Lauret Savoy's Blog, page 4

African Americans in the Anti-Slavery Movement & a Family Trace

Yesterday I attended a truly wonderful and thought-provoking book launch and panel at UMass re: Manisha Sinha‘s new THE SLAVE’S CAUSE: A HISTORY OF ABOLITION. Her encyclopedic volume presents the African American role in defining and shaping the abolition movement(s) in this land from the earliest days on—not just in the 19th century.


 


Her work also relates to my last note on my great-grandfather Edward Augustine Savoy, to my new writing project, and to the difficulty of tracing a familial past.


 


Edward Augustine’s parents, Edward L. and Elizabeth Butler Savoy, appear in the 1850 and 1860 federal censuses in Washington City as free mulattoes. The 1860 Federal Census lists my great-great-grandfather as a “laborer” and my great-great-grandmother Elizabeth a “washerwoman.”


 


Only by chance did I learn that she was part of the local anti-slavery community. A single sentence left a trace in a 1969 research article on the “free Negro population” of Washington: “Elizabeth Savoy, wife of Edward Savoy, a successful caterer, worked with the underground railway and helped slaves make their way northward to Canada and freedom.” One sentence in an article with no noted source. The author, long dead, apparently left no research files. Yet twenty-five words revealed more about the kind of woman my great-great-grandmother was than “washerwoman” on a census ever could. Her husband made a “successful” living at a time when most respectable jobs were closed to free men of color.


 


The last chapter in TRACE (“Placing Washington, D.C., after the Inauguration”) introduces this paternal line as I begin to search for origins, not just of blood but of the deliberate siting of the nation’s capital along the Potomac River and the economic motives of slavery.


 


My new writing project, “On the River’s Back,” continues this search for generational landscapes and familial ties to the tidewater and Piedmont landscapes of Maryland and Virginia (and DC) from the colonial era to the Civil War. The land itself is and will be a big part of the story.


 


Manisha Sinha’s new work lifts the veil and gives voice to so many who had been lost in history’s silences. I hope I can honor paternal ancestors by giving voice to the traces left of their lives in this land. I hope you’ll wish me luck!


 


The first of the two maps shows what would become part of the nation’s capital: tobacco plantations, farms, tidal marshes, and port towns on the Maryland side of the Potomac River in 1792. The other map, from 1793, shows the plan of the City of Washington. Both maps are from the Library of Congress.



                     

Escaping Invisibility in the Nation’s Capital

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture held the first Black Life Matters Wikipedia Edit-a-thon on February 7th, with volunteers contributing to articles on Wikipedia for the national Black WikiHistory Month outreach campaign.

At a dear friend’s suggestion they included my great grandfather, Edward Augustine Savoy, who worked for 21 secretaries of state under 14 presidencies. He was man whom FDR had chauffeured to the White House for congratulations on his retirement at the age of 77, after one secretary of state had waived federal law and another, Henry Stimson, subverted it to keep him past the mandatory retirement age. A man whose life and contributions are little known today, yet whose story reveals the troubling ties between African Americans and the nation’s capital.

Edward Augustine Savoy was born a free person of color in Washington City, as the nation’s capital once was called, in 1855. His father was a leading caterer and public waiter to federal officials. His mother aided the Underground Railroad. After the Civil War both parents worked for Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, who hired a 14-year-old Edward Augustine as a page in 1869. Thus began a career that would span 64 years.

E. A. Savoy was privy to the paper trails of rifts and wars between nations. He witnessed the assassination of President James Garfield. He delivered ultimata and passports to diplomats, becoming known as the State Department’s international “bouncer.” In two such instances he tricked successive Spanish ministers at the outbreak of the Spanish-American War into accepting their own passports—so they could then be asked to leave the country. He carried home the treaty from Paris that ended that war, witnessing and sealing other treaties. He kept ambassadors of warring nations apart when their visits to the State Department coincided.

When finally retired in 1933, he held one of the highest government positions possible for an African American at the time, chief messenger to the secretary of state. Less than a year after his death in 1943, a Liberty ship would be launched in his honor, the SS Edward A. Savoy.

Barely five feet tall, known for his tact, charm and wit, E. A. Savoy was considered an anomaly. On meeting him for the first time, according to a newspaper account from the day, one Congressman confided, “I thought he was at least the Ambassador from Dahomey, and was quite taken back when he volunteered to take my card to the Secretary.”

Often chosen as the subject of human-interest stories, he appeared no less than six times in TIME magazine, which liked to record “Savoy-isms”: “When I meet a man who is domineering to his inferiors, I know he is sycophantic to his superiors, and no gentleman.” Or, on the language of successful diplomacy, “Never say what you want to say, and never say anything before you think twice.” The New York Times gave his obituary a full column and photo.

Yet my great grandfather never received the status, respect, or salary of the skilled diplomat he was. To government officials and the media he was “Eddie,” the “colored” messenger or “diminutive Negro” doorkeeper, rarely Edward, certainly not Edward Augustine. The boundary defined by ideas of “race” stood firm, cutting his story, and that of his family, which grew out of the paradox of Washington, D.C.

            

At Home on Many Shelves

Sixty-six agents declined to represent Trace.  Several of them had expressed initial interest based on the query letter.   But all said no, some of them taking the time to explain that they would have difficulty placing my work with a mainstream publisher.  The fear was that publishers would perceive my manuscript as trying to do too many things at once, that they would have difficulty categorizing it — figuring out in what section of the bookstore it belongs.  One kind agent added that the publishing environment is very conservative right now.  Publishers are more risk-averse than ever, he told me, and my work would be perceived as a very risky proposition.

So you might have an idea of how grateful I am that Jack Shoemaker and Counterpoint Press were eager to take the risk.

Trace now sits on many different shelves in bookstores.  In one store I found it in Biography/Memoir, in another in History, in others still in Anthropology, in Sociology, in Nature Writing, in Travel Writing, in Essays, in Psychology.

The various categories might lead one to ask if Trace is trying to do too much at once.  But this question amounts to asking my Gemini-self if I am trying to think of too many “different” things at once that should be considered separately.  My answer is and has to be no.   As a Trace reader and new friend just told me, there are so many issues and questions and concerns in the air regarding race, justice, identity, integrity, environment, and history in this country.   She appreciates how I tried to tie them together in Trace.

We all carry history within us, the past becoming present in what we think and do, in who we are.  Trace is a personal narrative that asks who “we” are in this place called the United States.  All Americans are implicated in the nation’s history, told and untold.  We are all marked by the continuing presence of past and by America’s landscapes, whether ancestors inhabited the continent for millennia or family immigrated in recent years.  I may be a witness trying to re-member, but I am not alone—these journeys speak to common concerns.  Anyone calling the country home might ask similar questions: Who are “we”?  What is my place as a citizen in this enterprise of America?  What is my place on this land?  Any honest answers require acknowledging the place of race.  Anyone wondering how to live responsibly on Earth might face similar conflicts.

As well, so much writing about African-American life has focused on urban experiences.  Or, if the land is mentioned, it is engaged in a commentary on the history of the South.  This is an enormous mistake because the range of experience and the meaning of home are as wide as the physical land itself.  Trace tries to redress this to some extent, opening to a greater richness.

The chapter-journeys in Trace cohere as experiments of cross-readings, across lines of cultural difference, across disciplines, and across the land.  By asking questions about our lives in this land, and by re-imagining language and frames, the book invites creative interaction with many audiences as a calling back and forth and an exchange.  Trace is not just a “race” book nor is it simply “nature writing”—it is a call for connection and dialogue.

With a Lot of Help from Friends

“Sometimes a book finds me. I know you have your own tales to tell, but occasionally I like to share the path by which a particularly fine work made its way into my hands and, subsequently, my life. This story begins in October during the author reception at the New England Independent Booksellers Association’s Fall Conference.” –Robert Gray, “How a Great Book Found Me at #NEIBA2015”

Robert Gray begins his December 4th column in Shelf Awareness with these words, reminding me how very lucky I am to have supportive friends.

Thanks to Counterpoint Press, I attended the authors’ reception at the New England Independent Booksellers Association’s fall meeting in Providence, RI.  Joan Grenier, owner of the Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, MA, was a one-woman dynamo putting copies of Trace into the hands of bookseller after bookseller and guiding them to my table.   The line quickly grew.  I met Robert Gray.  I met booksellers from Maine, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.  And I understood for the first time how important word of mouth is.   Joan’s support meant all the difference!

The story doesn’t end at NEIBA.  Joan and other enthusiastic booksellers like Stephen Sparks (Green Apple Books in San Francisco) and Percy Sutton (Brown University Bookstore) helped to make Trace one of the Indie Next Great Reads for November.  I am deeply grateful.

November 19, 20, 21 — Trace Goes West!

In traveling to the west coast for three back-to-back readings in Seattle, WA, then Point Reyes then Oakland, CA, I also realized that I had come home.   Rick Simonson of the Elliott Bay Book Company and Stacie Ford-Bonnelle of the Northwest African American Museum graciously welcomed and hosted me for a reading at the museum.  The visit to Seattle was all too brief, though, with little chance to get the feel of this southeastern edge of the Salish Sea.

The next morning I returned to the place of my birth, flying to the Bay Area.  It still amazes me that after all these years I feel such an elemental pull by the sky, land, and sea here.  This is a region of origins.   Point Reyes Books and the Mesa Refuge co-sponsored a reading at the acoustically wonderful Presbyterian Community Church that night.   My voice felt as embraced as I did in that sanctuary.  Kate Levinson and Steve Costa (owners of Point Reyes Books), Susan Tillett of the Mesa Refuge, and friends Wendy Friefeld and Gary Thompson were joined by a welcoming audience that included Stephen Sparks of Green Apple Books in San Francisco as well as David Abram.

The nourishing whirlwind continued the following day, spent in the tremendous company of Jack Shoemaker and Jane Vandenburgh and ending with a “flash event” at Diesel Books in Oakland.  Serendipity.  Wonderful people–Louise Dunlap and Brad Johnson (of Diesel Books) especially, along with Counterpoint Press friends and Joyce Kouffman–all helped turn a “flash” into a reading and conversation.  Carl Anthony even came!

Header photo of Elliott Bay Book Company.

 

 

November 16 — Trace Goes to Busboys & Poets (and Politics & Prose), Washington, DC

The first out-of-town launch reading from my new book Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape took place on November 16th at Busboys & Poets in Washington, DC, in the “flagship” location on 14th and V Streets, NW.  What an uplifting and inspiring evening for me at this true “community gathering place.”

Busboys and Poets describes itself as a “community where racial and cultural connections are consciously uplifted . . . a place to take a deliberate pause and feed your mind, body and soul . . . a space for art, culture and politics to intentionally collide.”  The founders believed “that by creating such a space we can inspire social change and begin to transform our community and the world.”

Yes!   On every visit or longer stay in the city, I come to browse the shelves and learn from conversations there.   I do the same thing at Politics and Prose Bookstore, which now manages the bookselling operations for Busboys and Poets and coordinates event schedules.  So, it was a huge honor to be invited to read from Trace by Politics and Prose/Busboys and Poets and to be greeted by large, welcoming audience.   I had come home.

 

November 10 — Trace Launches!

My new book Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape officially goes out into the world on November 10th.

The Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, MA, is hosting the launch party and my first reading that evening.  To say that I am both nervous and excited is an understatement.  The advance praise received to date—from Kirkus Review, Booklist, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Vulture and New York Magazine, as well as from many respected authors and booksellers—has left me amazed. I’m honored that my words are touching readers.

One irony isn’t lost on me.  Berkeley, California, is my birthplace.  Now Counterpoint Press has published the book that I’ve been coming to all my life just blocks from the hospital where I was born.

“Every landscape is an accumulation,” one epigraph reads.  “Life must be lived amidst that which was made before.” I invite you to join me as I search for the presence of the past in this land and in a life.  Please visit the book’s new website at www.readtrace.com for stories that cross this continent and time.

Header photo of Odyssey Bookshop by John Phelan, CC BY-SA 3.0.

 

ReadTrace.com

Launch Podium, a digital content marketing service in San Francisco, is collaborating with Counterpoint Press to build an online presence for Trace and its stories.

The new website www.readtrace.com is up and running! It’s been a true pleasure to work with the Launch Podium team to translate the book’s ideas and narratives into online content that “fits the digital age.”

Visit www.readtrace.com and explore the many stories and images of Trace, which will be released on November 10th!

 

 

October 10 — Sustainability of the Heart: Restor(y)ing the Land and a Life

On October 10th I will have the honor of presenting the keynote address for the Sixth Annual Women and Girls in Georgia Conference, sponsored by the Institute for Women’s Studies at the University of Georgia. The theme of this year’s conference is sustainability, and so I will present “Sustainability of the Heart: Restor(y)ing the Land and a Life.”

Learn more about this dynamic but very affordable conference at http://news.uga.edu/releases/article/sixth-women-and-girls-in-georgia-conference-sustainability-0915/, and if you’re in or near Athens or Atlanta, I hope to see you there.

A New Book: Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape

I am eager to tell you about my new book, Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape , which Counterpoint Press will release on November 10, 2015.

In a mosaic of personal journeys and historical inquiry across a continent and time, Trace explores how the country’s still unfolding history, and ideas of “race,” have marked a person and the land. From twisted terrain within the San Andreas Fault zone to a South Carolina plantation, from national parks to burial grounds, from “Indian Territory” and the U.S.-Mexico Border to the U.S. capital, from a “land ethic” to “alien land,” Trace grapples with a searing national history to reveal the often unvoiced presence of the past. Grounding all is the American Earth.

The title comes from my active search, from the paths of the journeys, and from the tracks or vestiges of what once was. Attentive to the rhythms of language and landscapes, I have tried to weave together human stories of migration, silence, and displacement, as epic as the continent they survey, with uplifted mountains, braided streams, and eroded canyons. Trace delves through fragmented histories—natural, personal, cultural—to find shadowy outlines of other stories of place in America.

Though deeply personal, Trace concerns who we all are in this terrain called the United States, inviting readers to have a more honest understanding of history’s impact in our lives. Put simply, the book is my attempt to seek home among the ruins and shards that surround us all, to reconcile what it means to inhabit terrains of memory—and to be one.

Trace could be in the company of Rebecca Solnit’s unbordered wanderings (from her 1994 Savage Dreams to the recent The Faraway Nearby), which seek deep connecting patterns. It also pays homage to Loren Eiseley’s Immense Journey to the mysteries of existence. Yet Trace also insists on how human experience and the history of the American land itself have, in fragmented tellings, artificially separated what cannot be disentangled: nature and “race.” Above all Trace trespasses supposed borders to counter some of our oldest and most damaging public silences. It reveals often unrecognized connections, such as the siting of the nation’s capital and the economic motives of slavery. None of these links is coincidental. Few appear in public history. All touch us.