Historian discovers Minnesota connection to Underground Railroad
"Up until previously, it was thought that the role was minimal, it was assumed that like you said, this was a place of refuge. But we also know that historically that there was at least some activity here in the Underground Railroad," Sieber said. "Just this past year, I have discovered that quite a major player in the Underground Railroad was previously thought to be further south down the river was actually here in St. Paul during the territorial years of the state."
That major player was Moses Dickson, a famous figure in America's Black history.
"He was a Black abolitionist, he led two secret societies that were founded out of Galena and St. Louis that were used to organize both free and enslaved people throughout the U.S.," she said.
Early research placed Dickson in cities along the Mississippi River. He's buried in St. Louis and helped establish a college there.
"But I found him here in territorial St. Paul in the 1850s operating as a barber, which we know is a common profession for folks working in the Underground Railroad," she said. "Previously before working as a barber, he was a steward working on the steamboats."
She shared newspaper clippings from the future Capital City referencing Dickson, leading her to believe his network of freeing slaves had vast reach up North, where his work was needed more than people might realize.
"I think a lot of people grew up in the North thinking that the Underground Railroad, once you get to the North across that line, that things are fine and good. But the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 really changed that. And the fact that regardless of how far you got into the North and into the wilderness, you could still be brought back to that life," she said. "We know that the sheriff at the time during those territorial years was vigilant about trying to catch folks."
Sieber will share more about the routes taken to reach freedom in Minnesota, while dispelling myths about the Underground Railroad, on Thursday night at the History Center of Olmsted County in Rochester.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Los Angeles Times
6 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Jim Crow meets ICE at ‘Alligator Alcatraz'
A few years ago I came across a profoundly unnerving historical photo: A lineup of terrified, naked Black babies cowered over the title 'Alligator Bait.' As it turned out, the idea of Black babies being used as alligator bait was a beloved trope dating back to the antebellum South, though it didn't really take off until after the Civil War. The image I saw was created in 1897, just one year after Plessy vs. Ferguson established 'separate but equal' as the foundational doublespeak of segregation. With formerly enslaved people striking out and settling their own homesteads, the prevailing stereotypes deployed to justify violence against Black people were forced to evolve. We were no longer simple and primitive, in desperate need of the civilizing stewardship of white Christian slave owners. After emancipation, we became dangerous, lazy and worthless. Worth less, in fact, than the chickens more commonly used to bait alligators. White Floridians in particular so fell in love with the concept of alligators hungry for Black babies that it birthed an entire industry. Visitors to the Sunshine State could purchase souvenir postcards featuring illustrations of googly-eyed alligators chasing crying Black children. There was a popular brand of licorice called 'Little African,' with packaging that featured a cartoon alligator tugging playfully at a Black infant's rag diaper. The tagline read: 'A Dainty Morsel.' Anglers could buy fishing lures molded in the shape of a Black baby protruding from an alligator's mouth. You get the idea. When I first learned of all this, naturally, I was unmoored. I was also surprised that I'd never heard of the alligator bait slur. Why doesn't it sit alongside the minstrel, the mammy and the golliwog in our cultural memory of racist archetypes? Did it cross some unspoken line with the vulgarity of its violence? Perhaps this particular dog whistle was a tad too audible? Or was it the plausible deniability? Did people (including historians) wave it away because babies were never 'really' used as alligator bait? It's true that beyond the cultural ephemera — which includes songs (such as the ragtime tune 'Mammy's Little Alligator Bait') and mechanical alligator toys that swallow Black babies whole, over and over again — there are apparently no surviving records of Black babies sacrificed in this way. No autopsy reports, no court records proving that anyone was apprehended and convicted of said crime. But of course, why would there be? The thing I found so unnerving about the alligator bait phenomenon wasn't its literal veracity. There's no question human beings are capable of that and far worse. Without a doubt, 'civilized' people could find satisfaction — or comfort, or justice, or opportunity — in the violent slaughter of babies. Donald Trump's recently posted AI clip 'Trump Gaza,' which suggests the real world annihilation of Palestinians will give way to luxury beachfront resorts, is a shining example. The thing that haunted me about alligator bait was the glee with which the idea was embraced. It was funny. Cute. Harmless. Can't you take a joke? Now here we are, 100 years after 'Mammy's Little Alligator Bait,' and the bigots are once again using cartoon alligators to meme-ify racial violence, this time against immigrants. Just like the title 'Alligator Bait,' the Florida detention center name 'Alligator Alcatraz' serves multiple ends: It provokes sadistic yuks. It mocks. It threatens. But most crucially, it dehumanizes. 'Alligator Bait' suggests that Black people are worthless. By evoking the country's most infamous prison, 'Alligator Alcatraz' frames the conversation as one about keeping Americans safe. It suggests the people imprisoned there are not vulnerable and defenseless men and women; anyone sent to 'Alligator Alcatraz' must be a criminal of the worst sort. Unworthy of basic human rights. Fully deserving of every indignity inflicted upon them. 'Alligator Alcatraz' cloaks cruelty in bureaucratic euphemism. It's doublespeak, masking an agenda to galvanize a bloodthirsty base and make state violence sound reasonable, even necessary. It has nothing to do with keeping Americans safe. Oft-cited studies from Stanford, the Libertarian Cato Institute, the New York Times and others have shown conclusively that immigrants, those here legally and illegally, are significantly less likely to commit violent crimes than their U.S.-born neighbors. If those behind 'Alligator Alcatraz' cared at all about keeping Americans safe, they wouldn't have just pushed a budget bill that obliterates our access to healthcare, environmental protection and food safety. If they actually cherished the rule of law, they would not deny immigrants their constitutionally guaranteed right to due process. If they were truly concerned about crime, there wouldn't be a felon in the White House. As souvenir shops and Etsy stores flood with 'Alligator Alcatraz' merch, it's worth noting that none of it is played for horror. Like the cutesy alligator bait merchandise before it, these aren't monster-movie creatures with blazing eyes and razor-sharp, blood-dripping teeth. The 'Alligator Alcatraz' storefront is cartoon gators slyly winking at us from under red baseball caps: It's just a joke, and you're in on it. And it's exactly this cheeky, palatable, available-in-child-sizes commodification that exposes the true horror for those it targets: There will be no empathy, no change of heart, no seeing of the light. Dear immigrants of America: Your pain is our amusement. The thing I keep wondering is, would this cheekiness even be possible if everyone knew the alligator bait history, the nastiness of which was buried so deep that 'Gator bait' chants echoed through the University of Florida stadium until 2020? Would they still chuckle if they saw the century-old postcards circulated by people who 'just didn't know any better'? My cynical side says: Yeah, probably. But my strategic side reminds me: If history truly didn't matter, it wouldn't be continuously minimized, rewritten, whitewashed. There's truth in the old idiom: Knowledge is power. Anyone trying to keep knowledge from you, whether by banning books, gutting classrooms, denying identities or burying facts, is only trying to disempower you. That's why history, as painful as it often is, matters. Remembering the horror of alligator bait isn't about dwelling on the grotesque. It's about recognizing how cruelty gets coded into culture. 'Alligator Alcatraz' is proof that alligator bait never went away. It didn't evolve or get slicker. It's the same old, tired cruelty, rebranded and aimed at a new target. The goal is exactly the same: to manufacture consent for suffering and ensure the most vulnerable among us know where they stand — as props, as bait, as punchlines. And no joke is more vulgar than one mocking the pain of your neighbors, whether they were born in this country or not. Ezra Claytan Daniels is a screenwriter and graphic novelist whose upcoming horror graphic novel, 'Mama Came Callin',' confronts the legacy of the alligator bait trope.
Chicago Tribune
7 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Today in Chicago History: Stoning death of Eugene Williams triggers start of 1919 race riots
Here's a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on July 27, according to the Tribune's archives. Is an important event missing from this date? Email us. From Halas to Hester: The 32 Chicago Bears inducted into the Pro Football Hall of FameWeather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago) 1919: Black teen Eugene Williams floated on a wooden tie past an invisible but mutually understood line that separated a Black beach at 29th Street from a white beach at 26th Street. White youths threw rocks at him, according to later investigations, and Williams, who could not swim, was hit and drowned. Although several people, white and Black, tried to revive Williams, a police officer at the 26th Street Beach was unwilling to arrest the rock throwers on the word of their Black accusers or to help Williams. Unequal justice proved to be the rule during the ensuing violence, until the four-day chaos finally was ended by the Illinois militia and a cooling rain. Williams is buried in Lincoln Cemetery in Blue Island. Vintage Chicago Tribune: Disasters!!!!! Crashes, fires, riots and more from Illinois history.1960: A Chicago Helicopter Airways chopper, on a shuttle flight between Midway and O'Hare International Airport, crashed in a Forest Park cemetery after one of its rotor blades broke off. The accident killed the two crewmen and 11 passengers, and was blamed on a metal fatigue fracture in the blade. The federal government mandated more frequent inspections of the component. 1970: Sears, Roebuck & Co. — then the world's largest retailer — announced plans to build the world's tallest building — 1,450 feet high with 110 stories. The Sears Tower opened in 1973, but was not completed until 1974. Willis Tower is no longer the tallest building in the world. But it's still a trendsetter as it turns 50 this 1,451-foot tower lost its crown as the world's tallest when it was surpassed in 1996 by Malaysia's Petronas Towers, and the American title in 2013 when New York City's One World Trade Center was completed. After decades of construction in Asian countries, it's now the 25th tallest in the world. 1970: A Sly and the Family Stone concert devolved into a riot. The show was supposed to be a goodwill offering, not only from city officials to the area's youths, but also from the band to the city to make up for more than one last-minute no-shows. Instead, the rock show disintegrated into a riot that injured 162 people, including 126 police officers. Thirty of those officers were hospitalized. Three young people were shot, though it wasn't clear by whom. Cars were overturned and set ablaze. Before its fury was exhausted, the mob rampaged through the Loop, breaking hundreds of windows and looting jewelry and department stores. Police arrested 160 people. 1982: Otto — a 450-pound gorilla who was the star of the 1976 documentary 'Otto: Zoo Gorilla' and named for disgraced former Illinois Gov. Otto Kerner — apparently scaled an 11-foot wall topped with electrical wires in an outdoor enclosure and escaped the Ape House at the Lincoln Park Zoo. He then lumbered north to the Primate House and climbed up a ramp to the Administration Building. He was sitting on the building's roof just above zoo Director Lester Fisher's office when veterinarian Tom Meehan hit Otto with tranquilizer darts. It took up to 10 zoo employees to place the gorilla on a stretcher and return him to the Ape House. Vintage Chicago Tribune: How Wrigley Field got lights and why Cubs fans had to wait past 8-8-88 to raise 'W' flag1983: After rejecting arguments that a permanent ban would be illegal, aldermen voted 42-2 to pass an ordinance — which did not name Wrigley Field or the Tribune-owned Chicago Cubs — making it illegal to conduct any sporting event between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. in a stadium that 'contains more than 15,000 seats where any such seats are located within 500 feet of 100 or more dwelling units.' 1993: The Smashing Pumpkins released 'Siamese Dream.' Singer-guitarist Billy Corgan told the Tribune: 'I'm writing albums for people of my generation, and if the rest of the world wants to listen, fine.' Subscribe to the free Vintage Chicago Tribune newsletter, join our Chicagoland history Facebook group, stay current with Today in Chicago History and follow us on Instagram for more from Chicago's past.
Boston Globe
a day ago
- Boston Globe
Kids still aren't going to school. Here are six big ideas to get absenteeism under control.
At that rate of decline, it will take another 21 years for the state's students to show up at their pre-pandemic rate. Related : Advertisement Is there any hope to turn things around? The Globe went looking for big ideas that might work. Here's what we found: Pay students for attendance Boston School Committee member Brandon Cardet-Hernandez has called for Think that's extreme? This approach has been The Detroit program, which officials recently decided to extend, caps out at $1,000 per student per year. That may sound exorbitant, but Massachusetts spends more than $21,000 per student per year; spending a fraction to make sure those students actually attend school could be worth it. Advertisement Cardet-Hernandez said it was missed opportunity to not use the state's federal pandemic relief funds on paying for attendance. Doing so would be an 'upfront investment' in the future of the region's students and economy. 'When we have young people who are years behind in literacy and math skills, is there an opportunity for us to think differently about our values and to create a financial incentive to grow those skills?' he asked. Related : Make kids get some sleep Tim Daly, chief executive officer of the education nonprofit EdNavigator, pointed to Sleep is a hard problem for schools to address — it happens when children are at home — but Daly had one idea for how schools could help: disabling school-issued devices. 'Sometimes when kids stay up too late, they're using the devices to 'do homework' but really they're using them to stream,' Daly said. 'Not only would [disabling them] prevent them that, [schools] can message to parents, when that goes off, it's time to go to sleep.' Some school-issued devices have restrictions on non-academic uses, but often those only apply on district internet, and committed children can get around them. Even if the devices are being used for homework, staying up late working on homework is bad for sleep. Parents can also restrict screentime, whether schools step in or not. 'The most important thing we need to do is help kids with their nighttime routines,' Daly said. Some districts have also moved high school start times later to better align them with adolescent sleep cycles. Advertisement Focus on the neediest students Lawrence Public Schools, a high-poverty district that serves large numbers of immigrants, has made major gains from its peak in 2022, when the majority of students were chronically absent. Its overall rate is higher than the state, but rapid progress has continued. As of March of this year, absenteeism was down to 21 percent, a 4.5 point improvement from 2024, and many groups — low income students, English learners, and Black students — have lower absenteeism rates than peers statewide. Ralph Carrero, the superintendent, said the district's Homeless/Newcomer Coalition was the key intervention. The coalition brings together more than a dozen of the city's social service agencies and nonprofits — housing, healthcare, transportation, food, and more. The members meet monthly to individually discuss every homeless or new-to-the-country immigrant student in the district and make sure their needs are being met, in and outside of school. 'It's not a formula, it's not a secret, it's paying attention,' Carrero said. The district has about 500 homeless students each year and many recent immigrants, so focusing on meeting their needs has a big impact on attendance. Get pediatricians involved Mary Beth Miotto, a pediatrician and former president of the state chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, encourages her colleagues to consider school attendance a 'vital sign,' just like blood pressure. Because pediatricians are not part of the school system, Miotto has found she can have positive conversations with parents without unintentionally invoking the specter of truancy. Advertisement Absenteeism is highest among high-needs populations, including low income students, who may not have primary care physicians, so Miotto said everyone in the medical profession, including ER and urgent care doctors, should be asking about school attendance. 'We can pour all the money into schools and teachers, but if kids aren't showing up, it's not helping,' she said. Restructure schools around relationships Hedy Chang, founder and director of the nonprofit Attendance Works, praised Providence's Nathanael Greene Middle School, which cut its absenteeism rate from more than 50 percent in 2021-22 to 30 percent in 2023-24, about equal to its pre-pandemic level. Attendance experts swear by relationship-building, as students have to believe people will miss them when they're gone, but just deciding to build relationships isn't necessarily enough. The school's principal, W. Jackson Reilly, 'reorganized the school so relationship-building was built into how it operated,' Chang said. Students are divided into cohorts, with a specified team of teachers sticking to one of them, Chang said. Each cohort also had classrooms close to each other. Related : This meant that the students were face-to-face with the same group of classmates and teachers, every day, rather than bouncing around to far-flung parts of the school. Districts need to design schools so relationships don't depend on 'happenstance,' Chang said. Robert Balfanz, the director of the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University School of Education, suggested bringing in outside mentors, such as local college students, for a similar reason. 'If you're a school with 200 or 300 chronically absent kids, you're going to have to form some partnerships,' he said. 'Get more adults in the school.' Advertisement Even tutoring, which can be hamstrung by high absenteeism, In some cases, incentivize through consequences Absenteeism has risen in every type of district since the pandemic, and in some places, 'negative nudges' could help, Balfanz said. For example, he said, many high schoolers play hooky regularly but still turn in the assignments posted online by their teachers so their grades aren't negatively affected. Some of those students might attend regularly if their grades were on the line for attendance or if the homework wasn't online. 'The benefits of being in school are more than just the assignments,' Balfanz noted. 'If I'm on a four-day-a-week plan and think I can skate by, a more negative nudge might get me to make that fifth day.' But he warned the approach has risks: if a student is avoiding school due to bullying, for example, punitive options might instead drive them further away. Christopher Huffaker can be reached at
