Last updated: June 8, 2024
Place
Heyward Shepherd and Pearl Tatten
NPS
For years, the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) searched for a place to memorialize the Lost Cause narrative of the “faithful slave.” In 1920, the UDC came to Harpers Ferry with the idea for this monument about Heyward Shepherd, a free Black man killed during John Brown Raid, to do just that. The UDC, with the help from the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), misrepresented the facts of Shepherd’s life to support their narrative that enslaved people were loyal to the conditions of enslavement by choice. As shown in the minutes recorded for the UDC national meeting, they decided to call the monument the “Memorial to the Faithful Slaves of the South” with the intention to tell the “true story of the relationship of master and slave”, a relationship that they considered to be “the object of cruel perversion by vindictive assailants” and something so strong “the power of love held the black man faithful to his task.” The stories on this tour and throughout American history provide evidence that this narrative is false.
After a decade of effort, they succeeded and set the dedication date of October 10, 1931.
Storer College’s White president, Henry McDonald, enlisted the college’s African American choir, led by Pearl Tatten, to sing at the dedication. Despite writing a letter before the event protesting the dedication, Tatten found herself listening to speakers criticize John Brown, justify the system of slavery, and praise the loyalty and faithfulness of previously enslaved people. When the time came for the Storer College Singers to perform, she stood with courage, faced the crowd, and protested: “I am the daughter of a [US] Connecticut volunteer, who wore the blue, who fought for the freedom of my people, for whom John Brown struck the first blow…We are pushing forward to a larger freedom…in the spirit of the new freedom and rising youth.” In Tatten’s case, resistance to inequality transcended generations.
When was a time you chose to be bold for the sake of justice?
After a decade of effort, they succeeded and set the dedication date of October 10, 1931.
Storer College’s White president, Henry McDonald, enlisted the college’s African American choir, led by Pearl Tatten, to sing at the dedication. Despite writing a letter before the event protesting the dedication, Tatten found herself listening to speakers criticize John Brown, justify the system of slavery, and praise the loyalty and faithfulness of previously enslaved people. When the time came for the Storer College Singers to perform, she stood with courage, faced the crowd, and protested: “I am the daughter of a [US] Connecticut volunteer, who wore the blue, who fought for the freedom of my people, for whom John Brown struck the first blow…We are pushing forward to a larger freedom…in the spirit of the new freedom and rising youth.” In Tatten’s case, resistance to inequality transcended generations.
When was a time you chose to be bold for the sake of justice?