The Fighting Editor
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18 responses to “The Fighting Editor”
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Good article. Very interesting.
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Fantastic Mr. Dick. I remember studying Mitchell in college. Totally forgotten figure. My 3rd great grand uncle, Captain Philip Lockett (14th Va Infantry), invited Mitchell to speak at a Republican voter registration drive in Roanoke back in the 1880s. Lockett claimed that Mitchell recruited that day hundreds of black men to the voting rolls. Mitchell was a cross between Marcus Garvey and Booker T. Washington in many ways.
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I am convinced that you are somehow related to someone who is connected to most of the figures and events of the past two hundred years of Virginia history!
By the way, Alexander examines Mitchell’s attitude toward Washington. One would have thought someone who was as militant as Mitchell would have rejected Washington outright. However, he was noncommittal.
Mitchell had a “dalliance” (Alexander’s term) with Garvey, even gave him a tour of Richmond on his Stanley Steamer. It was enough to get J. Edgar Hoover and his boys interested in Mitchell.
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If you look at Mitchell’s stance on self help, employment, and education he is clearly a disciple of Washington minus the accommodation views. I like him and he was always a part of my Gilded Age lessons plans for US History. His bank building still stands on the corner of 3rd and Clay Street. Buried in Evergreen Cemetery. I hope someone has cleaned that up. Overgrown mess when I visited 25 years ago. It is the “Hollywood” for important black Virginians.
You should read “A Black and Tan Reconstruction” by Halifax native Myrta Lockett Avary. Unpublished. A treasure house on the factions of the Republican Party post Civil War. A vivid account of Black and Tan faction versus the Lily White faction. All based on what happened in Halifax in the 1880s.
The Whitehead’s have been here since 1636. So, like the Lee’s, and the Carters, and the Randolphs we are kin to just about anyone with long toothed Virginia roots.
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Mitchell’s gravesite in Evergreen was refurbished about 10 years ago.
https://theshockoeexaminer.blogspot.com/2012/04/new-grave-marker-for-john-mitchell-jr.html
A major effort is underway to clean up the whole cemetery.
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Mr. James is by far the largest holder of history that I’ve ever known! I’ve said that badly… perhaps someone else can say it more eloquently.
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I agree. He is more personally connected to Virginia’s history than anyone I know.
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Fascinating. Glad to hear a story of personal courage, enterprise, and grace. And a cautionary tale of over-reaching: how a good man of too much spirit and too little prudence can end. The more and more oppressive society at the turn of the 20th century did not defeat him. He defeated himself.
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Fantastic article, history is such fascinating beast.
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What a fascinating man, and what a fascinating account. Mitchell deserves to be remembered for his heroic struggles.
It’s a shame that, according to current woke ideology, Mitchell should be canceled for championing whiteness in the form of punctuality, manners, diligence, etc.
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What a great story! Thank you for teaching me a little more Virginia history.
And, you’ve inspired my next bibliophilic mission. I’m going to try to track down and obtain a hard-cover edition of “Race Man…”.
I’ve been looking for a rare book to seek out since last Fall, when I found, and obtained, a nice edition of My Confession: Recollections of a Rogue by Samuel Chamberlain.
And being a local/regional publication, with relatively few copies printed, this one is probably going to be hard to find.
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I am happy that I have provided you with your next goal. That’s a nice hobby.
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Thank you.
My search for a reasonably- priced copy of Chamberlain’s memoir took more than a year, and the book still was by no means inexpensive.
I don’t know whether you are aware of it or not, but portions of My Confession… were the inspiration for Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian.
Mr. Chamberlain actually rode with John Joel Glanton’s infamous gang during their dreadful exploits eliminating Apaches, and pretty much anyone else who got in their way, for the Mexican government.
Searching for rare books that interest me is a fascinating endeavor. Among my finds are first editions of Kipling’s The Jungle Book (1894) and The Second Jungle Book (1895), and an early and rare printing of Cross’s English translation of The Russian Primary Chronicle (Laurentian Codex, 1953).
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Dick, you did a fine job on this. Thank You!
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Who knows more about the Richmond Normal and High School?
Was it State/local or private? Did it charge? Who could or could not attend.
No question in my mind at all, that the education this man received paved his path to life and his further accomplishments.
So how was he able to access that opportunity? Did others like him do so?
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It was founded by the Freedmen’s Bureau in 1867 to train Black teachers. When construction of the two-story structure with bell tower was completed, it was the city’s most imposing schoolhouse. The first principal was a Methodist clergyman from Vermont who served during the Civil War as chaplain of the 1st Colored Calvary. He installed the best modern school furniture, set up a science laboratory, and assembled a library of more than 500 books. The teachers, whose salaries were paid by northern missionary societies, were white women recruited from the North.
When northern money began to grow scare in the mid-1870s, the principal persuaded the city to accept the building as a gift and incorporate Richmond Normal into the public school system. It was never again adequately funded, but Richmond had a high school for Black students when most Southern cities did not.
When Mitchell attended, it was part of the city school system. There were no fees, but there were admission requirements: “the ability to write a fair hand, to read and spell with tolerable fluency, to pass a good examination in the whole of geography and in the primary grammar, and to be found thoroughly proficient in arithmetic.”
(Alexander’s narrative is my source.)
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Tsk. Tsk. Mixing government and religion….
Seriously, though, congratulations to Del. Scott.
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