​I have in the past presented a radical individual of Savannah but today I would like to examine a radical family. The Deveaux family had three generations leading the way in resistance to the white led suppression of blacks In Savannah. Catherine and John Benjamin Deveaux were the original couple to lead. Catherine Deveaux ran a school for slaves in a time that education for slaves was illegal and punishable by a $500 fine and thirty-nine lashes. John had been a leader in the black community starting as choir director at Second African Baptist Church. While he was choir director he established organized the "Old Hundred” music club dedicated to the study of music at Savannah in 1817. "Old Hundred” was the oldest recorded African-American music organization in America. He also later became a deacon in at Second African Baptist church. Second African Baptist was ostensibly started by First African Baptist Church because the white people of Savannah had become intimidated by the 1,000 plus slaves and freedmen who were gathering at their religious meetings. To alleviate the fears of the whites and to accommodate the growing numbers they decided to start another church. The Second African Baptist Church (pictured with monument here) would become historically important as the place where the Forty Acres and A Mule Proclamation was read publicly and the trial run Martin Luthur King Jr. would make of his famous I Have A Dream speech. It was the home church of the Deveaux’ s family until John became a pastor and went to Third African Baptist Church (now Bryan Street Baptist Church).
         Catherine and John would become the proud parents of Jane Deveaux in 1810. To ensure she received a good education she was sent North where the education of blacks was less dangerous and could continue beyond the elementary grades. Jane would return to Savannah and like her mother start a school for slaves in 1830. This slave school would be the longest running of any slave school in the United States. It ran for thirty years until 1860 the brink of the Civil War. Her students would carry schoolwork in buckets to give the impression they were running chores for their masters. She listed her occupation as a pastry cook. During the Civil War she was commandeered to sew outfits for the Confederacy but still was teaching slaves despite the laws against it. After the war was over because she had a good reputation for teaching she was sought after as a teacher and held classes with thirty-five students. The Freedman’s Bureau who would later come to Savannah during Reconstruction gave Savannah’s population of blacks a higher mark for literacy than other places in the South.
        Jane would give birth to John H. Deveaux. John H. was one of the leaders of the black community during Reconstruction and beyond. He cofounded and acted as editor in 1875 of the Colored Tribune. It changed its name in 1876 to the Savannah Tribune a black paper still publishing today. John H. would use his position to inform the black community of lynchings and political issues of the day. He also became a colonel in the black militia in Savannah. Black militias were formed in the south with the encouragement of the Federal Government as an effort to empower blacks to withstand white oppression. As you can imagine this did not go well with the plans the white community had to eventually reestablish control through Jim Crow laws. He also became a political stalwart of the Republican Party in the South.  So when President William Mckinley appointed John H. to the prestigious position of Collector of Customs this did not set well with some in the white community who complained. But eventually he won the majority of white’s support (or at least enough) because of his efficiency at the job.
       Today at 513 East York Street is a little two-story cottage built in 1853 for the estate of Catherine DeVeaux. This and the ongoing legacy of the Savannah Tribune are reminders of the three generations. They are buried in Laurel Grove Cemetery South.

         The next presidential visit we discuss is a president who would be on most people’s corrupt president’s list: Richard Nixon. The visit came well before the Watergate Scandal when Nixon was still viewed favorably by most of America. It was October 08, 1970 and President Nixon was here to celebrate the opening of a new research center on Skidaway Island. The Skidaway Institute of Oceanography (SKIO) was established in 1967. Robert Roebling, grandson of John Roebling the engineer for the Brooklyn Bridge, donated his cattle farm on the north end of Skidaway Island. His family wanted an ocean research institute for the east coast as they already had on the west coast of the United States. In 2013 SKIO merged with the University of Georgia. Today international researchers study the ocean, especially Grey’s Reef, and other marine concerns on the 700 acres of facilities with a research ship available for extended stays at sea.
           President Nixon was onboard the "Royal Eagle” sitting with Roebling as he embarked from Savannah as a crowd of people see him off the Savannah River. At Skidaway Island, patriotic music could be heard in the background as Nixon disembarks with his wife, his daughter Julie and his son-in-law David Eisenhower, grandson of president Dwight D. Eisenhower. He began his speech with comments on his invitation to Savannah by both the two gubernatorial candidates Hal Suit and governor Lester Maddox, in an effort to calm fears he was taking sides in the Georgia governor’s race he called the event bipartisan.
           Nixon’s speech consists of presenting his policies of the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War. He states his goal to end the war "in a way that serves the peace, that builds the peace, that discourages aggression and that's what we're doing in Vietnam and we're going to accomplish it." This was an easy presidential visit compare to the post-Watergate years. SKIO continues to be an outstanding institution leading in the field of oceanographic research today. The facilities have for the public a small educational aquarium, nature trail through the woods, pier, and a research shack that has been turned into a museum about the property under the Roeblings.  It is one of the little gems of Savannah not in the historic district.
​Here is the site for SKIO and MAREX 
          
​         Georgia has had only one President come from the state. James Earl Carter Jr. was a devout Baptist, nuclear engineer, peanut farmer and president. One of my memories of him is driving by his new church Maranatha after he had been president. I was planning to attend his Sunday School class the next day and wanted to be sure where the church was since there would be a huge crowd to know where the church was located. As I drove up I saw two men with short hair, guns strapped to their waists, white shirts, black ties leaning on a black sedan (secret service agents). In the yard was the man himself Jimmy Carter on a riding lawn mower cutting the large lawn in front of the church. It spoke of the humility and determination to never lose touch with the common the Nobel Peace Prize winner wished to maintain.
        But I digress. Carter of course as governor came to Savannah several times to campaign and raise money. Interestingly, the teetotaler seemed always to go to legendary Pinkie Masters a once legendary dive bar in the historic district of Savannah. It was here he had announced his candidacy for governor. Pinkies was opened in the 1950s by Luis Christopher Masterpolis. It was called Pinkie Masters because that was the nickname of Masterpolis. Carter often made visits there because Masterpolis was one of his first supporters. Carter said Pinkie Masters helped him carry Chatham County in each election.
           On the evening before St. Patrick’s Day 1978, now President Jimmy Carter was in Savannah to speak before the Hibernia Society. But as usual he went to the bar unfortunately his old friend Masterpolis had died a few months before. Entering under the back-lit plastic Pabst Blue Ribbon sign he climbed on top of the bar as in days past. The customers that night had a story to tell. A plaque on the wall declared that Carter first announced his run for president from this same spot.
    In the speech before the Hibernia Society that night Carter stated “…there's only one city in Georgia about which I've ever made this statement: Savannah's my favorite city of all, because you present to Georgia and to the rest of the world a unique and very fine combination of pride in the past—preserving what's right and decent and enjoyable and harmonious and inspirational—with no fear of the future and making the most of the present. And I'm very proud that you've invited me as President of the United States to come back and share this honor with you.” Carter’s visit does not necessarily stand out in the annals of history but helps to show the simple charm that helped elect him president.
 
 
 

​        If one was to name the greatest presidents of the United States the names of George Washington (who gave Savannah two cannons from Yorktown), Abraham Lincoln (who was given Savannah as a Christmas gift by Gen. Sherman), would surely come up and probably after them one of the next presidents mentioned would be Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR the president who led us through the Great Depression and World War II also called Warms Springs, Georgia his second home. He visited Warm Springs so often that his home there was called the ‘Little White House’. Warm Springs became a place  used to allow his polio to be seen. Everywhere else he was seldom seen in a wheelchair but at Warm Springs if he was not crawling into the pool made of the spring water of the town he could be found in his wheelchair. He created a space for other polio stricken to come and seek assistance and inspiration for dealing with polio. FDR while at Warm Springs also drove through the countryside of Georgia in a car he developed so he could drive using his hands and not his feet. A time he used to listen, speak, and get to know people from the rural south. He became an honorary citizen of Georgia. So it is no surprise that he found himself in Savannah one day.
         Unlike Warm Springs’ informality he came to Savannah on an official visit as President. He came to Savannah to honor Georgia’s Bicentennial. It would be a visit that lined the streets with people along the parade and found 40,000 people in the Savannah Municipal Stadium. FDR traveled to Savannah with his mother Sara Roosevelt a New York patrician of the highest order. Along the way she asked FDR, "Franklin, this is the most beautiful avenue I have ever seen. Don't you think so Franklin?" as they traveled down Victory Drive. One folklore of the visit had FDR stop the motorcade in front of the famed Gingerbread House across from the Bull Street Library so he could better observe the gingerbread on the house.
         His speech at the Municipal Stadium stands out for his appeal for support for normalization of relations with the Soviet Union as he prepared the nation for World War II. He also mentioned the US Steamship Savannah something he would have been familiar with since he made and signed over eight proclamations of National Maritime Day which is set on the day that Steamship Savannah first left for Europe.  He also closed with these words:

Materially we must strive to secure a broader economic opportunity for all men so that each shall have a chance to show the stuff of which he is made. Spiritually and ethically we must strive to bring about clean living and right thinking. We appreciate that the things of the body are important; but we also appreciate the things of the soul are immeasurably more important. The foundation stone of national life is and ever must be the high individual character of the individual citizen.

                                                   These words still resonate even today.

  ​Savannah’s Radical Minister of Pacifism*
 
         Radicalism can sometimes come from the strangest places. First Baptist Church of Savannah may have found itself a little too radical for the Southern Baptist Convention as it moved to align itself with the Cooperative Baptist and Southern Baptist Alliance in modern times but to the world outside of Baptist life they would seem to be ensconced in a Conservative to Moderate place and nowhere near radical. But for one moment in time they were part of an incident that would shock most.
          The incident was an act by their pastor at the time, Joseph Judson Taylor. Taylor was named after famed Southern Baptist Burma missionary Adoniram Judson. Taylor attended Richmond College from 1875-1880 and was chosen valedictorian for the commencement. He attended the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary but never graduated and later received a Doctor of Divinity from my alma mater, Samford University. Later he received a Doctor of Laws degree from Union University in Tennessee.
          He became immersed in the Southern Baptist Convention’s workings, serving on several committees. So when he came to First Baptist Church of Savannah he was quite the catch. The pulpit committee of First Baptist said “He stands among the foremost of our preachers in a Southern pulpit. In doctrine he is sound, clear, and conservative. As a man he is scholarly, yet genial; aggressive, but prudent; commanding the respect of the world as he wins the hearts of all.” He had pastored several churches before this one; the last one was First Baptist of Knoxville. He would in his ministry baptize over one thousand folks.  He had a liberal interpretation of the Bible and would speak out and write against the new, at that time, theory of evolution.
             But two years into his ministry at First Baptist of Savannah Taylor became greatly disturbed when at the 1917 SBC in New Orleans. On the first day of the meeting, J. W. Porter of Kentucky offered a resolution pledging the support of Southern Baptists to the war effort:
Resolved, That we, the representatives of 2,744,000 Southern Baptists in Convention assembled, pledge to our President and government, our prayers, our loyal and sacrificial support in the war which we are engaged. To this end, we pledge our property, our lives and our sacred honor.
A request was made to table the resolution as it was not the proper time to discuss, since the custom of the Convention was “to reject all resolutions and motions that did not bear directly on the work of the body.” But Porter was applauded when the said that “he could not conceive of men from the land of Lee and Jackson being opposed to such a resolution.” The motion to table the resolution was voted down and the resolution was passed.
          Taylor, who had written and at various times proclaimed his pacifism, refused to grant the resolution unanimous consent and was the only member to do so. To push matters even further he offered the following peace resolution:

WHEREAS, There has come upon the earth a spirit which has plunged the nations that have been considered foremost in the lines of advancing civilization into a war more ruthless and more destructive of human life and human happiness than the world has ever before known; therefore be it Resolved, (1) That we deeply deplore the awful and sorrowful calamity which has caused these leading nations to drench the earth in the precious blood of their own loyal citizens.
(2) That we affirm our faith in the righteousness of the Sermon on the Mount, and our confidence in the infallible wisdom of him who taught us to love our enemies, to bless them that curse us, and to do good to them that despitefully use and persecute us.
(3) That we desire a stronger faith in the God who maketh wars to cease even unto the ends of the earth, and we shall rejoice if our own people, and all of every name who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, shall find it in their hearts to pray for kings and all that are in authority that we may live quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty.

        The resolution failed with only 112 votes in the affirmative out of over 1,500. Taylor opposed even the toned down rhetoric of another motion in the support of the war. He said he “deplored the gloating and hand clapping over human beings being shot to death.” He said “the Convention had too much of Caesar and too little of God.”
        Taylor’s remarks were branded as “seditious,” “unloyal,” and “treasonable.” The incident was said to be “the stormiest scene that was ever enacted on the floor of the Convention.” Taylor wrote later that he was “hooted and hissed and threatened with personal violence by honourable members of the body.”
        Now what you do in New Orleans at the SBC may stay there but he came back to First Baptist Church of Savannah and told them exactly what he did and why he did it, both in a sermon and in private.
          His message was titled “The Divided Kingdom” in which he expressed his views on war and peace. He proclaimed that the church “is not called to usurp the place of Congress in declaring war, nor is it appointed to gather arms or even to sell bonds to put money into the national treasury.” The church was not “to give formal sanction to the shedding of blood.” He publicly argued that his address at the Convention with the presentation of his peace resolution “did not contain one single treasonable or disloyal utterance.” He expressed in an August 1917 letter his objection to the church in which he belonged “taking formal part in this orgy of butchery and blood.”
         This did not sit well with the deacons and other members of the church who met and passed the following resolution:

Whereas the Pacifist views expressed recently by our pastor . . . at the Southern Baptist Convention at New Orleans and the expression of views of a similar nature, both in private to the members of the congregation, and in the pulpit of our church, have in the opinion of the Board of Deacons, greatly weakened his influence, now therefore be it resolved that . . . he tender his resignation to the church, believing that by so doing he will save both himself and the church further embarrassment and will strengthen the work of the church in this community.

      He replied to this resolution with this letter:

The disquieting affairs of the First Baptist Church were submitted to a full meeting of the official Board of the church July 8th last, with the assurance that I would cheerfully conform to any course the brethren might agree upon. Since then the whole question has been in the Board’s hands. Many individuals have expressed their opinions pro and con, and many rumors have been afloat. Only recently has the Board reached an agreement and it is the first authoritative statement that has been made. This preamble states my position fairly and fraternally. I am a pacifist both for church and state. I regret that what seems to be my best interests in a secular way does not meet my convictions of duty in this case. But I in no wise admit that a pacifist is not a patriot. As our country is in war, I am absolutely loyal to the country’s interest in every fiber of my being; and I am confident that the pacifist will be more popular later than he is today.
       
​          With this he resigned. The country became consumed with war and the war time patriotism that denounces all those opposed to war as un-American. For his part Taylor continued on his way finding another church smaller and less prestigious in Leaksville, North Carolina. In 1920 he wrote a lesser classic on pacifism called “God on War.”
        Taylor’s view after the maelstrom and horrors of the war where 20 million were killed and another 20 million were wounded did not seem quite so radical anymore. He did not attend the next meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, in 1918, but rejoined the annual meetings in 1919, 1920, and 1921. In 1922, he was nominated by J. W. Porter, who had clashed with him at the 1917 meeting, to be vice president of the convention.
        At the 1923 Southern Baptist Convention Taylor offered, and the Convention adopted, a resolution which described war as “one of the most ghastly and grievous burdens that afflict the human family” and resolved that members of the Convention who attended the upcoming meeting of the Baptist World Alliance urge that group to “make a clear and concise deliverance on War, which shall be in full harmony with the spirit and teachings of our Lord Christ, as set forth in the Holy Scriptures.”
        At the 1924 meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in Atlanta, Georgia, Taylor moved that a Peace Committee be appointed. Seven men were appointed, including Taylor. The Committee on Resolutions recommended that two anti-war resolutions be referred to this Peace Committee. At the instigation of the Peace Committee the 1925 Baptist Faith and Message included a three-paragraph section on “Peace and War”.
The three paragraphs read as follows:

XIX. Peace and War
It is the duty of Christians to seek peace with all men on principles of righteousness. In accordance with the spirit and teachings of Christ they should do all in their power to put an end to war.
The true remedy for the war spirit is the pure gospel of our Lord. The supreme need of the world is the acceptance of his teachings in all the affairs of men and nations, and the practical application of his law of love.
We urge Christian people throughout the world to pray for the reign of the Prince of Peace, and to oppose everything likely to provoke war.
For thirty-eight years until the revised 1963 edition of the Baptist Faith and Message which excluded these paragraphs, this was the official stance of the Southern Baptist Convention. Taylor died in 1930 and his memory is held only on the fringes of Baptist life but for a brief moment in Savannah’s history one of Savannah’s leading pastors was on the forefront of the pacifist movement.

​*(Thanks to Rev. John Findley the current minister of First Baptist Church of Savannah for his article on Joseph Judson Taylor: Baptist Pacifist in a Time of War at EthicsDaily.com and Lawrence M. Vance’s article Joseph Judson Taylor: Baptist Pacifist at LewRockwell.com.)

I apologize for the late posting. Because of temporary difficulties I cannot continue the presidential visits. This issue should be corrected soon. Instead I will be ‘ruminating’ about a now and then theme I will develop called Savannah’s Radicals. In this series I will be looking at Savannahians who have either lived or held radical philosophies. Some of our fellow travelers in Slowvannah have lived quite radical lives.   
 
          Our first is Bishop Henry McNeal Turner. Turner was born a free-man in Newberry Courthouse, South Carolina on February 1, 1834 and died on May 5, 1915. The eighty-one years of his life were one of America’s remarkable stories He received his preacher's license in 1853. He became pastor of Israel AME church in Washington D.C. During His ministry in Washington DC Abraham Lincoln commissioned Turner to the office of Chaplain in the Union Army,  This made him the first Black chaplain in the United States Army in 1863. He primarily served the First Regiment of United States Colored Troops, a regiment he helped create and for which he recruited soldiers he traveled throughout the South as an itinerant evangelist, going as far as New Orleans, Louisiana. His religious career was significant because of the many A.M.E. churches he started after the Civil War.   
Turner may be considered as a precursor of the Black Liberation Theology Movement of the sixties and seventies. In his sermons, he often stated that God is a Negro, a phrase meant to show God’s unique concern for Blacks, a concept shocking some even today. In 1885, showing his well-known radicalness, he became the first A.M.E. bishop to ordain a woman, Sarah Ann Hughes, to the office of deacon[1]
          He was equally groundbreaking in his political career. Reverend Turner helped organize Georgia's Republican Party and served in the State's new Constitutional Convention. He was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives to represent Macon, becoming one of the first Black legislators in America. His term was cut short and the revocation of many of the reforms of Reconstruction. In 1868, the vast majority of white legislators decided to expel their African American peers on the grounds that holding public office was a privilege denied Blacks. When the Georgia legislature was voting on whether to seat the newly elected Black legislators, Reverend Turner delivered a speech, “Am I Not a Man,” that is still recognized as one of America’s greatest speeches.  A quote from the speech reads:
 
Mr. Speaker: Before proceeding to argue this question upon its intrinsic merits, I wish the members of this House to understand the position that I take. I hold that I am a member of this body. Therefore, sir, I shall neither fawn nor cringe before any party, nor stoop to beg them for my rights. Some of my colored fellow members, in the course of their remarks, took occasion to appeal to the sympathies of members on the opposite side, and to eulogize their character for magnanimity. It reminds me very much, sir, of slaves begging under the lash. I am here to demand my rights and to hurl thunderbolts at the men who would dare to cross the threshold of my manhood. There is an old aphorism which says, “Fight the devil with fire,” and if I should observe the rule in this instance, I wish gentlemen to understand that it is but fighting them with their own weapon.[2]
 
 
Though his eloquence was unmatched, the Black legislators would eventually be unseated.

         Turner’s significance for Savannah was his appointment to work at the Custom House and served as a pastor of the prestigious St. Philip's AME Church here in Savannah. In 1876 while serving at St. Philip’s he was elected manager of the publishing house of the church. Four years later, in a hard-fought and controversial contest, he won election as the twelfth bishop of the AME Church. Much of his time was spent in Georgia, where he preached at revivals in Macon, Athens and other places helping phenomenal growth in Georgia AME churches. While Bishop He wrote The Genius and Theory of Methodist Polity (1885), a popular guide to Methodist policies and practices.
.          Turner supported Black Nationalism and emigration of Blacks to Africa, a concept that would plant ideas for Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X in the twentieth century. He owned two newspapers: The Voice of Missions (he served as editor from 1893 to 1900) and later The Voice of the People (editor from 1901 to 1904). These newspapers helped him found the International Migration Society, an effort to move Blacks from the United States back to Africa where they could find equality in economics, political, and social spheres. He organized two ships that left the Savannah harbor with a total of 500 or more emigrants, who traveled to Liberia in 1895 and 1896. Turner also served as chair of the board of Morris Brown College from 1896-1908 a historically black university.
           Turner was ahead of his time and his term as pastor of St. Phillip’s Church (see picture below) here and later becoming bishop do the Georgia AME allowed him a platform to challenge the lynchings and the establishing of Jim Crow laws. He was a proud voice crying in the wilderness of Georgia and Reconstruction America in Savannah many years before Black mayors, Black uncontested state representatives, and Black council members could be found. Savannah has a monument in his honor at the former site of St. Phillip’s Church across from the Savannah College of Art and Design’s Art Museum (see below). There is also a portrait of him hanging in the State Capitol.

​
​[1] “Henry McNeal Turner,” This Far by Faith series, 2003, http://www.pbs.org (accessed July 7, 2013).

[2] “Henry McNeal Turner: I Claim the Rights of a Man,” Black Past.org: Remembered and Reclaimed, http://www.blackpast.org (accessed June 23, 2013).