Blacks – Now Then, Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh Got Schenley Wrong

Posted on February 17, 2019January 7, 2019 by Leon J. Pollom

Sleazy Seducer or Slave Savior? Mary Croghan 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. Y...

Transcendant

Posted on February 2, 2019December 11, 2018 by Leon J. Pollom

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...

Black Waiters, Soldiers of Self-Emancipation

Posted on November 21, 2018January 8, 2019 by Leon J. Pollom

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 ...