Hidden Black history now seeing the light

If American history is undergirded and defined by the stories of heroic and self-made people who have overcome great odds to achieve a decent life for their family, then Black history is American history.

We can look to people of color throughout history who overcame great odds to become rights-earning Americans, however delayed those rights were and still are. Slavery and decades of discrimination are not given the appropriate weight in measuring the impact on Black lives over history.

Carter G. Woodson, 18751950, is considered the founder of what later became Black History Month. Self-educated and the son of a farmer and later working in Kentucky coal mines, he learned enough on his own to enter high school at the age of 20, where he finished in two years and later went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in literature from Berea College in Kentucky.

Always an advocate for telling the stories of Black Americans, especially when he was denied membership to white historical societies, he established Negro History Week in February

1926 to mark the birthdays of President Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, a leader of the Abolitionist movement. Woodson’s history week came to be celebrated as Black History Month every February since 1976.

But history can be brutal and Black history is full of examples of that.

In “Authentic Anecdotes of American Slavery,” gathered from witnesses of slavery, we find the story of an 11-year old slave girl who was whipped to death. When authorities asked to dig up her grave to view the injuries, the slave owner woman found it to be an imposition. When it was determined that’s how she died, the law did not allow for prosecution or even testimony of witnesses, who may have been her mother and father.

Another story talks of slave owners selling young slave girls to white men owners to feed their lust. The anecdote recounts a woman slave owner resisting selling the girl to the man until he pleaded: “Miss G, I must have that girl. I cannot live without her. I pitied him and he offered me a very high price. I pitied the poor fellow, so I sold her to him.”

The Massachusetts AntiSlavery Society published the historical record of these anecdotes in 1838 and offered legal verification should interested parties request it.

Another case shows how a white woman raised a black infant given to her by a slave owner until she could not afford a fancy dress and then had her husband sell the 5-year-old for a dress.

Slave owners and wealthy landowners eventually made their way to Minnesota and Mankato.

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Christopher P. Lehman published the 2019 book “Slavery’s Reach: Southern Slaveholders in the North Star State.” The book details a long history of Minnesota business and political leaders inviting slaveholders to move here and buy land and start other businesses.

Minnesota existed for only the last 16 years of the country’s

246-year history of slavery, but Lehman details extensive connections and intent on the part of the state’s political leaders to recruit and attract wealthy southern slaveholders.

One slave owner actually lived in and represented Mankato as a member of the Democratic Party, which had both proslavery and anti-slavery factions. Joseph Travis Rosser made Mankato his home in 1859 after living in Virginia and St. Paul.

Even though he lost a U.S. Senate seat nomination, he ran again for Congress out of Blue Earth County but lost to another Democrat in the primary. His pro-slavery stances led at least one local newspaper to not even announce his candidacy. Other newspapers encouraged him to run.

He eventually left Minnesota when Republicans took over the governorship and congressional seats with Lincoln as the standard bearer of the “radical” Republicans. Rosser left behind property and unpaid debts.

In an unvarnished introduction to his book, Lehman notes it was not surprising the wealthy southern landowners and slaveholders looked for further investments in the north, but the degree to which political leaders recruited and encouraged the fact might be lost on most Minnesotans.

“Minnesotans and other northerners have forgotten their states’ complicity in the slaveholding economy, just as some southerners have denied that the Civil War was fought over slavery,” Lehman wrote.

History sometimes demands a modern-day response.

What communities can do to honor Black history can be what we do to honor mostly white history: Hold celebrations, walk in marches and parades, speak from the podiums of truth and commemorate byways.

We’ve done some of that in Mankato. A group of students at then Mankato State University held the first Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration a few years before it was an official federal holiday in 1986.

King made a famous stop in Mankato in 1961 where he gave two sermons at Centenary Methodist Church and a speech at Mankato High School. A local documentary was made on the 60th anniversary.

Mankato was the first city in Minnesota to name a road after Martin Luther King Jr. and the first to name a school after civil rights leader Rosa Parks.

For decades we’ve celebrated the Pathfinder Award, given to an individual or business that has been exemplary in acting on King’s principle of equal justice the official freeing of slaves. We can also recall and contemplate these dark histories and pledge our allegiance to condemning the evil that was and the evil that will be.

HOMETOWN: Mankato

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Atop the scaffolding on the Lake of the Isles Pencil, a bizarre monument to a downed tree that a wealthy homeowner decided to turn into a gigantic novelty pencil and host an annual “pencil sharpening festival,” where he welcomed a marching band donned entirely in pencil outfits.

“Station Eleven,” the most optimistic show about the apocalypse you could ever watch

If you’re a TikTok user, chances are you’ve swiped up to find a freshfaced man with a booming voice talking enthusiastically about Minnesota history.

What you might not know is that booming voice and fresh face belongs to Mankato native John O’Sullivan. His TikTok videos grow more popular every day (he even took 60 seconds while he was visiting with us to record a TikTok video about The Free Press printing press). He hits up breweries, the Minnesota State Fair, and even Gov. Tim Walz spent a few minutes with O’Sullivan during the pheasant hunting opener.

Here’s more from him. And if you’re interested in seeing his TikTok videos, he’s @oneminutetours.

MANKATO MAGAZINE: Let’s get right into it. What prompted you to start your history video brand One Minute Tours?

JOHN O’SULLIVAN: I’ve owned and operated Depot Adventures, a walking tour business, for seven years. For a living, I and my team of guides give three-hour history walks of the cities we love. When the pandemic hit, I was faced with a challenging circumstance: I was not able to deliver the product that made my livelihood. I turned to social video and started experimenting with the form. I tested all the platforms — Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch and more. It wasn’t until I found TikTok that I found my voice.

The creative constraint initially given by TikTok was that all videos be less than one minute. With my history of performing and tour guiding, I found I was able to cram a lot of information and enthusiasm into a 60-second clip. I turned my three-hour tour into 180 one-minute tours, and when I ran out of content, I kept looking for more. Two years later I continue to publish daily one-minute tours on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and more with my @oneminutetours username.

MM: Your videos have resulted in some notoriety. (We loved KSTP’s coverage of your State Fair history segments, btw.) Has that notoriety affected your location choices? Are people requesting your attention for various historical sites around the state?

JO: The notoriety primarily affects my day-to-day life, as I get recognized a couple times a day around my home. While I haven’t let it affect the kind of videos I make, it has occasionally made filming easier. Picture this: I’m a 6-foot-4-inches guy walking around with a camera pointed at his face talking to himself and his camera quite loudly. So when I wander into places like the Mankato Brewery (which I recently did) and get immediately recognized by the brewer, it makes filming a bit more comfortable.

MM: How do you choose the locations for your videos?

JO: I wrap my content around where my life takes me. If I’m driving down Highway 169, I’ll pull over in St. Peter and talk about its near-miss at being our state capital. If I’m walking by the Cathedral of St. Paul, I’ll pop in and do a quick video on that, too. What I’ve found is that there’s no shortage of fascinating stories to be told about the places we spend our time, so I arbitrarily pick a filming location, then start looking for an interesting story to tell about it.

MM: What’s the craziest historical fact you’ve ever stumbled upon?

JO: Minnesota sells its history short. Our own state flag advertises our state’s origin year as 1819 (the year Fort Snelling was built). The fact of the matter is, our state has tens of thousands of years of history, and it’s evidenced by incredible places just near Mankato, like the Jeffers Petroglyphs or the bison at Minneopa Park. When taking in our full history — including Dakota traditions — we can stretch our lineage back to before the dawn of recorded history. We’re all Minnesotans, and I try to tell an inclusive history that brings in every aspect of our society.

MM: You’ve traveled quite a bit and have lived in various locales around the world. What’s it like living tens of thousands of miles from your hometown?

JO: I’ve been blessed to live in Ireland, Wales, England and Australia. Each time I moved, I started over again with my social life. I developed a metric for “feeling at home” in a new place — I didn’t start to feel at home until I ran into someone I knew without planning it for the first time. In smaller places like Galway, Ireland, it took three months. In major cities like London it took over a year.

This brings me back to Mankato. I returned from overseas a year ago after 12 years. One would expect a town to have moved on. Yet when I walk around Mankato, I’m greeted by my old classmates, teachers, priests and colleagues that I haven’t seen in years or even decades. Growing up in Mankato gave me an experience I never would have had in a larger city — it gave me the experience of being a part of a community tapestry. Even 12 years away can’t take away my membership into this community. That’s something I feel whenever I’m in my hometown.

MM: Tell us about your family.

JO: I met my Aussie wife, Cathy, in Wales (as you do) then after living with her in London for a time we moved to her home of Australia and got married five years ago. Surprisingly, I’ve found an Australian who absolutely loves Minnesota winters. She and I just welcomed our second child last month, a daughter named Frankie. Our son Finnian just turned 2 and is loving the snow just as much as his mother.

MM: What was the best part about growing up in Mankato?

JO: My education at Mankato East High School was second to none. I had fantastic teachers and coaches during my time on the speech team, debate team and in theater. These people laid the groundwork for the skills I use every day in my job, and I wish I would have better appreciated it when I was there.

MM: Rumor has it you once interned at The Free Press. What was that like and how did you survive?

JO: I worked in circulation in the early aughts. If your paper was missing, my job was to wake up a sleepy paperboy or papergirl and have them re-deliver the paper. It was my none-too-veiled attempt to work my way up to the newsroom. Eventually I got up there for a few hours a week, compiling the weekend local news round-ups for “The Local” section. Sitting next to the police scanner, watching Free Press journalists head out to cover a story was my 17-year-old crowning achievement. I love the history that’s in that Free Press building, and I would find myself wandering the halls in my spare time, flipping through old editions of the paper and breathing the history of such a Mankato institution.

MM: Tell us something about you that would surprise people

JO: I’m a dual, soon to be triple citizen. Through my grandfather I was eligible for Irish citizenship and was granted it about 15 years ago. Through my wife I’m eligible for Australian citizenship and have been going through the application process since 2016. It’s a wildly complicated application process, but worth it for all the opportunity it has provided me and my family.