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Researching and Telling Untold Stories of Women & Minorities from the Past

 


The Kentucky Faith & Public History Education Project is committed to discovering, honoring, and telling factual stories about people who lived and worked in this state who also gave a public account of their Christian faith. Researching the stories of women and minorities from the past is frequently more difficult than researching what happened to men from the majority culture. Many times their perspectives are missing from the standard historical narratives. Often, written accounts of their lives were neither created nor have they been preserved. Because of past gender, ethnic and racial biases, what is written is about them often disregards their own beliefs and opinions. To discover their stories takes tenacity and creativity as well as an ability to read between the lines.

Take Martha Cross, for example. She, her husband, Alexander, and their seven-year-old son, James, left Hopkinsville, Kentucky, for Liberia in 1853. They were sent from the Ninth Street Christian Church as the first Disciples of Christ missionaries to Africa. Alexander was enslaved, a barber owned by Thomas Cross. When the church decided to send him to Africa, one of the elders, Robertson Torian, purchased Alexander for $530 using his own money along with funds donated by other members of the church. Alexander’s emancipation was conditional on his emigration from Kentucky to Liberia. Martha was a free woman so their son, James, had been born free. The church paid passage for the family on the ship, the Banshee, which left from the port of Baltimore. The church also provided enough money for the family to live for the first year in Liberia. Like many emigrants to Liberia, Alexander and James died soon after arriving there due to some tropical disease. That left Martha widowed in Africa. She remained there and eventually remarried another missionary. The record of her accomplishments seems to end with Alexander’s death[1].

So where could a researcher look to find the missing pieces of Martha’s story? It will take more than a simple internet search. Census documents, marriage and death records from Liberia may list her. There must be a document that communicated Alexander’s death to the church which also mentions Martha. It may be in the archives of the Ninth Street Baptist Church of Hopkinsville. There may be information about Martha in letters written by other emigrants to Liberia who knew her. We know, for instance, that William and Rosabella Burke and their four children were fellow passengers with the Cross’s on the Banshee. This family had been owned, formerly, by General and Mrs. Robert E. Lee with whom they kept up a correspondence for several years after arriving in Liberia[2]. There may be records of land transactions, wills or other legal papers. There may be portraits or photographs.

This is the kind of research that informs doctoral dissertations. It could also challenge a middle school or high school history class or club. Identify a person whose story should be told but isn't. Brainstorm questions to try to research and consider where to look for the answers. Keep a log of the research. When the answers can be documented, figure out how to present them. These kinds of original projects serve as potentially meaningful and authentic learning opportunities for you and your students.

By Lesley Barker ©2021


[1] Jack Glazier. Been Through Some Hard Times. U of TN Press. 2013.

[2] Library of Congress Exhibitions. “The African-American Mosaic: Personal Stories and ACS New Directions”. ONLINE at https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/afam004.html ACCESSED 1/19/2021.

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