Blacks – Now Then, Pittsburgh

Black Waiters, Soldiers of Self-Emancipation

Posted on November 21, 2018December 8, 2018 by nowthenpgh@gmail.com

Niagara Bridge, the goal of self-emancipated slaves passing through Pittsburgh Ready to Swoop to the Rescue You probably don't know this. Squads of black men and women in uniform routinely patrolled Pittsburgh and other key points of the Underground Railroad, often rescuing runaway slaves as they were about to be apprehended. They are overlooked because they ...

Pittsburgh Got Schenley Wrong

Posted on October 16, 2018December 8, 2018 by nowthenpgh@gmail.com

Sleazy Seducer or Slave Savior? Pittsburgh likes to tell a romantic, shocking tale about one of its wealthy young heiresses. It's been telling the story for 174 years. The story is mostly wrong. Lurid speculation in newspaper accounts of 1842 get passed off as accurate history. I refer to the elopement of Mary Croghan and Edward W.H. Schenley. You know the name from Schenl...

Transcendant

Posted on October 4, 2018December 11, 2018 by nowthenpgh@gmail.com

When Racism Greeted A Black Musical Genius In Pittsburgh Perhaps the most significant black artist ever to perform in Pittsburgh was pelted with stones, rotten eggs and curses of "Nigger!" You haven't heard of this? Well, community shame tends to have a short shelf life. And, it did happen a long time ago. It was May 16, 1843. The protagonist of this...