Muncie’s Emancipation Day Celebration in 1900
By: Chris Flook
In Muncie around the time of the gas boom, the city’s Black community often observed Emancipation in September. On August 18 1900, for instance, the Muncie Evening Press reported that “the colored people of this city are planning a mammoth demonstration here on September 22, when the anniversary of the signing of the emancipation proclamation will be celebrated.”
Charles Conway was engaged to provide “general supervision of the festivities and John H. Jones will assist.” Conway was the turnkey (jailer) for the Delaware County Jail at the time. Jones was the co-proprietor of Jones and Adams, a Black-owned grocery at 210 S. Vine Street. Both men were active civic leaders from the city’s African American community.
Conway and Jones selected Westside Park as the venue. Westside was the best of the big parks in greater Muncie in 1900. Built by Citizens Street Electric Railway Company (Union Traction) in 1892, the greenspace was a go-to retreat on the weekends for working Munsonians. Around this time, the park featured a baseball diamond, band stand, pony track, and bowling alley. Westside could also accommodate thousands and was easily accessible by trolley and interurban.
Conway sent invitations out across East Central Indiana. The Press reported that “posters giving an idea of the magnitude of the affair have been posted in various towns over the gas belt and several thousand people are expected here.” Union Traction even offered special runs on the 22nd for those coming into the city.
For his part, Jones added a military drill competition by involving the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows, Lodge No. 210. It was a likely partnership, given that Jones was the lodge’s Worshipful Grand Master. No. 210 was one of two Black Odd Fellows lodges in Muncie during the gas boom, the other being Gas Belt Lodge No. 3012.
Some Odd Fellows of the era had a uniformed branch called Patriarchs Militant. These Odd Fellows, often veterans, ceremonially performed public drills and marched in parades. Jones invited regional Patriarchs Militant groups to perform in Muncie’s Emancipation Day celebration. The Press wrote that “the Colored Patriarchs Militant will give a series of drills for which there will be prizes of $75, $50 and $25 offered.” The chapters from Indianapolis, Louisville, and Springfield, Ohio all entered the contest.
Given the outsized role that Black Munsonians played in municipal and regional elections, Conway and Jones also sought to politicize the event. Historians Hurley Goodall and Elizabeth Campbell wrote in The Other Side of Middletown that “by 1900, Muncie’s African American community numbered 739 people, and had grown strong, vibrant, and visible.” This growth had also translated into political power, which at the time centered around Republican Party politics. Many Black Hoosiers in 1900 supported the GOP, in recognition of the party’s role in the fight against slavery. As such, Conway and Jones had no problem soliciting Republican party leaders to speak at Westside Park on September 22. The Muncie Morning Star wrote on September 9 that “Invitations have been sent to Co. W.T. Durbin, Congressman Cromer, Mayor Tuhey, Judge Leffler, Senator Ball and others.”
George Cromer, Muncie and Delaware County’s U.S. Representative to Congress in 1900. Photo courtesy of Ball State University Libraries’ Bracken Archive and Special Collections.
Colonel Winfield Durbin was the Republican nominee for Indiana’s governor in the 1900 election. He’d go on to win that November and served one term. George Cromer was the U.S. Representative to Congress from Indiana’s 8th District, which at the time included Delaware County. Cromer had also been mayor of Muncie from 1894-1898. Edward Tuhey was Muncie’s mayor in 1900, while Joseph Leffler, a former Delaware County Prosecutor, was the county’s circuit court judge. Walter Ball (no relation to the glass bros.) was a lawyer from Muncie and represented Delaware and Randolph counties in the Indiana General Assembly. Although Mayor Tuhey was a Democrat, everyone else was a Republican. All five politicians agreed to speak.
Conway and Jones also invited Gurley Brewer, an Indianapolis lawyer and publisher prominent in state Republican party politics. Raised in Vincennes, Brewer was the first African American to be admitted to the bar in Southern Indiana. His career included stints as a teacher, lawyer, historian, and editor of the Black newspaper, Indianapolis World. Upon his death in 1919, the Princeton Daily Clarion called Brewer “an orator of marketability. Mr. Brewer was influential, and his talent along this line was called into play in every campaign.”
Gurley Brewer, prominent Indianapolis lawyer and editor, was the keynote speaker.
Brewer was selected as the keynote speaker for Muncie’s September 22, 1900 Emancipation celebration in Westside Park. The day, however, began in downtown Muncie with a parade. Participants lined up mid-morning on High Street, facing south. The procession was led by twelve mounted Muncie Police Department officers, with Chief Samuel Cashmore riding point. The MPD was followed by a Muncie Fire Department engine and the Rough Riders, an all-Black drum corps from Louisville, whose members “wore blue army shirts and McKinley-Roosevelt caps.” The Patriarchs Militant from Louisville’s Fall City Patriots Odd Fellows lodge marched behind.
The day’s speakers followed in fancy carriages. They sat alongside pastors from Muncie’s Black churches, including, reverends M. Coleman of Bethel A.M.E., D.S. Slaughter of Second Baptist, and George M. Bailey of Trinity M.E. Church on First Street. The parade ran south on High to Seymour, east on Seymour to Walnut, north on Walnut to Main, east on Main to Plum, north on Plum to Washington, then back west to High Street where trollies sat parked at the corner on Main. Parade participants piled into the cars and headed out to Westside Park.
A roast ox was waiting for them when the crowd arrived around noon. After the picnic, the speakers gave short speeches, mostly about the year’s upcoming election. Gurley Brewer’s speech included deep criticism of “the action of the North Carolina Legislature in disenfranchising 80,000 colored votes.” Southern states were passing Jim Crow laws and North Carolina had just instituted a literacy test targeting Blacks, though it grandfathered in illiterate whites.
Once the speeches ended, the Indiana Band performed a few tunes followed by the Patriarchs Militant competition on the baseball diamond. The papers never reported the winner, but they did write that the day ended with a cake walk, grand march, and an evening ball. The Morning Star concluded that “the weather was favorable and the program excellent.” An excellent program indeed. Happy Juneteenth!