by Paul R. Spitzzeri
After four years in California, including the periods of 1887-1889 in Los Angeles and 1889-1891 in San Francisco, R.C.O. Benjamin returned to Birmingham, Alabama, though much of 1891 was spent in the Southern states, ostensibly recruiting African-American migrants to settle in the Golden State, though it appears very little came of that ambitious aim.
When Benjamin addressed the African Methodist Episcopal Zion church in Birmingham in December he was referred to as a visitor and “presiding elder of the California district,” though he was recalled as “having practiced law and edited a paper devoted to his race” in the Alabama city . The account in the Post-Herald of the 11th added that “he is an author, eloquent lecturer, and is said to be one of the most scholarly men of his race.” Briefly, the paper noted, Benjamin “made a very brilliant speech, which was loudly applauded.”
Five days later, he appeared at the Sherman Republican League, named for Ohio Senator John Sherman, who Benjamin tried to see in spring 1887, but was rejected by the hotel’s white owner and comprised of Black men, and spoke on “The Relation of the Negro to Politics.” While he’d often espoused independent views, criticizing Democrats and Republicans, he blasted African-American Democrats as the type who would “curse his mother and outrage his sister,” a line that drew heavy applause.
He claimed Blacks in Texas dominated Republican Party politics there and assured his hearers that the same could happen in Alabama, which, however, like Texas, was mostly Democratic. The Post-Herald remarked that “he made the same republican speech that has been given to the negro for twenty years, except that he is now in favor of the negro being his own leader,” while adding that “Benjamin’s speech made the negroes who heard him bloodthirsty for politics” and “against the white republican.”
In March 1892, in the runup to the presidential election, as reported by the Birmingham News, Benjamin spoke at a meeting to support President Benjamin Harrison by the formation of a club for that purpose and wrote resolutions affirming the organization’s backing, as it endorsed the chief executive and praised his “bold, patriotic, humane and just statesmanship.”
The month prior, he attended another conference of Black residents of the city and was one of several speakers on behalf of a committee on railroads, specifically concerning the concept of “separate, but equal accommodation” for African-American train passengers. The committee asserted that “equal” was not being enforced and stressed “this is where the legal fight will be made” because “they want equal accommodation.” In 1896, the United States Supreme Court issued its Plessy v. Ferguson ruling, which affirmed the “separate, but equal” doctrine, which was kept in place for almost six decades until the Brown v. Board of Education decision.
The 20 April edition of the News briefly mentioned that Benjamin was to address a meeting of “the colored citizens of Birmingham and elsewhere” to develop plans “for the purpose of taking action to colonize in Africa.” When he launched his California project, Benjamin specifically rejected the idea of relocating Black Americans to Africa, but what cause a change in his thinking is not known, other than general comments concerned the continued anger over the ongoing abuse of Black people in the Jim Crow South. In the fall, he announced his candidacy for the Birmingham-area district seat in the House of Representatives, though there was no way any white Republican stood a chance of getting out of single digit support in Alabama.
Early in 1893, Benjamin was among the clergy ministering to the needs of 18 year-old Sam Smith, who was executed by a firing squad for murder. He also was the target of abusive letters from a woman regarding his role in a Black fraternal society called the United Brotherhood of Friendship and Sisters of the Mysterious Ten, though the specific point of contention was not explained, other than Benjamin said he “had to take a position antagonistic to certain members.”
Benjamin had his antagonist indicted and a public meeting of opponents of Benjamin led to the issuing resolutions condemning him for his “hate, spite and prejudice” as he “falsely, maliciously and unjustly” pursued the legal action. It does appear that the matter was dropped, perhaps in fact of this resistance raised against him.
In Chattanooga in late July, Benjamin attended a meeting of about 20 African-American attorneys from across the the South and, as secretary, wrote the text for a circular that called for the formation of local and national Black bar associations. What particularly galvanized the effort was “the lynchings, repeated murders, deprivation of civil rights, denial of citizenship, unjust discriminations, unchristian practices and a failure to enforce justice in different sections of the country,” as well as the “endeavor to right these wrongs.”
Asserting that “our rights have been trifled with long enough,” the committee of ten and Benjamin concluded,
The negro lawyer must either now become a serf or a free citizen, through whom the negro must demand his rights or get none. The sooner the negro race understands this the better it will be.
An October conference in the Tennessee city drew hundreds of Black lawyers and others, with Benjamin playing a significant role in the proceedings, including a speech of which it was said that his “wit as well as wisdom brought forth round and round of applause.” When the confab, which led to the formation of the Colored Lawyers’ National Bar Association, ended, he was the featured orator and his address, “Why We Are Where We Are,” was considered “one of the best ever delivered in the city by a colored man” as he played down oppression and cited the misleading of African-Americans by politicians, ministers and teachers, as well as “want of self-respect.”
He also took his newfound interest in colonization in Africa to the national level as he was part of an effort in October, as discussed in the Washington Post of the 30th, led by many of those attorneys in the newly created organization, to seek $1 billion from Congress for the project. The proposal was unsuccessful, with no such funding considered, and the colonization concept went unrealized.
Benjamin’s emphasis on Black self-sufficiency was highlighted in the Louisville Courier-Journal of 16 December as he spoke to a reporter. He was quoted as stating,
I have been almost alone for the past ten years trying to show the race that the solution of the problem does not depend upon how good the white people are toward us . . . [but] upon the action of the negro himself; and I am glad to see that the young thinkers of the race are beginning to look the matter seriously in the face, and instead of following in the rut of old political leaders, are taking a course of their own. The negro has all along been the greatest enemy the negro had to contend with . . . The white man’s apparent prejudice [more about love for his race, not the hatred of Black people]. . . is but another name for race pride.
Echoing the arguments of Booker T. Washington to a certain extent, Benjamin played down academic learning in the sense that not all African-Americans could be attorneys, physicians and teachers and that “a new era in the history of the race” would promote practical skills such as blacksmithing, carpentry and farming, as getting 160 acres and farming it was a laudable goal of “more common senses and less learning.”
He called for young men to leave the city for the country, as urban life led to poverty, crime and immoral behavior, but was also quoted as uttering, when it came to politics, “we have taken entirely too much stock in it for our good without understanding the issues before us, and now ought to exercise our judgment as good citizens, vote accordingly, and quit.” Given that he touted his higher education (albeit, claiming to have earned degrees at some four universities in England and the United States), lived frequently in cities, did not do much, if any, manual labor, and delved deeply into politics, these statements are remarkable.
1894 began with Benjamin indicted in a Birmingham court on a charge of defamation, though nothing further was located about it, so the matter may have been dropped. Whether the incident was involved or not, he soon pulled up stakes and headed to Alexandria, Virginia, where, in March, he published a pamphlet called “Southern Outrages,” in which he detailed the lynchings carried out in the South between 1882 and 1892, with a dramatic increase in the last couple of those years, while he asserted that these killings were generally carried out “to successfully intimidate the race, [and] to keep it in subjection.”
A review from the Concord Statesman in New Hampshire highlighted the fact that Benjamin culled his statistics from Associated Press articles as he seems to have “not trusted himself to write the history of these shameful events, lest his zeal for his wronged race should rouse him to misstatement.” The paper concluded, “nobody can read these brief summaries of horrible crimes without realizing the utmost of their enormities” because “the simple eloquence of truth is here” and “what an appeal is it!”
In early March, Benjamin rejoined the Black-owned Washington Bee in an editorial role, though in its edition of the 10th, the paper briefly noted that, while he was “among the most distinguished and logical orators and writers in this country,” a talk at the city’s Shiloh Lyceum on “Race Failures” was such that it “created a profound sensation.” What this meant was that “while his paper was full of truths, it was of such a character that did not appease the appetite of those who heard him.” Presumably, this involved his comments on African-American conditions and of white prejudice outlined above.
While later in the month, there was talk of a European tour, this was not undertaken. At the end of May, taking exception to references to race in a Boston match between a Black boxer and a white fighter, Benjamin wrote of the regular use of the term “darkey” for the former and “Irish lad” for the latter but noted neither was fighting for their respective races. He concluded “hurrah for Maher and the great American institution—color prejudice.”
Late August found Benjamin in Philadelphia, where the Bee profiled his lecturing and preaching while referring to him as “among the foremost men of the negro race” thanks to his efforts “in vindication of their rights and setting forth their progress since emancipation” through fourteen publications. Among his addresses was “Fools and other Folks,” which was said to be “witty, humorous and scholarly, exhibiting learning and deep research into every phase of human nature,” while he also delivered one on his “Southern Outrages” paper. The Bee of the 25th cited the Philadelphia Downtown Record as enthusing,
His lectures are every where applauded and hailed with delight, and well they might, for it appears that no living negro can so eloquently and vividly portray the wrongs inflicted upon the race.
By mid-September, a new home was made in Providence, Rhode Island, where, reported the Bee, “he has a lucrative practice in law,” a statement that was repeated by the paper two months later. By the end of the month, he assumed the presidency of The American Liberty Defence League, which identified its primary purpose as supporting Ida B. Wells “in her anti-lynching crusade, while also preparing to publish literature and statistics and employ detectives to investigate lynchings, “get the negro side of the stories,” and hire lawyers to defend “those accused of heinous offences” and “secure the conviction and punishment of those who participate in lynchings.”
At the end of October, the League conducted a street parade and meeting in Providence, at which Wells told the assemblage the lynching was rising alarmingly in the last decade and growing in the northern and western sections of the country. She was followed by Frederick Douglass, who died four months later and who spoke forcibly and directly on the evils perpetrated by those who carried out and defending lynchings, asserting that they “care less about the crime committed than about the color of the criminal.”
He also delivered his race problems lecture in Brooklyn in the middle of the month, with the Times-Union of the still-independent city (it was not annexed to New York City until 1898), with the paper commenting that “he handled the audience as a child handles a toy” as he deftly moved from serious issues to “a flight of eloquence that was truly sublime” leading the crowd to express their delight “by vigorously clapping their hands.”
It was added, “it is conceded that Mr. Benjamin has no living equal in the negro race in the scope of his acquirements and in the brilliancy of his intellect.” He addressed the progress of African-Americans, highlighted character over education, called the situation in the South one of “political slavery,” and reiterated his flag metaphor of “stars for the white man and the stripes for the negro.”
By the end of 1894, Benjamin sought the position of chaplain of the House of Representatives and the Brooklyn Citizen of 30 December provided its readers a profile of the Providence attorney, in partnership with John H. Ballou, though his history was muddled, starting with the statement that he was admitted to practice in Memphis in 1888, when it was 1880, and that he was “subsequently ordained a minister and was appointed presiding elder of the Pacific Coast district. This, however, was seven years later and a great deal occurred in the meantime, including his Virginia criminal conviction and the Canadian false robbery incident, as well as his advocacy, legal career and other aspects.
It was also stated that he was president of Jones University in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and “after six years as presiding elder, he resigned . . . to accept a church at Washington, D.C. where he remained until he came to Providence last August.” The university position was not previously known in his story and the six years as an A.M.E. Zion elder does not square with his activities during the time indicated. Also questionable was his claim that his candidacy as consul to Antigua had the support of “the mayor and all the city and county officials of Los Angeles, Senator Leland Stanford, [and] the members of the Bar of California.”
Moreover, when he claimed that, in his recent run as a Republican for a House of Representatives seat in Alabama’s 9th District, “I have no doubt I was legally elected,” that is just fantastical because the returns for 1892 show Democratic winner Louis Turpin garnered 67% of the vote to 31% for the Populist candidate and just 1.56% for Republican George Baggott, who won the G.O.P. primary.
More far-fetched statements included “Mr. Benjamin claims to have written more books than any colored man,” though it was true that he dealt with the “outrages upon negroes perpetrated by the Southern people. He told the Citizen that he headed the United Brethren of Freedom, “the largest organization of blacks in the United States, he claims.” The piece concluded with Benjamin expressing confidence in his chances of becoming the first Black chaplain of the House of Representatives.
This ambition continued into 1895, including an article published in many papers across the country that included a portrait and brief biography that omitted many of those suspect details provided in the Brooklyn newspaper. In June, however, he withdrew as a candidate. Meanwhile, at the start of the year, he launched yet another newspaper, the Providence Republican Sun, with his law partner, Ballou, but, a month later, gave it up, purportedly because of poor health, which was explained in the past as another reason for ending his journalistic enterprises.
In the summer, he embarked on another move, this time to Xenia, Ohio, east of Dayton, which also followed another change in his religious affiliation, as he left the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and joined the Colored Disciples Church and took on a pastorate in his new home. At the end of August, he was a vice-president of the Louisville general board, which included Xenia’s church, and spoke at its missionary convention in Indianapolis on “The Progress and Hope of our Race.” Notably, he talked of his 32 years of freedom and all of the important progress of African-Americans, though it was never previously stated that he was enslaved.
Otherwise, he lived relatively quietly in Xenia; in fact, no major news about Benjamin was found until the end of June 1896 when the city’s Gazette-News Current reported that he “received a flattering offer to become editor of the Boston, Mass., Advance, and he may accept it.” On 1 July, the paper remarked that, in the last couple of months, churches in Kentucky and Tennessee inquired about his services, as did an industrial and normal college in Alexandria, Virginia. How true any of this was is unknown, but the paper ended with “we hope he will decline to leave Xenia as he is doing a good work here.”
His political alliances also changed in this latest presidential election year as, in late August, he was appointed secretary of the state’s Populist Party at its convention. The end of July found him in the position of grand master of that fraternal order, The United Brotherhood of Friendship and Sisters of the Mysterious Ten. The 5 September issue of the Omaha Enterprise observed the publication of another “little volume,” this being “an up-to-date history of the American Negro” called Light After Darkness. At the end of 1896, he accused a man, standing trial for murder, of stealing money from the United Brotherhood, but the defendant told the court that, while he was the order’s state organizer, Benjamin “has used funds not his own.”
This leads us to 1897 and we’ll conclude this post on the remarkable life and career of the peripatetic Benjamin with tomorrow’s twelfth part.