Down a narrow road outside Piqua, there is a patch of grass about the size of a small neighborhood block. You might not realize it’s a graveyard, except for a rusted sign reading “African Jackson Cemetery,” and an Ohio Historical marker.
Only a few gravestones dot the grass – most have been torn down or swallowed by the earth – but the gravestones that remain tell a story.
Several read, “Born a slave, died free.”
The Randolph Freedpeople
In 1833, Virginian landowner John Randolph freed nearly 400 people from slavery in his will. After a 13-year legal battle, they came to Mercer County, Ohio, where around 3,200 acres had been purchased for them. Each freed slave over the age of 40 was supposed to get a 10-acre parcel.
The Randolph Freedpeople, however, weren't allowed to stay.
Now, nearly two centuries years later, State Rep. Dontavius Jarrells (D-Columbus) wants justice for their descendants.
“I did not know about this history growing up. This was not something that was taught in schools,” Jarrells said. He said he only heard the story of the Randolph Freedpeople at the age of 36, when Randolph descendant Paisha Thomas and activist Chris Graham came to him.
The story goes as such: 383 freed people - from an infant to a centenarian - came from Virginia, traveling in wagons and largely on foot. When they reached Cincinnati, they boarded boats and traveled north on the Miami-Erie canal.
Turned away – with bayonets
When they arrived in New Bremen, around 18 miles from their promised land, they found that white residents had passed a resolution proclaiming they would not live in peace with the freed slaves.
In a coffee shop in Piqua, Rep. Jarrells plucked a copy of that resolution from the wall and read an excerpt:
“Resolved, that we will not live among negros. And as we've settled here first, and we have fully determined that we will resist the settlement of blacks and mulattos in this country, to the full extent of our means, the bayonet not excepted.”
A 20-minute drive away is Lock One Park in New Bremen, where part of the Miami-Erie canal is preserved. Today, there is a playground and a splash pad, a historic building and statues. Some 170 years ago, it was the spot where the Randolph Freed people were turned away.
“They were met with, you know, what some coined as a mob. A group of people who definitely were not for their presence,” said Piqua resident and Chief Operating Officer of Ohio Black Expo Butch Hamilton.
Hamilton, the son of a history teacher, said even in Piqua there are people who still don’t know the Randolph Freedpeople’s story – and there are some who would rather ignore it and its unsavory implications.
“It’s not necessarily, a feel-good story,” Hamilton said, while standing on the edge of the lock. “But it’s important to mention that despite all of these things that happened to the Randolph Free People, they preserved.”
Making lives in Ohio
The Randolph Freedpeople turned around and settled in Miami and Shelby Counties. They got jobs, preserved family units and made lives.
A descendant of the Randolph Freedpeople, James Humphrey, became the first Black mayor of Sidney, Ohio.
And now there’s Piqua Mayor Kirs Lee. He grew up in a house with dirt floors in Rossville, across the river from Piqua. There was a time in history when Rossville’s Black residents weren’t welcome across the bridge, he said.
“Neither of my parents are alive today, but they would have been tickled pink,” Lee said. “A kid that was born in Roseville, a descendant of the Randolph slaves, is now mayor of the city of Piqua.”
Lee is also a part-time police officer in New Bremen, where his ancestors were first turned away.
“And here I am, patrolling the streets here,” Lee said.
“I did not know about this history growing up. This was not something that was taught in schools."- State Representative Dontavius Jarrells
Lost generational wealth
But Sherri Hamilton, CEO of the Ohio Black Expo, thinks about the generational wealth that was lost when those first freed slaves were denied land they could have farmed or sold.
“Those families for the last seven generations have missed out on all of that. That's significant,” she said.
Sherri Hamilton said it didn’t just happen in Mercer County. History tells similar stories about Black communities all over Ohio.
“And then when you go outside of Ohio, there are thousands of stories like this, where people had land or, you know, even purchased land, and then were chased off of it. Towns that were drowned because Black settlements were built there,” Sherri Hamilton said.
Acknowledgement and righting the wrong
Rep. Jarrells believes Ohio has to acknowledge what happened.
“We never said sorry,” Jarrells said. “So, when you say sorry first, and then we need to really investigate what can be done, to support these ancestors, these descendants, in an intentional way.”
Jarrells said state-owned land in Mercer County could be used for a foundation or trust or turned into a memorial or a museum. Or maybe it could go right into the hands of Randolph Freedpeople descendants.
“So, you're not giving somebody a handout, are you? Giving them what they already had,” he said.
“This is not a story that Ohio it can be particularly proud of right now. But it's not over. We can be proud."- Hadley Drodge, curator at National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center
Telling the story
While the Randolph Freedpeople’s story may not be well known, it was never fully lost to history. The National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center in Wilberforce keeps a collection of photographs and artifacts from the Randolph Freedpeople.
It was first collected by the late Helen Gilmore, a Randolph descendant. It includes an elaborate family Bible, early designs for the African Jackson Cemetery and a quilt.
Curator Hadley Drodge said the Randolph Freedpeople’s story may have gotten less attention than it should in part because it’s complex.
“There are 383 people who are the heroes of this story there. I mean, we've got, Charles Chestnut involved, we've got W. E. B. Du Bois involved. We've got, Booker T Washington,” Drodge said. “[They] were all aware. So famous people have known and written about this history, but it is not something that simple.”
Drodge notes that the story of the Randolph Freedpeople is also a reminder that "free" Ohio still supported slavery in some ways.
“These Black Codes existed, to preserve that institution,” Drodge said, pointing to restrictions on employing people. At the time the Randolph Freedpeople arrived in Ohio, emancipated salves still needed to register with a number with the county clerk and carry free papers.
“This is not a story that Ohio it can be particularly proud of right now. But it's not over. We can be proud,” Drodge said.
Making the ancestors proud
Ninth-generation Randolph Freedpeople descendant Paisha Thomas is working to keep her family’s history alive.
Thanks to a $75,000 dollar grant from the Miami County Commissioners, she along with and Sherri and Butch Hamilton are working to restore African Jackson Cemetery.
They plan to use lidar technology to figure out how many people are buried in the cemetery – they currently guess between 130 and 200 – and will put up new headstones.
Thomas still hopes the Randolph descendants will have their land returned, but she knows that might not be easy.
“I think, though, that we have already won because now everyone is aware of an erased story, a story that has been suppressed for so long,” Thomas said.
To hear more about the Randolph Freed People, tune in to a special episode of All Sides with Anna Staver at 10 a.m. on Wednesday.
