The history of Saint Ambrose Episcopal Church and its numerous church movements within the city of Raleigh provide a story about repeated environmental racism and economic disenfranchisement. It is also a story about the resulting response and actions taken by the Saint Ambrose church community. In order to understand Saint Ambrose’s history, you have to review its history from the 1860s to present day.
The history of Saint Ambrose Episcopal Church and its numerous church movements within the city of Raleigh provide a story about repeated environmental racism and economic disenfranchisement. It is also a story about the resulting response and actions taken by the Saint Ambrose church community. In order to understand Saint Ambrose’s history, you have to review its history from the 1860s to present day.
Wading Deep Podcast
Historians
SPEAKERS: 4
Speaker 1 – Reverend Jemonde Taylor, Rector – St. Ambrose Episcopal Church Speaker 2 – Ernest Dollar, Executive Director of City of Raleigh Museum
Speaker 3 – The Reverend Dr. Brooks Graebner, Retired Rector of St. Matthews Episcopal Church, Hillsborough, North Carolina, Historiographer for Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina
Speaker 4 – Dr. Earl Ijames, Archivist, Curator and Historical Preservation of North Carolina Museum of History, Farming Activist
FIRST SEGMENT
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Speaker 1- Reverend Jemonde
0:05
This is Wading Deep, a podcast that explores the connection between environmental justice and race.
I'm your host, Reverend Jemonde Taylor Rector at St. Ambrose Episcopal church, Raleigh, North Carolina, a congregation with a long history of challenging environmental racism
I am honored to welcome today's guests who are renowned historians. Mr. Ernest Dollar is Executive Director of the City of Raleigh Museum. The Reverend Dr. Brooks Graebner is the retired Rector of historic St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, Hillsborough, North Carolina, as well as the historiographer for the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina and Dr. Earl Ijames is archivist curator, historic preservation, and I guess farming archivists that I learned recently. He's with the North Carolina Museum of History. Welcome, gentlemen.
GROUP
1:34
Thanks so much for having us.
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Speaker 1-Reverend Jemonde
1:37
Today's topic is history. The history surrounding Saint Ambrose using the congregation's three physical locations as time markers to Smokey Hollow community from 1868 to 1900. The churches move near the prince Hall district from 1900 to 1965 and the move to Rochester heights, which takes us from 1965 to the present. So, Father Graebner, can you paint a picture of what was happening in the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina in the years leading up to Saint Ambrose founding in 1868?
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Speaker 2- Dr. Brooks Graebner
2:20
The Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina. In the antebellum period its primary outreach to African Americans took the form of slave evangelization. And that was true also here in Raleigh, where Christ Church had both white and black members of some were part of the enslaved community and some three black members of the Church. After the Civil War, then there was a considerable shift and the nature of ministry among African Americans in which educational uplift became the primary focus. And the first
fruits of that were the Episcopal Church's commitment to a new branch of this mission work, which was called the Freedmen's Commission of the Episcopal Church. And here in this diocese, our bishop was and the first fruits of that were the creation of schools for the newly emancipated in New Bern, Wilmington and Raleigh. And so, by the spring of 1866, we have a…a school for the newly emancipated here in Raleigh, being sponsored by the Episcopal Church's Freedmen's Commission and it’s that school which then becomes the site of St. Augustine Church later Saint Ambrose.
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Speaker 1- Reverend Jemonde Taylor
4:16
Thanks so much for that Brooks. I know the church started in the Smoky Hollow neighborhood and I believe the name is Smokey Hollow because of its proximity to the railroad station and the fog or smoke that was always suspended in the air in smoky hollow also think that was a neighborhood where freed black people live during the institution of slavery, would you say that's correct, Ernest and Earl? 3
Speaker 3-Ernest Dollar
4:50
Um, it's uh, you know, African Americans during slavery when the Raleigh offered them a lot of more opportunity. to use them in rural plantation life. So African Americans could rent their time working in the railroad, working in shops, and had a little bit more freedom than we do see in plantation settings. So, yeah, I think the railroad was one of the largest hirers of free blacks to work in Raleigh. And certainly, Wake County had one of the largest populations of this, folks, we were in North Carolina. So, the origins of that community do stem back to antebellum free people.
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Speaker 4- Dr. Earl Ijames
5:32
Well, and that's all that's good. And also, to tag on to that is just in sheer numbers of demographics and census numbers. in Raleigh and Wake County in general, there are more free people of color in numerating, the census around 1600, free people of color. There are more free people of color than slaveholders and Wake County, which is an interesting dynamic. There about 1100 to maybe 1200 slept slaveholders who are listed in the 1860 census. So, there's a difference of about 400. free people of color more than slaveholders. And that's a very interesting number, when you think about that, but it lends itself to just what Ernest was saying is that Raleigh, in the middle of North Carolina, as the slave state presented a unique opportunity for not only free people of color, but many of our formerly enslaved ancestors, who many of whom were, as he mentioned, won't quit rinse here or worry, but hire themselves out and absence of their slaveholders. And one good example that I like to use is not to skip around universities or historically HBCUs. But it's Shaw University, one of the first trustees was a man named Augustus Shepherd, who was enslaved to a white slaveholders down in New Bern. And they were not here. But they, he was enslaved to them as chattel property and, quote, allowed to hire himself out. So much so that many people didn't know if he was enslaved or free. And so that story just kind of encapsulates what…what Ernest was just mentioning. And that is, you know, Raleigh is emerging as this really unique place, not only in the state, but in the south, where free people of color are coming and enslaved people are finding work where they can, and the perverse way of slavery, paid themselves, in addition to their slaveholders. And so, and I like to say by extrapolation, that is why Raleigh today is such a place of deepening freedom, because it has those roots. That are like that during such a time of slavery that our country and state was immersed in back then. 1
Speaker 1- Reverend Jemonde Taylor
8:28
Those area very interesting points that both you Ernest and Earl, brought up. I certainly was not aware of that, particularly the uniqueness of Raleigh. Particularly the story about the gentleman who when he was
here, he didn't know if he were enslaved, or free person. And what he was able to earn and do because of his status here. When we talk about…
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Speaker 4- Dr. Earl Ijames
8:55
Just one quick thing to about that, man, excuse me for interrupting you…Augustus Shephard is the ancestor of Dr. James Shephard. There's a Shepherd Street in Raleigh, over across from present day North Carolina State University where, you know, he lived he was a carpenter. And so that community like, well, as we know, a lot of communities before NC State was there as long with that railroad line came through the North Carolina railroad line came through in 1855. Literally, it was creating the blueprint of going through black neighborhoods, I guess you could say, because they were a string of black communities and that part of Wake County outside of Raleigh, you know, Method. There's Oberlin. There's the community over where Dix Hill is. I think it's called Nazareth…or something like that. With the Pope family. Yeah, yeah. So… so you know, it was not an anomaly to have these emerging free community. After the war, that were rooted in many instances and a lot of industrial enterprise for lack of a better word during slavery. 1
Speaker 1- Reverend Jemonde Taylor
10:15
You know, we've, this is the Wading Deep and healing podcast talking about environmental racism. When I first read about smokey hollow and the founding of Saint Ambrose and where our first edifice was, it's interesting that the neighborhood was full of toxic fumes, because of the gases emitted from trains that were there at the depot, and I'm curious if you have an opinion or any information? Was it the location that led to this being a black community? Or might want to say coincidence? Because that's where the gases from the railroad from the trains were, that made it undesirable for the white population to live? Therefore, that's where black people live? Or was their community there in Smokey Hollow before the advent of the think, Raleigh- Gaston train?
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Speaker 4- Dr. Earl Ijames
11:19
You are correct. And, and, and, and, and to further the point that you are making is that when people of color could have some degree of autonomy, to have a community, those communities tended to be almost always in swampy, low areas, that were not desirable by the white population, not only for agriculture, but, you know, I think we can appreciate what I'm about to say a little bit more, and it be more historically correct, and may be perceived as politically incorrect to say, but I'm gonna say it anyway, is that, you know, we're in the middle of a pandemic, now. Well, this is nothing new back then smallpox and malaria and fever were pandemics. And so many people, especially from Europe, did not venture into swamp lands where mosquitoes were, because you would risk your life. And so, as a result, these places became havens, so to speak, for black communities, during the colonial and antebellum era, as a way to escape slavery and have some measure of freedom. And so, if we fast forward, you know, to say when the Raleigh-Gaston line in 1840s is completed, you know, the, the bonds and so forth for building those railroads, you're having to condemn land and take it take land, and what easier to land to take than some swamp land, or some people who are barely considered marginal as equal citizens, and would have the least voice. But also, in a perverse way, turn those same people to work and make that railroad come through their community. So…so in that sense, they're almost working in that way, to erase their community, as well as to perpetuate the actual slavery, even though, you know, working on the railroad was a very desirable, you know, relatively higher paying for free people of color. And…and just to give you some idea of the value of railroad work, the Confederacy was employing enslaved and free people of color on the North Carolina railroad, upwards to a silver rate of 30 to $40 per month, which was about four times what they were paying the fight and people fighting Confederate soldiers in the field. The same and so this is the economic value and economic lure of
working on the railroad. And so, if you are free person of color, and trust me, I know I have an ancestor or two who worked on the railroad, and they were able to make a better way of living for my ancestors even though it was a drudgery work and the railroads as I was mentioning were blueprints for what later would become the interstate system running through say Hayti in Durham or you know, other black communities and you know, like to my hometown in Winston Salem. So, when you think about that, you know, the North Carolina railroad and the Wilmington and Weldon railroad originally, is the longest railroad, deliberately goes through a lot of black communities in eastern North Carolina. And the same as such, when that railroad is connected from Goldsboro, back into Smithfield, and in Raleigh, they're going through the most swamp areas where they're connecting those county seats, and many instances for the first time. And so, to your point, those communities pre-exist, those railroads and in a perverse way, actually serve the purpose of the railroad and replacing those communities.
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Speaker 1- Reverend Jemonde Taylor
15:39
It's fascinating how you laid that out. And so, with the environmental injustice, not to mention the racial injustice, and economic injustice, you have people who are in their community build breathing noxious gases, which is not too different from what we have in current day, Saint Ambrose with interstate 40, which bisected two historical black neighborhoods. And we see this all throughout the United States that even the respiratory disease that we find around these areas near train depots near interstates is where you have higher concentration of black and brown people. And it's for the same reason you mentioned, Earl, I want to talk because I sent you the communication about Saint Ambrose founding. I just want to read a little bit from our history as it's recorded in the 100th anniversary of Saint Ambrose 1968 by an act of the legislature, North Carolina legislature in the year 1868-69. found on the page, general statute 51. It's interesting that the General Assembly, the North Carolina State government is involved in the founding of a church. And I wonder if you three can comment on that, you know, we think about separation of church and state. How do you read that or explain it? What does that say to you?
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Speaker 3- Ernest Dollar
17:22
Thank you in 1868, we have to look at what is the makeup of North Carolina State Legislature. It is a time when reconstruction after the Civil War, we see African Americans still getting their political activism or holding office for people who had once been considered property are now legislators in office. So, it is interesting that that church is specifically is identified. But then if you look at the same time, Saint Ambrose, I mean, St. Augustine's University is coming along, Shaw is already founded in 1865. So, we see an incredible explosion of black education, black culture coming to Raleigh. So, I think that is an incredible time where African Americans can have their separate places of worship, something that you know, all of these churches had been bi-racial before, but this is a place to claim as their own. In the coming years, we're gonna see the founding of one of the very first municipal black cemeteries Mount Hope Cemetery is one of the very few in North Carolina that's established by Raleigh. So, it is incredible boon time for African Americans who are now citizens to try to… to understand their place in government, to understand the relationship with God, and to try to carve out a place for themselves. So, we have to really look at who is empowered to make this this legislative process a real thing.
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Speaker 4- Dr. Earl Ijames
18:59
Well, and that's a good question that you asked, and that's a question that runs deep in art, history. And I think I could make the best explain it by switching out to prepositions and that is, you know, we have a history where we have the freedom of religion, but not the, necessarily the freedom from religion, where our foundation, I think, you know, has become increasingly lost on our current population is rooted in spirituality and religion and, and in many respects, the, you know, the, the Protestants coming over from
the Old World to the New World, and… and, and even though, you know, it's enshrined in our Constitution, I think part of the establishment of the United States has been for community to establish places of worship, and that those places of worship become the foundations of those communities. So, in 1868, it was, it was not a politically incorrect thing for government and for politicians to openly and outright support. You know, as it was mentioned, the Baptist at Shaw, so forth, and then, you know, the rector of St. Ambrose and the St. Augustine, I think a lot of that just simply reflects the foundations of the founding of our country. And even if we go forward, finding our country in 1789, when our state ratified the Constitution, we can go back, you know, 150, almost 200 years before then, when, you know, we have, you know, the Spanish and English colonialism and Carolina and North Carolina, in large part and the foundation of that is also the church and established in places of worship.
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Speaker 2- Dr. Brooks Graebner
21:16
The only thing that I'd like to add to that is that in 1868, we're still at the height of the Freedmen's Bureau, and the great investment of General Howard and others, in and in creating opportunities, and providing support. So, there's every reason to believe that the Freedmen's Bureau help to provide for the building of Saint Ambrose, and we're heavily invested in the building of St. Augustine.
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Speaker 4- Dr. Earl Ijames
21:55
Well, and that's another good point to the Freedmen's Bureau, by… by extension, it's probably most lasting legacy, is the education and the schools because at that time in 1868, as Ernest was mentioning, there's a powerful movement where African Americans, people of color, many formerly enslaved people are being included in the process. And … and so for the first time, we have what we call a what I call historically black Republicans who are part of the process in Raleigh. And, and so with their insertion, who's most reflective, when our state devises the 1868 constitution as a mandate for reconstruction. And one of the resolutions that has the most lasting effects is also an underpinning thing, the bureau of refugees abandoned land and freedmen and abandoned lands. A lot of people forget, it has all three elements. But during Reconstruction, it was racialized and politicized as only the Freedmen's Bureau. So, but not to get into that. But the most lasting legacy part…part of itself with the efforts of what many of the Republicans and particularly old black Republicans were wanting to do with creating a new constitution, and that resolution was establishing the rights of the privileges of education enshrined in the Constitution. And this is a mandate that was almost unheard of, before that time. And in fact, even today, it's a constitutional mandate in regards to education that actually exceeds the federal constitution. And so, at that time, in 1868, you have this, this incredible movement, of elevation of all the citizens using education that is rooted in the church most mostly, and, and, and so in that sense, education coming from the Freedmen's Bureau, and probably its most lasting legacy, because, you know, we know the Freedmen's bank didn't last much longer than 1870. And, and then, of course, the Freedmen's Bureau itself, that was, as we know, over way in William Peace University here in Raleigh, was …was, again, racialized and unfortunately, on its head with the original intentions of General Howard and those folks who wanted to bring everyone back until the union of equal citizens black, white and Indian and formerly enslaved, and formerly slaveholders, but unfortunately, political dynamics at that time rationalize it and reverse it into what we know now historically as Reconstruction. 3
Speaker 3-Ernest Dollar
25:08
Just to add to that real quick, I just looked up the legislator in 1868 and James Henry Harris is one of them that Book’s has been doing a lot of research lately and intimately connected to the church, I think. 2
Speaker 2-Dr. Brooks Graebner
25:29
Oh, um, I think James Henry Harris is a pivotal figure in all of these stories. I mean, he's right there at the intersection of Saint Ambrose, education, politics. And the fact that he is, you know, so prominently identified with, you know, as one of the first five trustees of that property back in 1869. speaks to this strong coalition of educational uplift political freedom, and, and, and religious inspiration.
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Speaker 4- Dr. Earl Ijames
26:12
You're right on the mark with that, and, and thank you for bringing it up. James Henry Harris, Earnest, because he is, and you probably know how to get my gander going and get me bubbling over here. But… but James Henry Harris is the most unknown rock star of American history. And, I mean, this guy, I mean, we can go back historically, just, I mean genealogically, this guy, his grandparents, was a grandfather, who was a black Revolutionary War soldier, and settles in Granville County. And, you know, and he's a free personal color, who is dark skin as it is described, and his own papers, which is somewhat of an anomaly. Not that much. But it's something to be said, about being what was called dark skin, and free person of color, a dark skin mulatto. But aside from that, his folks were always involved in education always involved in enterprise and upliftment of their entire communities. And so, I mean, we have information about him teaching and having business experience, here in Raleigh and, and overseas and Canada and Liberia, places like that. But at the end of the Civil War, he has tremendous political capital in the United States, as one of the founding members in particular of our Republican party here in North Carolina, and, and he's a Republican delegate, and we could go on and on. But he does nothing less than raises the regimen, the United States Colored Troops in the state of Indiana. And that regiment, becomes one of the first regiments and to Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy, to help end the Civil War, which, at that time, he was recruiting the governor of Indiana knew about this guy, and basically enlisted him to raise the regiment at the end of the war. Governor William Holding was here in North Carolina, appointed by President Lincoln knew about this guy and reached out to him and needed this man to help be a pivotal figure in helping to reconcile and bring our state together and back into the Union. And no less is also the founder of one of the largest black community, that Oberlin community that we previously spoke of there. And what is now part of the city of Raleigh. And so, James Henry Harris is… is someone who is to be reckoned with, at that time, and there were folks who were seeking his endorsement, particularly as it related to bringing North Carolina back into the Union helping to establish these institutions that are so vital to our reconstruction effort to coming back into the Union and the lasting legacies of those institutions that they are still bearing themselves out. So, I don't want to get too much on the rail on James Harris, but I will say I recently penned a little history lesson I like to say in an Eno River journal about… about him that you can that you can read and …and share and he was also in an exhibit that I curated called - Freedom! A Promise Disrupted 1862 through 1901, which actually parallels the date of the first part of our discussion so he is a, an instrumental, pivotal, underrated and hopefully no more to be unknown American hero. 1
Speaker 1-Reverend Jemonde Taylor
30:19
An American hero who was a founder of Saint Ambrose church. What I've heard is that these African Americans who were elected to the General Assembly use their power to enact change, and that the legislative act number GS-51, we have to say came because there was black presence in the General Assembly.
I want to thank our guests Mr. Ernest Dollar, from the City of Raleigh Museum, the Reverend Dr. Brooks Graebner, historiographer for the Episcopal Diocese. And Dr. Earl Ijames with the North Carolina History Museum for their time in discussing this first phase 1868 to 1900.
The Wading Deep podcast comes to you from a place we af ectionately call The Brose, Saint Ambrose Episcopal Church, Raleigh, North Carolina. Follow us on Facebook, YouTube, The BroseNC on Twitter and TheBrose1868 on Instagram.
I am your host, the Reverend Jemonde Taylor. God is going to trouble the water of environmental racism, resurrecting a river of life clear as crystal.
Shalom, Salaam, Peace.