individual, these events, and this time period can easily be researched, but none of those underlying facts are here. When reading an article like this, it’s useless for us to imply anything further without more research and an educated understanding of the context. It’s very easy to mistake the meaning of a single historical reference with no citation or resource, and many times more easy to mistake the character of events around the social, political, and economic chaos that accompanies war. It’s also a faulty leap to assume that the character or intentions of diverse communities and individuals over thousands of miles and many decades of time were not only similar in feeling or emotion regarding diverse topics, but acted similarly to each other, or to individuals you personally might have known a hundred years later. I’m not trying to discredit anyone’s commentary, simply advocating a minimal amount of academic caution when it comes to history, as well as any unsourced information, whether or not it sounds good or turns out to be correct.
Let’s see if anyone remembers what they posted here 9 years ago.
In this case, it doesn’t matter how long ago it was posted. The thread is accessible on the internet at any time to whomever happens to come along, and unfortunately, it appears to have begun a number of similar repeats of this woman’s story, growing farther afield from her own article and more involved and embellished with each telling.
The response was a general reminder to anyone else who runs upon this, or any other undocumented story, to check sources and be aware of implications and assumptions. It’s a valid reminder at any time. I’m sure everyone can agree, especially when what is being posted makes implications that would have been taken to court ... even 150 years ago.
Letting unfounded responses to undocumented stories go unchecked impacts not just the way we view history, but teaches others that it’s OK to not care about what really happened, whether it be something in the past or to another person. This thread, old or no, was a good place to point this out because the episode IS in the past and documentation COULD be checked, as opposed to a forum opining about a present even that is yet to be investigated and recorded. I’m sure that this person’s relations (and let’s not forget the original author) would be hurt by some of the allegations that can now be found on the internet attached to this story — posts which, in cases, can be tracked back to this thread. I’m not one of them, but I was imaging myself in that position, and I think it’s a worthwhile reversal to consider.
Valid point.
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