International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest

Extract

Born a slave, Callie House was an early advocate for reparations for African Americans, founding the Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association in 1894. She raised five children working as a washerwoman before moving to Nashville, where she was first drawn to the movement by Henry Vaughn's pamphlet Freedmen's Pension Bill: A Plea for American Freedmen. She allied with Isaiah Dickerson in organizing a new movement that would both respond to the immediate health and monetary needs of ex-slaves, and organize politically to seek pensions and slavery reparations on their behalf. While Vaughn, a white democrat, sought reparations as a source of much needed funds to boost the South's economy, House and Dickerson based their claim on equality for blacks, demanding: “We deserve for the government to pay us as an indemnity for the work we and our foreparents was rob[bed] of from the Declaration of Independence down to the Emancipation.” While white supremacy was being codified in Jim Crow laws and violence against African Americans was at its highest point since the end of slavery, House and Dickerson built a 300,000-member organization that accused the United States government of facilitating the theft of black labor and demanded monetary compensation. The Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association was open to all regardless of race, religion, class, or color. At ... log in or subscribe to read full text