Wednesday, 05 January 2011 22:11

Black History Month Presentations

 

Sloss Furnaces was an important part of Birmingham’s African-American community.  There is not a single major historical issue in the city’s first 100 years that is not directly related to Sloss: the importance of railroads, an economy built on heavy industry, company towns, and segregation.

 

In honor of Black History Month, we are offering a series of presentations.  They are broken down as follows:

 

Alabama History:                                          Alabama Music Presentations:

·         Convict Labor                                          *    Music of the Mines

·         Sloss Furnaces                                          *    Tuxedo Junction

·         Women of Sloss Quarters

 

All presentations are FREE!!  Donations are welcomed and appreciated.  If you are interested in booking a presentation, contact Karen Utz ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) or Heather Guy ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ).

 

See below for information on each presentation.

 

1. The Role of Convict Labor in the Industrial Development of Birmingham

 

             There was no more damning evidence of…. indifference to human suffering and

             exploitation on the part of many of the South’s industrialists and public officials

             than the convict leasing system.

 

The story of Alabama’s convict leasing system, in effect from 1866 to 1928 (and last state to outlaw this horrific system), is an infamous chapter in the state’s history. Robert Patton, Alabama governor in 1865, declared that the state’s felons, rather than being housed in the penitentiary, should be “leased.” His rationale was that blacks, rapidly becoming the penitentiary’s majority population, did not regard confinement as punishment, and should “feel the hardship of labor in iron and coal mines.”

The Role of Convict Labor focuses on early state and local laws enacted by Alabama politicians to justify their use of convict labor. Portions of Doug Blackmon’s award-winning book, Slavery By Another Name will be referenced as well. Copies of documents (contracts and photographs, etc…) add to the overall significance of the presentation. This is an excellent sessions for teachers seeking additional information on the Reconstruction period in American History. Suggested reading list will be provided.

 

2. Sloss Furnaces: The Industrial Evolution of Birmingham’s Iron Plantation

 

Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark is currently the only twentieth-century blast furnace in the nation being preserved and interpreted as an industrial museum. Since reopening in 1983 Sloss has become an international model for similar preservation efforts and presents a remarkable perspective on the era when America grew to world industrial dominance. At the same time, Sloss is an important reminder of the dreams and struggles of the people who worked in the industries that made Birmingham the ‘Magic City.’

Industrial Evolution will focus on the formative years of Birmingham’s Industrial District as well as the early developmental years of Sloss Furnaces. Attention will be paid to labor issues, the war years (World War I and World War II), deindustrialization and the role Sloss plays today in the preservation of southern industrial history. Oral histories of past workers and past residents of the “Quarters” (Sloss company housing) will be presented, as well as handouts, artifacts (tools, etc…), teacher packets (for educational groups), and a new photographical history of Sloss featuring rare photographs pertaining to Sloss and Birmingham’s Industrial District. Suggested reading list will be provided.

 

3.  A Sense of Place: The African-American Women of Sloss Quarters

 

       Sloss was as good a place as I wanted to live. It was neighborly and

       friendly...no, they didn’t come no better than Sloss houses.

                   

In order to keep Birmingham industries well supplied with cheap labor and to keep control over their employees, companies such as Sloss Furnaces, one of Birmingham’s largest iron-producing plants, often built company houses immediately next to their factories.

A Sense of Place will focus on the traditions and customs mothers, wives and daughters of ex-sharecroppers brought with them to the urban industrial landscape of Sloss Furnaces and its company housing, Sloss Quarters. Excerpts from the Sloss Quarters Oral History Collection speak to not only the ways in which these remarkable women coped and adapted, but provides an in-depth look into the lives of African American women who realized that the way to make the transition from rural life to urban life a success was by making their long-standing customs and beliefs an intricate part of this life-altering transition.

Sloss Quarters did not become a successful and cohesive community because of the men who labored at the blast furnace; it thrived and succeeded because of the women who were determined to make a better life for themselves and their families away from the desperate poverty of their previous rural existence. Handouts, including a copy of the Like It Ain’t Never Passed monograph will be provided (oral history accounts from residents of the Quarters).

 

 

Alabama Music Presentations

• Music of the Mines
• Tuxedo Junction

 

1.  Music of the Mines, Mills, and Railroads of the Birmingham District

 

Music has always played an integral role in the lives of American working men and women. Slaves sang spirituals and folk songs in the fields and kitchens to ease their burdens. These songs were a source of inspiration and comfort. Songs such as “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” spoke to deliverance, freedom and better times ahead. 

 

By the 1800s, railroad workers, miners, furnace workers, and mill hands—the majority arriving from the Black Belt cotton areas of the Deep South and Appalachian towns of the Southeast—began to use traditional songs and spirituals to uplift their burdens and ease the monotony of work. In the mid-1990s, a group of music scholars and folklorists, realizing the importance of preserving the songs and artistic ways of labor music, produced a small but significant work entitled Spirit of Steel: Music of the Mines, Railroads, and Mills of the Birmingham District. These scholars not only address the songs of the Gandy Dancers (rail workers) and coal miners, but provide insight into the personal histories and personal recollections of the individuals behind the music. Labor songs were more than just a means to pass the time—they were as one music historian noted, a ‘tool of work.’

The Music of the Mines presentation will not only speak to the history behind the songs and ballads, but to the lives and times of the workers and individuals responsible for making labor music an important part of American history.

Copies of the book will be provided for the audience to follow along (six different labor songs are played) as well as handouts and sheet music.

 

2. Tuxedo Junction: Alabama’s Contribute to American Jazz

 

Albert Murray, a native of Alabama and a professor of English at Tuskegee Institute, wrote the following while preparing a lecture on the emotional appeal of jazz.

     Jazz is a music played by Americans to get rid of the blues…..when

     you see a jazz musician playing, you’re looking at a pioneer, you’re      

     looking at an explorer, you’re looking at an experimenter, you’re

     looking at a scientist, you’re looking at all those things because it’s

     the creative process come to life.

And many of the jazz musicians responsible for bringing this creative process to life often played at Birmingham’s own Tuxedo Junction. For almost thirty years Tuxedo Junction’s strip served as the social and entertainment mecca for African-Americans in the Birmingham area. In 1930 Erskine Hawkins, Birmingham native and renowned trumpet player and big band leader, wrote the song “Tuxedo Junction” which celebrated and eventually immortalized his childhood community. Jazz pieces performed by Alabama greats (including W.C. Handy, often known as the "Father of the Blues") will be played. Handouts (sheet music and playbills) and suggested reading list will be provided as well.