Isaac Murphy was, without question, becoming one of the most well-known and well-paid professional athletes in America. His popularity among African Americans across the South, West, and Northeast was based on their pride in his accomplishments on the track as well as his public persona as a moral, hardworking, and respectful young man. To numerous blacks, many of whom came from a similar background, Murphy represented their own potential to attain social mobility and economic power. African American newspapers such as the Indianapolis Freeman, Cleveland Gazette, Washington Bee, and New York Globe would publish stories about and interviews with the well-spoken professional, who was clearly more than just a jockey. Isaac's embodiment of late-nineteenth-century virtues and African American manhood made him into a race hero.
At Saratoga, Isaac finished first in eleven of twenty-eight races and was compared in the media to English jockey Fred Archer, known for his ability on a horse and his gentlemanly decorum off the track. In a New York Globe column discussing the goings-on in colored New York society, the affable jockey was mentioned: “Sporting circles in the city were excited over the fact that Isaac Murphy, ‘the colored Archer,’ landed three winners at the races at Saratoga on Tuesday,…the winners being Welcher, Mediator and Force. Mutuals on Welcher paid $101.80, and the colored jockey received a perfect ovation.”67 Of note here is the Globe's accounting of the racing public's response to the jockey's success: “a perfect ovation.”
During the thirty-three days of racing at Saratoga, Isaac and Lucy made use of one of the many rental cottages on the grounds of the resort. In fact, Isaac's friend and sometime competitor John “Kid” Stoval had also brought his wife to Saratoga for the grand spectacle of racing. Whether Lucy and Mrs. Stoval were accepted into the circle of the black vacationers and horse-racing fans who were frequent visitors to the resort town is not known. It seems likely that some members of the black petite bourgeoisie would have looked down on the nouveau riche as fraudulent and inauthentic. Regardless, there were plenty of activities for the two women to engage in that did not require membership in a situational elite.
A significant number of black New Yorkers and Washingtonians who made the journey to Saratoga Springs were members of the Grand Union Pleasure Club. The group was apparently formed in response to the exclusivity of white social clubs for the wealthy and those involved in the horse industry. On August 9 the club held its annual reception at the town hall on the corner of Broadway and Lake Avenue, with all the arrangements organized by the officers: J. S. Sears, president; L. A. Walker, secretary; and F. D. Allen, treasurer.68 The club acknowledged Isaac Murphy and John Stoval as two of the most prominent jockeys in the nation—a status that both men would enjoy, most important, within the context of the black community.
Overall, in the meetings at Lexington, Louisville, Latonia, St. Louis, Chicago, Monmouth Park, and Saratoga Springs, Isaac competed in more than 130 races in 1883, finishing first in 50, second in 30, and third in 15. More important, he continued to cultivate a new circle of friends among the fashionable in the respective locations. His success drew the attention of the well-heeled and well-groomed African American set, which would help guarantee the fulfillment of his plans for his and Lucy's future. For Isaac, it is clear that reputation meant everything, and everything hinged on his reputation: opportunity, success, and his ability to remain relevant in the realm of horse racing.
At the end of the 1883 season, Lucy and Isaac said their good-byes to the Frankfort community and to Fleetwood Farm. Even though they were only moving to Lexington, in reality, they were entering a whole new world. Both Isaac and Lucy saw themselves as middle class, if not upper middle class. Isaac had proved his ability to generate a significant amount of income, which increased not only their purchasing power but also their opportunities. They left the river town sometime between the end of October and the first week in November and headed southeast to Lexington; there, they would begin a new life together that would take them beyond the narrow confines of the black community. Lucy and Isaac must have realized that along the path to prosperity and happiness there would be those trying to suffocate the dreams of hopeful black strivers like themselves, who were educated and understood the basis of democratic capitalism: free market competition, private property, and opportunities to prosper based on productivity, trust, and honesty.69 They also had to be aware of the challenges imposed by the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional. In the New York Globe, Fortune responded to the Court's decision:
What sort of Government is that which openly declares it has no power to protect its citizens from ruffianism, intimidation and murder! Is such a Government worthy of respect and loyalty of honest men? It certainly does not enjoy our respect and our loyalty to it is the cheapest possession we have.
Having declared that colored men have no protection from the government in their political rights—declares that railroad corporations are free to force us into smoking cars or cattle cars; that hotel keepers are free to make us walk the streets at night; that theater managers can refuse us admittance to their exhibitions for the amusement of the public—it has reaffirmed the infamous decision of the infamous Chief Justice Taney that a “black man has no rights that a white man is bound to respect.”70
As a result of the ruling, private businesses were no longer obligated to serve individuals on an equal basis, as required by the act, which stated that “all persons…shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other places of public amusement.”
Kentuckian John Marshall Harlan, the lone dissenter on the Court, argued that after its ruling the constitutional amendments could not be expected to protect former slaves from persons seeking to deny them their constitutional rights as citizens of the United States. Of the Court's opinion, Harlan had this to say:
My brethren say that when a man has emerged from slavery, and by the aid of beneficent legislation has shaken off the inseparable concomitants of that state, there must be some stage in the progress of his elevation when he takes the rank of a mere citizen, and ceases to be the special favorite of the laws, and when his rights as a citizen, or a man, are to be protected in the ordinary modes by which other men's rights are protected. It is, I submit, scarcely just to say that the colored race has been the special favorite of the laws. What the nation, through congress, has sought to accomplish in reference to that race is, what had already been done in every state in the Union for the white race, to secure and protect rights belonging to them as freemen and citizens; nothing more. The one underlying purpose of congressional legislation has been to enable the black race to take the rank of mere citizens. The difficulty has been to compel a recognition of their legal right to take that rank, and to secure the enjoyment of privileges belonging, under the law, to them as a component part of the people for whose welfare and happiness government is ordained. At every step in this direction the nation has been confronted with class tyranny, which a contemporary English historian says is, of all tyrannies, the most intolerable, “for it is ubiquitous in its operation, and weighs, perhaps, most heavily on those whose obscurity or distance would withdraw them from the notice of a single despot.” To-day it is the colored race which is denied, by corporations and individuals wielding public authority, rights fundamental in their freedom and citizenship. At some future time it may be some other race that will fall under the ban. If the constitutional amendments be enforced, according to the intent with which, as I conceive, they were adopted, there cannot be, in this republic, any class of human beings in practical subjection to another class, with power in the latter to dole out to the former just such privileges as they may choose to grant. The supreme law of the land has decreed that no authority shall be exercised in this country upon the basis of discrimination, in respect of civil rights, against freemen and citizens because of their race, color, or previous cond
ition of servitude. To that decree—for the due enforcement of which, by appropriate legislation, congress has been invested with express power—everyone must bow, whatever may have been, or whatever now are, his individual views as to the wisdom or policy, either of the recent changes in the fundamental law, or of the legislation which has been enacted to give them effect.
For the reasons stated I feel constrained to withhold my assent to the opinion of the court.71
Harlan knew, of course, that white men would never allow former slaves and their children, whose elevation thwarted white identity and competition, to maintain a firm grip on the franchise of American citizenship. He knew the Court was wrong in abrogating its responsibility to former bondsmen and their children, who had not been allowed to complete their transition from human chattel to fully accredited stakeholders in the nation. The ruling accelerated the ongoing erosion of gains made by blacks through the Civil War and Reconstruction-era legislation, and it validated the sectional and regional abuses of blacks throughout the nation, and particularly in the South. Add to this the developing labor struggle between European immigrants and blacks, and it seemed that a race war was inevitable.
The Murphys might not have grasped the scope of the problem created by the Supreme Court's ruling, but they were not naïve to the fact that white men resented black economic, social, and political power. Clearly, Isaac and Lucy understood that their faith, patience, and resolve would be tested. They would need each other more than ever in the changing landscape of American race relations. Isaac's future success would be firmly grounded in his partnership with Lucy, who would help him build a wall of resistance against the encroachments of white supremacy. Although Isaac's talent as a jockey and his skill with horses, along with the wealth he had accumulated, insulated him somewhat from racism, it was his unimpeachable reputation as a man of principle and honor that mattered most. He used these attributes to refute and deny the lie foisted on African Americans in general and black men in particular that they were inherently inferior and obsolete.
The Murphys moved into their new home at 53 Megowan Street, a formerly upscale white neighborhood that, over the last decade, had become home to more middle- and working-class black families and single individuals. The Murphys purchased their home for $500 from Brigadier General Green Clay Goodloe (U.S. Marine Corps) and his wife Betty, who had relocated to Washington, D.C.72 The modest Italianate house featured “one large corbelled chimney in the front and one in the rear, Flemish stone courses in the walls, a brick parlor bay window,” and other architectural features indicative of middle-class wealth. The home validated the status the newlyweds sought to achieve in their new life together.73 Rather than the biblical prodigal son returning home, Isaac was more of a conquering hero. The professional jockey exemplified what Lexington's black community deemed important to the progress of the race, along with the success of local businessmen, educators, and political leaders to set good examples for its children. After settling into their new home and beginning the process of weaving themselves into the black community, Isaac was ready for the upcoming racing season.
To transform their new house into a home, Isaac and Lucy likely employed black labor and professionals to decorate and update the interior. They might have purchased furniture from Solomon Blackburn's store on Vine Street, or maybe from stores as far away as Chicago, Louisville, and Cincinnati, to match their class consciousness. The plastered walls of their home may have been papered by a local such as Daniel Carter, using the imported wallpapers of William Morris, the father of the arts and crafts movement, whose tapestries and carpets were popular among the middle and upper classes of England and America.74 Isaac may have purchased paintings by Edward Troye or Henry Stull or images of famous horses of the time, including those he had ridden in valuable stakes races. These images would be hung in the parlor or in Isaac's personal library, where he would entertain his male visitors, read, or just think.
We know that both Isaac and Lucy could read and write, and Lucy in particular seemed to enjoy intellectual gymnastics. Therefore, it makes sense that their home would be well-stocked with books on various subjects of interest to nineteenth-century intellectuals. Based on late-nineteenth-century tastes, Isaac's library would have been very masculine, with walnut or mahogany bookshelves, a curtain desk, and a reading table. He would have a set of leather-backed chairs for himself and a guest, and gas lamps made of brass, copper, or iron would have been strategically placed. The bookshelves would contain leather-bound volumes by Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Lord Byron, Washington Irving, and Walt Whitman, along with the works of Frederick Douglass, Edward Blyden, Phillis Wheatley, George Washington Williams, William Still, Alexander Pushkin, and Alexandre Dumas and a well-used copy of the King James Bible. Surely, a library such as this reflected Isaac's education and communication skills, which allowed him to negotiate contracts with horse owners and articulate his thoughts in interviews.
Lucy also would have been settling into her new domestic life. To what extent she was self-conscious about her transition from laundress to middle-class housewife and how long it took her to become comfortable in her new social role are not known. An undated photograph depicts Mrs. Isaac Murphy and her seemingly conservative nature and quiet disposition. Taken sometime between 1883 and 1889, the image captures her style of dress—a white blouse with a lace collar, small hanging diamond earrings, and a diamond pin through the neckline of her blouse—which clearly signifies her class status. Her hair is pulled back in the style of the day, indicative of someone who frequently wore hats as protection from the sun. For some, this was an attempt to keep their complexion from darkening, which could be detrimental to their position in society. Finally, the expression on her face is one of contentment and innocence. Nineteenth-century photography required subjects to remain absolutely still, so a majority of images give the impression that those captured in the frame were serious, stoic, or unhappy. But Lucy's eyes are bright and clear; she looks like a woman who is extremely pleased with her life.
The young couple became members of First Baptist Church and were likely involved in a number of civic activities to advance the community's moral development. Isaac joined the “colored Lincoln lodge of Masons” in January 1890 and was designated the Keeper of Values, a position he earned through his virtuous character.75 During the nineteenth century, African American fraternal organizations such as the Prince Hall Masons, the United Order of True Reformers, and the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows were involved in a number of civic activities specifically designed to ensure their community's adherence to moral uprightness, educational achievement, and economic opportunity.76
Along with the Murphys, Lexington's progressive black community included a number of doctors, lawyers, trainers, barbers, and shoemakers, many of whom had likely known Isaac as a child. Their status in Lexington was important, as they sought not only the benefits of being middle class but also the respectability gained by living among their peers. Unfortunately, by the 1880s, their Megowan Street neighborhood was undergoing drastic changes, becoming a typical red-light district with gambling, prostitution, and other unseemly activities. In his examination of the life of one of Lexington's most famous madams, Buddy Thompson writes that it is “interesting to note that the Negroes were not consulted in the decision to integrate their neighborhood with prostitutes.”77 Plainly, the Murphys understood that the value of their home was directly connected to its neighbors. Appearances were important to the young couple, who believed that racial uplift was mediated by individual efforts of achievement. Thus, their stay in the house on Megowan Street would be short, although they would retain the property as an investment.
Skill, Not Luck
In December 1883 Murphy began to be offered large sums of money for his services. The first such offer came from Kansas City horseman Edward Corrigan, whose fiery personality and confrontational style made him difficult to
work with. The Canadian-born Irishman had made his money grading roads, constructing railroad beds, and raising cattle on farms in Kansas and Colorado, but he fell in love with the sport of horse racing after losing a few races and a few hundred dollars to a Mormon gambler. As the story goes, Corrigan was supervising the building of “100 miles of the Union Pacific's Oregon short line in the Idaho territory” and “a portion of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad” through Colorado and Utah when he was challenged to a race in the latter state by a local Mormon.78 Corrigan may have accepted the challenge as just a friendly competition between men living on the edge of the frontier and for the masculine bragging rights a win would entail, or it might have had a deeper meaning for the man from Missouri, where Mormons were shunned and despised. In any case, given that a horse's performance was considered an extension of its owner's abilities, Corrigan's loss to his Mormon competition could have had a negative effect on his reputation in his home state, especially since their close proximity to the railroad meant that news of his defeat would travel quickly. To recapture his pride, his manhood, and his money, Corrigan sent a representative to Missouri to find a horse capable of running distances of half a mile to a mile. From Moberly, Missouri, he received the bay filly Pearl Jennings, which not only won back Corrigan's money (and then some) but also led the former granite buster to become one of the greatest supporters of the sport of kings. With Pearl Jennings at the core of his success in the West, Corrigan would say that he “made Christians out of all the Mormons in that part of Utah,” especially those interested in horse racing and gambling.79
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