Anderson County, Tennessee
Created in 1810 from portions of Grainger & Knox Counties. The first US Census available for the County was conducted in 1830. Recorded there were 373 Enslaved People (7.75% of the overall population) and 26 Free People of Color, all in Black headed homes. Those Free heads of households included Adam Field, George Manchin, Samuel Mitchell & John Reid. The 10 largest slaveholders that year with the numbers enslaved included Collins Roberts (19), Richard Luallen (18), William McKamey (18), Jacob Peak (16), Douglas Sr. Oliver (16), William Sharp (16) Mary Edwards (15), Anthony Crozier (14), Mary Miller (14) & John Scruggs (14). Other prominent slaveholding surnames were Butler, Moore and Thompson.
In 1840, the number of Enslaved people rose to 396, but their percentage of the overall population decreased to 7%. The number of Free households & individuals in white households decreased to 14. Surnames associated with Free families that year included Riley, Noel, Warwick, Carter & Ross. The most prominent slaveholders by numbers held shifted a bit as well, including: Elizabeth McKamey (23), Jacob Peck (21), William Sharp (18), Martha Butler (16), Douglas Oliver (16), Samuel Galbreath (16), Oliver, Richard Oliver (12),
Cummings, Robert E. Cummings (11), John Garner (11) & Wiley Young (11).
The 1850 census records show a marked increase in Free People with 41 Individuals in 17 households. Of that number, there were 9 Black-headed homes and 11 individuals in white-headed homes (or 27% of all Free People). The Riley surname was the most numerous with 23 family members across 5 households. The slaveholding in Anderson County in 1850 consisted of 503 Enslaved individuals (7.25% of the population) with the largest slaveholders being: John A McKamey (30), Collins Roberts (22), Samuel More (20), Jacob Peak (16), John Garner (15), John Jarnagin (14), James Kirkpatrick (14), Jesse Worthington (11), Robert Cummings (11), William Sharp (11) & Benjamin Weaver (11).
The final US census & Slave Schedule recorded before the Civil War and National Emancipation illustrate the continued growth of chattel slavery in the country. In 1860, there were 583 Enslaved People (or 8.25% of the overall population). Familiar names rounded out the largest slaveholders: Collins Roberts (40), Benjamin Weaver (19), Samuel Moore (18), John Cox (15), William Cross (15), James Kirkpatrick (14), John Jarnigan (14), Jonathan Naff (13), Jesse Worthington (13) & Richard Oliver (13). Other significant slaveholding surnames were Cummings, Galbraith & Wallace, among others. We also can see a vast contraction of the Free Black population that year. There were only 7 Free People of Color recorded in the County and all of those lived in white-headed households, except one elderly Charlotte Butler who lived alone.
Additional Resources
In the 1930's there were 3 Black
schools operating in Anderson County:
Clinton Colored, Coal Creek Colored & Gadsen. Liberty & Oliver Springs schools would also eventually be added to Black educational infrastructure in the County.
Study of Local School Units. US Office of Education & Tennessee State Department of Education. 1935-1936
Claxton & Gadson Town
"The Black Cemetery was originally located in Edgemoore along the CSX Railroad and the Clinch River near the old Edgemoore bridge. Black Cemetery was a family cemetery for and on the property of Joseph and Catherine Henry Black. The cemetery was relocated in 1962 for the construction of TVA's Bull Run Steam Plant. There are 218 graves here, the majority of which are marked by a simple fieldstone and a gray metal marker inscribed as 'unknown'."
Haven’s Chapel United Methodist Church was founded in 1893 by former slave-turned-Union-soldier, Elijah Knott.
Clinton
The 1950 US Census for the town of Clinton gives a glimpse of Black life in the town before formal desegregation efforts. That year there were 208 Black individuals in Clinton across 55 households. There was 1 Black worker listed as living in a white home. 67 year old Cecilia Amos worked as the live-in maid for newspaper publisher Horace Wells of the Courier News. Most working women in the town also did domestic work, while men's labor was spread out over various occupations; Yard Mowing, Janitor, Common Laborer, Carpenter, Construction, Shop Mechanics and a few Railroad, City and State Workers. A significant number of those occupations were equated with Oak Ridge. Ms.Theressa Blair was the only teacher listed for that year & 2 men were inmates in jail at the time.
Outside of the formal city limits of Clinton was the Foley Hill community, designated by the 1950 census as the "Colored Section West of Clinton". There was the hub of the Black community, established after Emancipation. You can view & download that 1950 Census Survey HERE.
Knoxville Sentinel. May 30, 1904
At the beginning of the 1956 school year, the Anderson County School system was mandated to abide by recent court orders to desegregate their educational facilities. Twelve Black high school students led the effort:
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Jo Ann Allen
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Bobby Cain
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Anna Theresser Caswell
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Gail Ann Epps
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Minnie Ann Dickey
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Ronald Gordon Hayden
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William Latham
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Alvah Jay McSwain
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Maurice Soles
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Robert Thacker
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Regina Turner
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Alfred Williams
Today, the Green McAdoo Cultural Center memorializes Clinton's monumental role in Civil Rights history.
Additional Resources
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Green McAdoo: the Civil Rights Movement in Clinton, Carol Van West, MTSU's Center for Historical Preservation
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The Clinton 12: A Story of Courage, Determination, Reconciliation and Resolve, D. Ray Smith, The Oak Ridger
Organized immediately after Emancipation, Asbury United Methodist Church, along with Mt. Sinai Missionary Baptist Church, are two of the oldest Black congregations in Anderson County. Read Asbury's history HERE
One interesting story associated with the founding of Asbury, originally named Tate's Chapel for it's founder, John C. Tate. Mr. Tate arrived in Anderson County from the Tate Springs community of Grainger County, Tennessee. At that time, he was enslaved by a Dr. Milton Tate, but was manumitted by 1860. Immediately after National Emancipation, he oversaw the building of Tate's Chapel and became a Methodist Minister. In 1879, with his family and "several Negroes from Morristown" he set out to establish a Black community in the Woody section of Cumberland County, Tennessee. Situated on a vast piece of land, he called the new settlement Tatesville.
The Rugby Gazette, March 6, 1884
Rev. John C. Tate's time in his new community wouldn't last long as he passed away and was laid to rest there in 1884. From other unverified accounts, it wasn't long before something else happened that caused the remaining members of that Black community to flee the area in the middle of the night during the middle of winter.
"The only school for colored children in Cumberland County TN". American Missionary Association Photographs, 1887-1952. Amistad Research Center, Tulane University.
In 1984, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Roots, Alex Haley, purchase a 125 acre farm in Anderson County. Now part of the Childrens Defense Fund campus, the Haley Farm would be the home of this titan of Black history until he passed in 1992. Learn More Here
Oak Ridge
What would be Oak Ridge spanned across the border of Anderson & Roane Counties. Prior to the purchase of those lands by the Federal Government, Black families had lived in the valley since the late 1700's.
"In 1950, Scarboro Village opened, providing an improved yet still segregated standard of living for black people. The new community included Scarboro High School with 2.5 paid teaching positions and volunteers who taught math, biology, and physics. In 1955, one year after the US Supreme Court’s landmark decision striking down segregation in public schools, 40 African American children enrolled at Oak Ridge High School, and 45 students began attending Robertsville Junior High School. The Oak Ridge school system was the first southern school system to end segregation."
Scarboro Community Center, Manhattan Project National Historic Park
Originally named First African Missionary Baptist Church, Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church was founded in 1945, during World War II and in the midst of increased Black migration into Oak Ridge. Knoxville's Rev. J.H. Hill was the first pastor, assigned from Mount Zion Baptist Church in that neighboring city. Founding trustees of the church were Willie Buckner, Isaac Harris, Bessye Lewis, Jessie McClanahan, Mable McClanahan, Margaret Phillips, Melvin Phillips, Hearmie Williams, and Leroy Windham. Purchasing an acre of land from the U.S. government, the congregation set to work building the church, which was completed in 1965.
Center for Historic Preservation, Middle Tennessee State University
Oak Valley Baptist Church was established in 1946 by Rev. Alonzo Sims. During its early years, the congregation met in various locations until a building was purchased in 1951 and was relocated to their permanent home at 194 Hampton Road. Rev. D. E. Mckinnon oversaw the completion of a new building at that location in 1972. The current church structure was completed in 1994. Read more of Oak Valley's History HERE.
Additional Resources
Oliver Springs
Additional Resources
Briceville & Coal Creek
Briceville, originally called Slatestone Hollow, began cultivating a coal mining economy as early as the 1860's. After the US Civil War that coal production increased significantly. So much so, by 1910 Briceville was the largest community, by population, in Anderson County. That growth was facilitated in part to the use of mostly Black convict labor in the mines of the Coal Creek Valley. The ensuing fight by free labor coal miners against the State of Tennessee's convict leasing system, the coal bosses, their armed thugs and the National Guard culminated into the Coal Creek Wars. Alex Haley, according to Charles 'Boomer' Winfrey, called the Coal Creek Wars the "last battle of the Civil War".
Learn more from Mr. Winfrey in the interview below:
Chattanooga Daily Times, August 21, 1892
Briceville and Coal Creek both had Black communities of their own. The Briceville Negro school served around 20 students in the early 1900's with Ms. Maude Brown. The Brown's lived in Anderson County's District 13 in 1910. In looking at the rest of that district as well as Districts 5, 12 & 14, there were about 275 Black and Mulatto individuals with the most working people engaged in coal mining. Those families that year, hailed mostly from Tennessee & North Carolina, with othesr from Virginia, Georgia, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky & South Carolina. There were at least four farming Black families as well as a significant number of families listed as owning their homes.
Coal Creek (Lake City/Rocky Top) also had it's own Black School and a Baptist church that served the community. From 1918 to around 1956, Mt. Moriah Baptist church was also the home to the town's Black school. As the county approached desegregation, families petitioned the City to build them a new school instead of integrating with the white school. The teacher/principal at that time was Mr. Carl Locke.
More research is needed on Black families, stories and their networks in and from the Tennessee coal fields.