Tonya Bolden presents a very fascinating story to her Pathfinders: The Journey of 16 Extraordinary Black Souls Book. Throughout the centuries, untold numbers of African American men and women have achieved great things against the odds. This book is a collective biography of sixteen diverse African American men and women of African descent who made their mark on American history in the 18th to 20th Centuries. People like these African American men and women dared to dream, take risks and create goals not only for themselves, but for others and they also made society even better by creating everlasting change.
Bolden starts her story off by discussing Venture Smith who was born Broteer Furro. He was captured and imprisoned in a slave castle’s dungeon then confinement to a slave ship. Robinson Mumford bought Broteer for four gallons of rum and a piece of calico. Mumford changed Broteer’s name to Venture. Venture was able to buy his freedom from his fifth owner, Oliver Smith Jr. It took Venture four years to do so and he was able to free his wife and children. He wrote his own memoir: A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, A Native of Africa. Maybe you have heard of his memoir?
James Forten signed on as a powder boy with a privateer, the Royal Louis. What was so unique about the Royal Louis was that it aided the Continental Navy. After the war, he became a successful maker of sails and owned his own business.
Do you like magic? Richard Potter joined the circus to become a magician. He entertained audiences in halls and taverns in Boston, Salem and Newburyport Massachusetts, in Providence, Rhode Island in New Haven, Connecticut. Potter became prosperous because he bought his own land and had a family.
Have you heard about James McCune Smith? At age eleven, he welcomed General Lafayette to New York City’s African Free School that was open to both free and enslaved children. He graduated high school and wanted to become a doctor. After taking Latin and Greek tutoring sessions, James applied to Geneva College in New York, but like many universities at the time, he was denied admittance because of his race. Smith applied at the University of Glasgow in Glasgow, Scotland and was accepted! He earned a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree and then in 1837 his medical degree. Dr. Smith opened his practice in Manhattan and became one of the city’s preeminent physicians and pharmacist. He died in 1865.
The one thing that I did not know was that on June 30, 1995, more than 150 years after her birth Mary Bowser was inducted into the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame. She was described as “one of the highest-placed and most productive espionage agents of the Civil War.” Bowser was given her freedom as a little girl and she was adopted by Mrs. Van Lew’s daughter, Elizabeth. Elizabeth Van Lew gave secrets to the Union and she advised Mary Bowser on how to spy on Jefferson Davis. She fled the city in 1865 because Jefferson Davis knew there was a spy in the house! Bowser had aliases such as Mary Richards, Mary Jones, Mary J.R. Gavin and Richmonia R. St. Pierre.
One of my favorite pathfinders in the book is Eugene Bullard who left his native Georgia and fled to Europe where he eventually went to Paris, France. He joined the French Foreign Legion and saw action as an infantryman. Bullard was awarded the Cross of War medal for bravery. Bullard later joined the French air force’s Lafayette Flying Corps, an all-American volunteer outfit. His mastery behind the cockpit led him to become the first African American combat pilot in the world. He earned his wings in May 1917, twenty-four years before the first Tuskegee Airmen took flight. The 2006 movie Flyboys loosely portrayed Bullard and his comrades in World War I and it was very good! My favorite picture in the book is Bullard and the rest of his unit from the French Army’s 170th Infantry.
Do you like math? Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson became a research mathematician at NACA and it later became NASA in 1958. Johnson was instrumental to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. manned spaceflights. Her time at NASA became the focus of a 2016 movie titled Hidden Figures and featured other African American mathematicians such as Dorothy Vaughn and Mary Jackson. That movie was very good!
If you are interested in wanting to learn more about the African Americans who helped bring everlasting change to the United States then I suggest you stop by the Union Parish Library and check out Pathfinders: The Journeys of 16 Extraordinary Black Souls. That particular book is featured in our Union Parish African Americans in Healthcare theme for Black History Month. It will leave you with a feeling of admiration and awe for the African Americans who changed the course of history for the United States.
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