Monday Musings – 5 February

As a white child of the Jim Crow South, I probably have little right to opine on Black greatness. But during Black History Month, I like to remember someone I have admired since I learned his story. He and I are kindred spirits even though he was black, and we were born nearly one hundred fifty years apart. We both became Masons when we lived in Ohio—he in Oberlin and me a few miles to the West in Toledo. We both love to build things—I build furniture and he built bridges. And we both loved our mules. I drove a mule wagon for a few years, and he once sued the Federal government to try to recover some mules the Union Army “requisitioned” from him during the Civil War.

Horace King was born in South Carolina in 1807 and, though born into slavery, he grew up to become a master carpenter and bridge builder who gained his freedom and went on to raise a family of builders. One of his son’s bridges is still in use at Stone Mountain Park.

King is seldom mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King, but he lived an extraordinary life, as noted in my 2022 blogs:

Horace King

Horace King – The Man

So, here’s to Horace King—a black man who somehow stood up against the power of whiteness in the pre-Civil War South; A skilled craftsman who became a shrewd businessman; a former slave who had compassion for the man who once owned him; a man who deserves to be remembered.