by Herb Frazier
That struggle would be violent; death on both sides would inevitably result because the master class would certainly oppose black freedom at every turn. The racial apocalypse Vesey envisioned was justified by the Holy Scriptures, which often showed common people used as the instruments of God’s retributive justice. As in Haiti, Vesey believed that once the insurrection began, the forces of liberation could not afford to be squeamish in dealing with enemies who had proven to be most deadly in the past—for their own safety. Vesey and his chief lieutenants espoused these lessons as they persuaded or cajoled others to support an audacious bid for freedom, often under the cover of class meetings, prayer meetings, or other gatherings connected to the African church.9
On that tragic evening of June 17, 2015, another prayer meeting was held at Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church—but its composition, tenor, and circumstances were wholly different from Vesey’s meetings. Vesey’s were illegal and usually clandestine gatherings that could have been dispersed by authorities wielding corporal punishment for the blatant threat they posed to white supremacy. Vesey’s meetings were also exclusively male, which made their potential threat even greater. His teachings relied on the Old Testament and a God of judgment, justice, and physical deliverance, providing the means for black people to gain freedom and control over their own bodies.10 How different was the scene in Emanuel’s modern and spacious fellowship hall: only a small number were gathered, but their grandest wish was for the multitudes to come and hear the good news of the gospel proclaimed, to study and discuss it so their souls might be saved. Most of the attendees were women, which was not at all unusual, particularly for the modern church. Prayer meetings were public gatherings that broke no laws; the participants had every expectation of safety in God’s house.
That night’s lesson was drawn from the New Testament, based on the fourth chapter of Mark’s gospel. The verses in that reading devoted to the parable of the sower are particularly relevant for understanding the events of that evening. Here the scriptures explain why God’s Word had a differential effect on its hearers. Using the metaphor of the farmer who casts seeds to represent the person who preached God’s Word, sometimes the words fell on fallow ground, germinated readily, and produced lives of deep devotion to Christ, manifested in good works toward others. Even the most cursory examination of the lives of the Emanuel Nine show their special receptivity to both the spiritual and secular missions of the church. But the same passage also warns that after the word had been preached, to some “Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts” (Mark 4:15 KJV). Other times the hearts of men are like “stony ground” (v. 16 KJV). Other hearers prefer “riches” and “other things” of this world, and their “lusts” for them “choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful” (v. 19 KJV).
Dylann Roof was in the latter group. He came to the meeting under the guise of a fellow sinner seeking salvation through God’s grace. Even though white and a stranger, he was welcomed into the fold. After an hour he stood up; for a split second Roof hesitated to attack people who, by his own admission, were “so nice to him.”11 But his ultimate goal to start a race war failed, just as Vesey’s bloody apocalyptic vision remained unfulfilled.
Denmark Vesey’s insurrectionary scheme was formulated with the assistance of several principal African and black Carolinian organizers and was originally scheduled to begin on the night of Sunday, July 14, 1822. Sunday was a logical choice because it was the day of the week that most slaves were free from their daily labor routine. Many came to the city to attend church services, to visit friends, or to recreate, so it would not have been unusual to find rural slaves present in large numbers.12 The plan was to organize several cadres of slaves, in Charleston and the surrounding area, who would converge on the city under the cover of darkness. Once the city guards were overpowered, they would further arm themselves with weapons taken from local arsenals and set fires at strategic locations around the city. When white citizens joined with the local militias to quell the disorders, they all were to be engaged in battle in the streets and alleyways of Charleston. The strategy was to create enough chaos and to strike such a fearsome blow against white Charleston to enable the insurrectionists and their supporters to reach the docks, board ships, and achieve the ultimate goal of sailing off to Haiti, the world’s singular bastion of black liberation. Vesey seemed not to have any expectation that this single episode would end slavery in the state. He planned for as many people as possible to stage a grand “exodus” from the American “Egypt.”13
Many of the details are still murky, but Vesey expected that the Haitians would provide the rebels assistance in some form once the insurrection began. After all, Vesey had been enslaved there, and Haiti’s reputation as a source of revolutionary ferment was well-known in Atlantic port cities; Charleston had become home to many who fled the country during the long and bloody rebellion. Vesey pledged to correspond with the Haitian government—with help from black sailors on Charleston ships that sailed between the two countries—to determine what might be possible. As part of the plan, Vesey warned his followers to make sure they did not kill the ships’ captains because their skills would be necessary to effect the escape plan.14
Every effort was made to maintain the secrecy of his plot so the conspirators could preserve the advantage of a surprise attack. So, for example, the principal organizers agreed not to inform Morris Brown and some of the other mainstream leaders in the African Church of the arrangements. Their assumption was that Brown and those like him would never accept a radical plan of liberation that involved violence and, if informed, might even feel compelled to notify officials. In the end they could not prevent word from reaching officials. In late May, after a slave was informed of the plan but refused to join, the knowledge of what was about to happen proved too burdensome for him, so he told his master, who promptly notified officials. Once an investigation began, Vesey moved up the date for the rebellion by a full month, to Sunday evening, June 16. But it was too late—arrests, court proceedings, and convictions ensued. For a while it seemed that Vesey had escaped, but he was eventually captured. Altogether there were 131 arrests; Vesey was executed along with thirty-four others, and thirty-seven conspirators were sentenced to transportation outside the state under the pain of death upon return. Although it is likely that Morris Brown knew nothing of the conspiracy, as the pastor of the African Church, he fell under suspicion, and in this volatile atmosphere he fled the city to take refuge in Philadelphia.15
After the punishments were meted out, other actions were taken to make Charleston more secure against any similar future threats. The African Church was heavily involved in the conspiracy, and at least 60 percent of those executed were from among its ranks. As a clear source of subversive ideas, the church building was destroyed by order of city authorities, and the congregation scattered as a result.16 In South Carolina free blacks had long been the objects of white misgivings; Denmark Vesey’s actions confirmed the need for greater repression against this population. In the fall of 1822, a group of white Charlestonians petitioned the state legislature and stated that “although the immediate danger has passed,” unless something was done quickly and decisively, “a series of the most appalling distresses” would soon follow.17
By December the state legislature responded to white fears with new laws. Now free blacks were required to pay new taxes annually, and males over fifteen years of age were required to have white guardians who could vouch for their respectability. One of the most effective ways to assert control over free blacks was to limit their ability to travel. Until this time free blacks had traveled to and from the state easily, but now the law prohibited those who left the state from reentering it. First violations were punished with imprisonment and second offenses with enslavement. Such stringent policies were necessary to ensure that free blacks did not abuse their rights by traveling to the North, where they might fraternize with abolitionists and bring dangerous ideas back to
the state. Charleston also required free blacks to register with authorities twice annually and to account for any absences.18 To minimize potentially dangerous outside influences on black Carolinians, the legislature passed the Negro Seaman Acts in 1822 and 1823. According to their provisions, black crew members from ships docking in the port were required to report to the municipal jail, where they were confined for the duration of the vessel’s stay in the city. During the period of late July through September 1823, 154 black sailors disembarked at Charleston and were confined at the jail. Ship captains were responsible for paying the expense of their detention; if the fees were not paid, the free black seaman would be sold into slavery.19
Enforcement of slave law was the responsibility of Charleston’s city guard, which was reorganized in 1823 to improve its communications and operational efficiency. To ensure adequate protection for the citizenry, white Charlestonians requested that the state establish a more modern arsenal in the upper part of the city. An old warehouse on Boundary Street was temporarily used for this purpose. By the mid-1820s, though, a more substantial building was under construction and included an arsenal, barracks, and mounted cannons surrounded by a high wall. After the events of 1822, white Carolinians certainly knew that survival in a slave society required that white men who were skilled in the art of war be present in the general population. To produce this group, the South Carolina Military Academy, also known as the Citadel, was established at this location in 1842. Citadel cadets were responsible for firing the artillery shots that eventually led Union troops to evacuate Fort Sumter in Charleston and brought on the Civil War. They were also responsible for training Confederate troops on the front lines of the war, particularly those involving the defense of Charleston.20
Today the Citadel is South Carolina’s public military college and counts African Americans and women among its distinguished graduates.21 It is no longer located at its original site in the middle of Charleston’s historic district but was relocated to the city’s west side on the Ashley River in the early 1920s. Along the southern border of Marion Square, the site of the original Citadel building, stands a towering monument to John C. Calhoun, one of the South’s major architects of the pro-slavery argument and the doctrine of nullification (the idea that states could declare laws that they deemed unconstitutional null and void). It is the tallest figurative monument in the city. The old Citadel building, which still resembles a fortress, is an Embassy Suites hotel. On the south side of the building is a small historical marker, erected many years ago, explaining the significance of the site. It says the building “was first constructed as a two-story armory and fortress as a result of the Denmark Vesey slave uprising.” The marker is so small and in such an out-of-the-way location that the uninformed observer might never see it unless he looks very carefully. Similarly, the “Brief History” section on the Citadel’s website has no discussion at all about the school’s organic connection in its early days to the preservation of slavery and white supremacy; it’s not there.22 This omission, like so many others in South Carolina, represents the way the racial present is either still unreconciled with the past or just now coming to grips with it.
The best example involves Denmark Vesey. Among the black community, Vesey has historically been the most well-known and revered member of the African Church—the congregation from which Mother Emanuel is descended. Before his brutal assault on its church members, Dylann Roof traveled to many Lowcountry sites of significance in African American history, and we know his view of that past was a distorted one. He contended that slavery was a benign institution, that black men routinely raped white women and violently victimized whites in general. Where did he get these ideas? Did he know anything about the Vesey trial record, in which witnesses predicted widespread violence against whites? As previously noted, the timing of Roof’s assault against Emanuel is certainly food for thought; regardless, it is a tragic example of how the racist perversion of the African American past clouds our present.23
Charleston is a city where the past is on prominent display in the public square. Along the streets or in the parks of the historic district, the past takes on an immediacy through historic buildings, markers, and monuments. Only a relative few of these are reflective of the African American past, but the number is growing. As might be expected, the attempt to memorialize Denmark Vesey has been contentious and protracted. In 1976, when the Gaillard Municipal Auditorium was being outfitted, Charleston’s young—and still relatively new and progressive—mayor, Joe Riley, commissioned local artist Dorothy Wright to paint a portrait of Denmark Vesey to be placed on display in the auditorium, which is proximate to the original location of the African Church and oblique from the current site of Mother Emanuel. In the months before installation of the painting, in private conversations or through letters written to the local paper, whites ridiculed or denounced the idea of displaying the image of such an infamous character on public property. Shortly after Vesey’s portrait was installed, it was stolen—only to be returned after Mayor Riley vowed to have a replacement painted. It was then more securely mounted on the wall to prevent theft.24
In 1996, Henry Darby, then a high school history teacher and now one of Charleston County’s elected officials, organized the Denmark Vesey and the Spirit of Freedom Monument Committee to memorialize Vesey in Marion Square. The committee envisioned a figurative monument as an important step toward making black Charlestonians’ experiences more visible in the city’s streetscape. Marion Square was the most logical location because it is down the street from Mother Emanuel and directly across the park from the old Citadel building. The park is owned, however, by Washington Light Infantry and Sumter Guard—two private militia units that originated in the early nineteenth century—and they lease the grounds to the city.25
Not surprisingly, even with the mayor’s support, the Vesey committee could not win approval for the monument on the square. In the years the committee worked on the project, the usual detractors and arguments were brought against the wisdom of such a choice. The Post and Courier published letters (presumably from white writers) calling Vesey’s plan “a Holocaust” and accusing Vesey of advocating “ethnic cleansing.” The opposition of some was deeply personal. When Robert Rosen, a prominent white lawyer, supported the monument, he received a phone call from a colleague who told him, “If Denmark Vesey had succeeded in his plot, I would not be here.” Despite such characterizations (and with the city’s unflagging support), a site was eventually selected for the Vesey monument in the upper part of the city in Hampton Park. During the Civil War, this area was used by the Confederacy as a prison camp for Union troops; more than two hundred died there and were buried in a mass grave. After the war, black Charlestonians created a proper cemetery for these men and staged a mass march to the site; many believe it was the first example of a Memorial Day celebration.26 The park was later named for the Confederate general Wade Hampton III.
On Saturday morning, February 15, 2014, after eighteen years of frustration and hard work, the Denmark Vesey and the Spirit of Freedom Monument was unveiled in a ceremony witnessed by hundreds of bystanders. The African Church’s most famous member had finally found a place in one of Charleston’s most scenic parks. The text on the base of the statue speaks to the universality of the quest for freedom and situates Vesey’s bold, liberating plans in the context of the rise and demise of the African Church. Reverend Joseph Darby, a presiding elder in the AME Church, was one of the speakers that day and said, “Some people see Denmark Vesey as a dangerous terrorist, [but many more] see him as a freedom fighter. My hope is that this monument will add to the full story of our southern heritage.”27 And it will probably accomplish that purpose, although not in the way the Marion Square location would have, with the visual juxtaposition of the buildings where the struggle between slavery and freedom was fought.28
In Charleston—where the connection of racial histories to buildings and other sites has not always been clear—the most strikin
g ironies arise. Such was the case on the evening of June 17, 2015. After relatives of the victims (and others) began to converge on the church, clamoring for information, the authorities began directing them down the street to the Embassy Suites Hotel, less than two blocks away. Soon more than 250 people were gathered on the hotel’s second floor, where they encountered church officials and chaplains who tried to comfort family members as they waited for information on survivors—and they were waiting inside the old Citadel building. Imagine the irony: descendants from the African Church, whose church building was destroyed by city authorities, now being comforted within the walls of the structure that once housed and trained men who were responsible for suppressing their antebellum ancestors.29
Even after new, more racially repressive policies were instituted in 1822–23, the fears of white Charlestonians were never completely allayed. This was in part because white Carolinians continued to live in the midst of an enslaved black majority population. Then, in 1831, Virginia’s famous Nat Turner insurrection took sixty to seventy white lives and sent a shock wave of fear across the South, reconfirming the high cost of life in a slaveholding society. The threat of insurrection continued unabated, due to the rise of the Northern abolitionist movement, which denounced the slaveholding South in ever more strident terms. Northern white men, such as William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips, were among slavery’s most vociferous critics. So were the Grimké sisters—Sarah and Angelina—of Charleston, who renounced their slaveholding birthright and left the city for the North, from which they denounced slavery as insiders.
