by Paul R. Spitzzeri
The Homestead was happy to be able to supply a photograph of the African-American builder Charles S. Blodgett, a fixture in Los Angeles’ black community in the early 20th century, for the recently published The New Negro: A History in Documents, 1887-1937, an anthology edited by Martha H. Patterson, a professor of English at McKendree University in Illinois, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University and host of the PBS show, Finding Your Roots.
The work contains many readings over that half-century exploring the many meanings of the term “The New Negro,” also the name of a famous 1925 anthology compiled by Alain Locke, through divisions across eras, from “The New South and the New Negro” from 1885-1894 to those of Booker T. Washington (1895-1903) and W.E.B. Du Bois (1903-1916) to the Negro Renaissance of the Roaring Twenties and early Depression years and the later Depression period.
Professor Gates noted in the preface that the idea of “The New Negro” is “one of the oldest, longest serving, and most fascinating concepts in the history of African American culture” as it involves “declaration, proclamation, conjuration and desperation” and has been “a figure of speech reflecting deep anguish and despair, a cry of the disheartened for salvation, for renewal, for equal rights.” While the very term meant, he observed, that there was acknowledgment of a form of truth to how Black people in America were viewed, in negative terms, Gates also noted that it was a “rhetorical weapon” used “to counter, and ideally erase, the horrifically demeaning images that racists had crafted in a relentless effort to restore the hallmarks of slavery, by another name.”
Professor Patterson’s introduction commented that “The New Negro” was employed by those writing from an astonishing variety of views that were not just from purely American perspectives, but pan-African and internationalist, as well, while also on many points of the political spectrum. Images, she added, were not just illustrative, but “interpretive documents themselves,” with the Blodgett one striking because it showed the contractor with his all-Anglo (as far as can be understood) crew of workers at a building painting job.
Crucially, she concluded, “the New Negro/Black Man still demands a response” as the concept “repudiates, warns and, rallies as it calls on audiences to critically remember the past and summon the resolve to build a better future.” This sentence was striking, especially as the Homestead continues to look at how to commemorate America250, marking the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and how that foundational document has resonated through our history.
It has happened that, in the past week or so, and not long after Professor Patterson sent a copy of the work, some searching in Los Angeles newspapers in the late 1880s, the beginning of the era that the book covers, yielded some notable information on three Black figures in Los Angeles who, depending on perspective, may well be seen as a representative of “The New Negro” in a rapidly changing Angel City.
In late 1885, with the first writing in the volume being from a college commencement speech from that year, a direct transcontinental railroad link was made to greater Los Angeles, which helped immensely to develop what is called the Boom of the Eighties. A year later, William Henry Workman, nephew of Homestead founders William Workman and Nicolasa Urioste, won election as the burgeoning city’s mayor and presided over it during the boom years until his second one-year term concluded at the end of 1888.
During this period, attorney R.C.O. Benjamin, physician Monroe A. Majors and minister Jordan Allen migrated to Los Angeles and were not just highly-educated professionals in their chosen fields, but also activists and dedicated to the uplift of the city’s growing and diversifying Black community. Sometimes this involved significant conflict, often internally within the African-American population, and none of them stayed for more than a couple of years.
Their sojourns here, brief as they were, however, are fascinating on many levels and a series of posts under the heading of “The Black Pioneers of Los Angeles County” explores aspects of their lives in this area. Allen’s profession was not “pioneering,” as there were previous pastors in the city’s First African Methodist Episcopal Church, established some fifteen years before he served that position, but his approaches to his job and other aspects of his stay could well be seen that way. As to Benjamin, he was the first Black lawyer in Los Angeles and California, as well, while Majors was the first African-American doctor to practice anywhere west of the Rocky Mountains.
We’ll start, however, with Allen because this is how the recent delving into Angel City newspapers came about that then led to Benjamin and Majors. Namely, the search was to try and locate how the First A.M.E. Church’s property on the northeast corner of San Pedro and 2nd streets was obtained. Once it appeared that was determined (see below for that), more about Allen’s years here was sought out.
Jordan Allen (1844-1932) was born into slavery in Missouri, though there is almost no information that could be located about his early life, save for the fact that he enlisted with the Union Army in the waning days of the Civil War in April 1865 and did so from Kansas City, Kansas. It may be that his family, to escape slaver, headed across the border from Missouri to the territory that was embroiled in the Bloody Kansas period of the 1850s.
When a Kansas state census was taken in 1875, Allen, listed as a laborer, was living in Fort Scott, situated directly south of Kansas City and near the Missouri border, with his wife, Louisa. Soon after he was ordinated as a pastor in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The next year, reported the Troy Chief of 4 August 1876, the Reverend Jorden Allen of nearby Wathena, these towns being northwest of Kansas City and across the Missouri River from St. Joseph in the Show Me State, was listed as among speakers at an emancipation celebration specific to the West Indies of the Caribbean.
He soon took up a new pastorate in Lawrence, the college town southwest of Kansas City, and the Kansas Tribune reported in its 31 July 1877 edition that, as “Colored Methodists” were preparing for a festival in the city’s Masonic Hall, “Rev. Jordan Allen, their pastor, is a live, energetic man—a whole team within himself.” The Kansas Journal of 6 October in its coverage of the second annual state Church conference as one of the 33 elders present at the gathering. These conferences determined which pastorates ministers would take.
Allen then returned to Fort Scott for a period, then went back to Wyandotte, or West Kansas City, from where, in early October, he attended the fourth state conference at Leavenworth, best known for its federal prison, and conducted the day’s services. Within a couple of weeks, he was assigned to Emporia, roughly between Kansas City and Wichita and it was in that town that he and Louisa were enumerated in the 1880 federal census.
When the fall conference was held, however, Allen was directed to Quindaro, northwest of Kansas City, although he remained listed as the Emporia church’s pastor well into the next year. By March 1881, he was identified as being in Quindaro, though the October state conference resulted in yet another transfer to Baxter Springs in the southeastern corner of the state adjacent to Oklahoma.
It was here that we first see Allen’s involvement in politics, as, in early August 1882, he was named a delegate, the only African-American in the cohort, to the Cherokee County Republican Party convention in advance of the fall election. At that gathering, reported the Columbus Courier, the “colored delegate, made the best speech” in support of the reelection effort of Governor John St. John, but the Baxter Spring News of the 10th proclaimed,
The Rev. Jordan Allen not only made the best speech, but it was the most logical and consistent. The Courier might have gone further and said that he (Allen) was the most intelligent in the convention.
Yet, some controversy took place as the Columbus Border Star, in late July, interviewed Allen, said to be “one of the most prominent men of Baxter [Springs], and a [Republican] party leader among them.” It was asserted that the pastor demanded that a Black man be elected to some county office in the ensuing election, otherwise, he was quoted as stating, “unless the Republicans give us a position on the ticket the colored men of Baxter will refuse to vote for a single man they bring out, and I believe they will go solid with the Democrats.” Moreover, he was said to have criticized Republicans for their treatment of African Americans during a recent smallpox outbreak, including losing their jobs and not being able to provide for their families.”
When the Galena Republican, however, talked to the minister the following week and showed him the Border Star‘s account, Allen insisted “that is false every word of it and I want you to make a denial through your paper.” He continued that he would never say that Black man’s political principles were tied to office-holdings and he went on to exclaim, with obvious pointed language,
The colored people of Cherokee county are no longer like cattle, to be bought and sold at will be Democrats as in the past. Such trash as I am credit with saying simply means: Republican[:] “Colored citizens, what will you take for your politics[?]” Colored Citizen[:] “the nomination for the office of register of deeds. The chance of being elected to that office.
Allen remained in Baxter Springs and nearby Galena, which sits next to the Missouri border, but in late November 1884, the Republican of the latter briefly remarked that he “departed with his family . . . in answer to a call from Sacramento, Cal.,” while the News of the former added that “he will be sadly missed by the church here.”
How Allen came to take charge of a pastorate in California’s state capital is not known, but it appears that he was well-received and highly regarded as the Sacramento Union of 9 May 1885 reported that the women of the A.M.E. Church, northwest of the Capitol, threw a successful social and which “was made the occasion of a presentation to their pastor, the Rev. Jordan Allen, of a purse of $70.” The minister was said to have “feelingly responded” to the gift of money.
The perennial problem for pastors of an adequate income was further exemplified when the 9 October edition of the paper remarked that “a Pioneer festival was held . . . for the purpose of raising funds to increase the salary of their pastor, Rev. Jordan Allen.” The event was repeated again in fall 1886 with “the public generally, and all the old pioneers especially, [were] invited to present” and pay fifty cents a ticket. Several months later, a “St. Valentine’s festival” was thrown for his benefit and, not only was Allen provided those badly needed funds, but,
in addition to that the members and friends of the church presented to the pastor a $35 suit of clothes in token of their high regard for him, and appreciation of his untiring efforts in beautifying their church edifice.
Allen’s involvement in politics was manifested in a report in the Union of 29 October 1886 when at an African American voters’ meeting held in town, the pastor spoke of something “rotten” in the views of the well-known San Francisco Elevator, a Black-owned paper. He was paraphrased as stating that “it did not seem possible that the management of a paper supposed to represent the interests of the colored people would come out openly and advocate the election of the Democratic ticket, unless it was for a consideration.”
Allen’s stature in Sacramento was such that, in the fall 1887 California conference of the A.M.E. Church, he served as one of three secretaries, along with pastors from Oakland and San Francisco. Just over two weeks later, commented the Union,
Rev. Jordan Allen, who has been pastor of the A.M.E. Church in this city for some time past, has gone with his family to Los Angeles. He will be the pastor of the church in that city.
When he headed south, Allen came to a metropolis in the full ferment of its most significant growth period to date, the Boom of the 1880s, and his tenure as pastor of the First A.M.E. soon involved a major change for the 15-year old church, which takes us to part two, coming soon.
This post triggered me to reflect on the topic of racism, which I believe often comes from both sides – the ones who ridicule and the ones who are ridiculed. Therefore, both sides must be addressed to truly resolve the issue.
For decades, laws have been the main focus in promoting equality, making people cautious in public speech, hiring, and advertising. However, overreliance on legal protection has, in some cases, led to new inequalities, where certain groups benefit from overprotection rather than equal effort. True equality requires the same foundation and the same expectations for everyone.
History shows how respect follows strength. In the 19th century, Chinese immigrants in America faced severe discrimination, even forced expulsions. Today, the perception has shifted. When you are weak, your food and customs are mocked; when you are strong, they’re celebrated as cuisine and culture. Once, French was the language of prestige; now, more people are learning Chinese.
The lesson is clear: “Be strong on your own!” Real respect is earned, not granted. This mindset should be taught early and firmly established starting in kindergarten, rather than waiting until adulthood to learn about equality solely through laws. Children must understand that natural traits such as beauty, height, athleticism, family wealth are not achievements. Pride should come from what you build through your own effort.
In short, the path to genuine equality rests on two pillars: early education in fair perception and self-reliance to earn respect.