The Abolitionist Who Was Chaplain to Black Civil War Soldiers and Started a College Burned Down by the KKK

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged

Society & Culture, History

4.2 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 10 November 2022

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

George Richardson (1824-1911) was a traveling Methodist preacher who rode on a circuit across the antebellum Midwestern frontier and became increasingly caught up in the abolitionist movement. He became a “station master” on the Underground Railroad and served as chaplain to a black regiment during the Civil War. The soldiers under his care were survivors of the Ft. Pillow Massacre, in which the Confederates refused to take black soldiers as prisoners of war and unlawfully executed them instead.
In the 1870s, he founded a college in Texas for the formerly enslaved. When the Ku Klux Klan burned the school down, he built another one and rode on a circuit to teach those who were unable to travel to the attend.
Today’s guest is James D. Richardson –an ancestor of George Richardson, and also a retired journalist and Episcopalian priest. He retraced the steps of George across nine states, uncovering letters, diaries, and more memoirs hidden away. He’s the author of the new book, The Abolitionist’s Journal: Memories of an American Antislavery Family
We discuss what motivated George to become an abolitionist, the personal and financial challenges this brought on him and his family, and the incredible hardship that the formerly enslaved faced when they tried to build lives for themselves after emancipation when they had nothing or, thanks to the loansharking nature of sharecropping, less than nothing.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Scott here with another edition of the History Unplugged Podcast.
0:08.0	Today's episode we're going to look at what it took to be a part of the abolitionist movement.
0:13.0	We're going to zero in on a notable example, and that's George Richardson who lived from 1824 to 1911.
0:19.0	He was a traveling Methodist preacher who rode on a circuit across the Annabella Midwestern Frontier
0:24.0	and became increasingly caught up in the abolitionist movement.
0:28.0	He was a station master on the Underground Railroad and opened his home to escape slaves.
0:33.0	Later, he served as a chaplain to a black regiment during the Civil War.
0:37.0	The soldiers under his care were survivors of the Fort Pillow Massacre, in which the Confederates refused to take black soldiers as prisoners of war, and unlawfully executed them instead.
0:46.0	In the 1870s, he founded a college in Texas for the formerly enslaved.
0:50.0	When the Ku Klux Klan burned the school down, he built another one,
0:54.0	and later on finding that many students couldn't attend because they didn't have the means to travel to the city,
0:59.0	rode on a circuit to teach those who were confined to their farms, which as he did as a Methodist preacher.
1:04.0	Today's guest is James Richardson, an ancestor of George, and also a retired journalist and a Piscopalian priest.
1:10.0	He retraced the steps of George across nine states, uncovering letters, diaries, and more memoirs hidden away.
1:16.0	He's the author of the new book, The Abolitionist Journal, Memoirs of an American Antislavery Family.
1:21.0	We discuss what motivated George to become an abolitionist, the personal and financial challenges this choice brought on him and his family,
1:28.0	and the incredible hardship that the formerly enslaved faced when they tried to build lives for themselves after emancipation,
1:34.0	when they had nothing, or, thanks to the lone-sharky nature of sharecropping, plus nothing.
1:40.0	Hope you enjoyed this discussion with James Richardson.
1:43.0	And one more thing before we get started with this episode, a quick break for work from our sponsors.
1:49.0	One of the biggest downgrades you can suffer in your quality of life is joint pain or lack of mobility.
1:54.0	There are a lot of supplements out there that claim to help joint pain.
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