Mary Frances Berry discusses her new book

Her Writing is Powerful, Is True
Author and Civil Rights Leader Honors a Heritage

By Talia Whyte
Special to the BPV September 22, 2005

Mary Frances Berry, former chairwoman of the US Commission on Civil Rights, came to Boston last Wednesday to discuss her latest book. The event was hosted by the Museum of Afro American History and the Center for New Words. My Face Is Black Is True is the story of Callie House, a poor African American laundress from Tennessee who led the first movement to secure reparations for former slaves during the beginning of the 20th century.

"This book really was a labor of love," said Berry. "I found out about her when I was at a reception some years ago and a gentleman started chatting to me. The guy said that he met a 90-year-old man from the South who knew of this woman who lead a reparations movement."

Berry was intrigued by this woman’s works and started to do intensive research into her life. Berry wrote an article about House for an obscure journal and abruptly abandoned her research. She regained interest in House about ten years ago when the discussion about reparations started up again in the African American community. Berry wanted to bring historical context to the highly contested debate.

Callie House led a 30-year campaign to secure pensions for former slaves, which started with the creation of the Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty, and Pension Association in 1899 to also provide aid to the poor and the sick. House knew first hand the need for pensions to support former slaves left destitute and as a reward for blacks that served in the Union army. At this time the US government only provided pensions to white Union veterans and sought to compensate Southern plantation owners. Coincidentally as her organization grew, so did the ire of the US government. House and her supporters charged with mail fraud and subjected to scrutiny, harassment, and prosecution.

Berry got the book’s title from a letter House wrote to the government asking why it is harassing the association. "She didn’t know why they [US government] bothering them," said Berry. "She was puzzled. Poor people have rights under the government. So she wrote this letter to the government stating that ‘my face is black is true but its not my fault but I love my name and my honest in dealing with my fellow man.’ And I believe in the constitution."

The association had to change their tactics and filed a lawsuit arguing that cotton tax levied to go towards former slaves. The suit was lost because of government immunity. House would later be convicted by an all white male jury and imprisoned for her activities. Ironically she was incarcerated in the same prison with another famed contemporary, activist Emma Goldman. House defied the definitions of race, class and sex during that time. However, she is almost forgotten in most African American historical research. Berry admits that it was hard to find background information on House because the lives of poor people during that time were not documented.

"If it wasn’t for the government harassing the association, I wouldn’t have had such a great body of evidence which I could use," said Berry. "Not only was I able to do this because I was a historian, but because I was a lawyer so I know what legal documents to look at. If her letters to the government were not in those file, then I wouldn’t have been able to any information on her."

Berry also notes that House’s absence from history may also be due to the African American community’s inclination to celebrate other blacks of a certain class and respectability.

"For years in the African American community we like to write about people who W.E.B. Dubois would call the ‘talented tenth,’" said Berry. "These were well educated, respectable people. Callie House was not respected; she was a troublemaker. She was a woman who left her children in the care of her brother. She didn’t care about what people said about her. She didn’t have the respectability at that time that historians wanted to talk about."

Now that times and sensibilities have changed Berry hopes there will now be resurgence in learning about House’s life.

"African Americans should give praise to this woman," said Berry. "This woman’s legacy lives on…She gave her heart and soul to this movement and it was worth the sacrifice."