This is an opinion piece I felt the need to write a little over a week ago. I submitted it to a local newspaper, but it has not been published. I still feel the need to share it, so I do it here.
Why are we having the same conversations more than 100 years later?
A lot of progress has been made in the area of civil rights and equality since Utah became a state 125 years ago, but in many ways, we haven’t moved beyond the same conversations.
While some may say and feel that we have overcome racist and prejudicial attitudes, unfortunately, some in Utah have not. Just this month in Utah, parents received permission from their school to opt-out of history curriculum that highlights the stories of Black Americans during Black History Month.
A Need to Share Their Stories
As a tour guide in Salt Lake City, one of my tours highlights the historic minority communities of downtown including Chinatown, Japantown, Little Italy, and Little Greece. Another tour features historic houses of worship that don’t belong to Utah’s religious majority.
While I love my pioneer ancestors and hold true to the beliefs that brought them to Utah, the stories of these other Utahns need to be shared as well. These communities helped make Utah what it is today, a vibrant, desirable place to live, work, and recreate.
Utah’s Black History
As I researched some of this history for Black History Month, I found that some Black men were part of John Fremont’s and Jedediah Smith’s expeditions exploring and trapping in what would become Utah, including James P. Beckworth and Jacob Dodson.
Of course, I also came across the slightly more familiar but still underrepresented stories of a handful of Black Latter-day Saint pioneers, some slaves and some free, who helped settle and build Utah.
I learned of Booker T. Washington’s visit to Salt Lake City in 1913 and of the memorial services held and statements made surrounding the martyrdom of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. One church to hold a memorial for Dr. King was the Trinity AME Church on 600 S. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. This church, listed on the National Register for Historic Places, opened its doors to its 19-year-old congregation the same year the Cathedral of the Madeleine opened in 1909.
The Same Conversations
Lastly, I learned of the 24th U.S. Infantry moving to Fort Douglas in 1896, the year Utah gained statehood. This military unit was primarily comprised of Black infantrymen. What surprised me as a I read articles from the Utah Digital Newspapers archive was how similar the conversation seemed to be to those still happening today.
In Jerry Craft’s 2020 Newberry Medal-winning book New Kid, the experiences Craft includes for Jordan, his main character, to go through reflect what Black Utahns were dealing with when the 24th came to Salt Lake City more than 100 years ago.
Members of the community who were Black wrote about the glowing attributes of the men in this unit as intelligent, having a “creditable appearance,” and being highly educated. In New Kid, Jordan feels that as he takes the bus to his private school in the suburbs, he has to be like a chameleon to appear non-threatening and smart.
In 1896, a local Salt Lake paper shared its worries of having Black soldiers here. The paper assumed that the soldiers would get drunk and be disagreeable for the community. In response, one of the soldiers responded with a letter to the editor to defend his unit. He explained that the regiment was among the cleanest, best-disciplined regiments in the whole U.S. Army and that many of the soldiers were intelligent, educated, and gentlemanly.
This conversation was national news. A letter to the Washington Post by a man from New Mexico, where the 24th was previously posted, mused at reading an article from Massachusetts about Salt Lake society being “up in arms” over the new assignment of the 24th. The man from New Mexico defended the regiment.
We Must Do Better
We hear stories from our Black neighbors regularly, if we listen, of them having to do just this, prove themselves when there should be no need. Why must the onus be placed on our Black neighbors to prove that they have these positive attributes or are in the right? And, why haven’t we overcome this as a society in more than 100 years?
This year marks 125 years since Utah became a state and since Salt Lake City welcomed, or not, a regiment of Black soldiers and their families to Fort Douglas. The conversation doesn’t seem to have progressed much in that time when people still feel the need to “protect their children” against the stories they might encounter at school of Black Americans. We can be better than this; we must do better.
Utah Black History Resources
- “African Americans in Utah” by Ronald G. Coleman; Utah History Encyclopedia
- “History of African Americans in Utah”; Wikipedia
- “Improbable Ambassadors: Black Soldiers” by Michael J. Clark; Utah Historical Quarterly, Summer 1978
- “Trinity African Methodist Episcopal Church (1890- )” by Monica Joe; Black Past, April 17, 2014
- Search Utah Digital Newspapers archive to find historic news article clippings including about the 24th U.S. Infantry.
- Historic articles about the Black community in Utah include those from The Broad Ax, a Black publication founded in Salt Lake City in 1895.
