WALKING THE STREETS OF NATCHEZ MISSISSIPPI IN A U. S. CIVIL WAR COLORED TROOPS UNIFORM

In response to a recent Natchez Chamber of Commerce Tourism Consultant’s Study that recommends meeting tourist boats in antebellum dresses and Civil War Uniforms, Ser Seshs Ab Heter-CM Boxley took to the streets on Natchez during its annual balloon race October 16, 2004 in a Civil War Union Army U. S. Colored Troop infantry uniform and gun replica.

He provides the following report:

I parked my auto with a big Redefeat Bush sign at Natchez Convention Center where the main flow of balloon race festival attendees drove by. From there I walked along the public sidewalks past Bowie’s Tavern (named to commemorate the “slave” dealer Jim Bowie) and over to the Mississippi River Bluffs, while passing out cards urging people to visit our Forks of the Roads website on Lest We Forget provided by Nana Bennie McRae. I greeted people, welcomed them to Natchez and urged them to visit our website to see how slavery made Natchez. I walked to the Annual Natchez Pilgrimage ticket purchasing headquarters where tourist buy tickets to visit antebellum homes and be greeted by white women in hoop skirts or purchased tickets to take horse drawn carriage rides along limited routes of Natchez, while the drivers tell and show them buildings that commemorate white culture. Next I walked into the newly opened William Johnson House under the operation of the National Park Service, Natchez National Historic Park. William Johnson was the son of a white enslaver and an enslaved African descendant enslaved by him. William Johnson’s dairy survives and tells of his operation of a barbershop business serving whites during the decades of the 1830s and 1840s. William Johnson recorded in his limited writing capability the conversations he heard his white male customers having and also the various events that he thought were appealing enough for him to write down. He also wrote of his own personal doing and thinking. From the dairy you clearly see this son of a white sexual predator enslaver wanting to be white and thinking and identifying with whites. He enslaved African descendants, whipped them and even struck his own mother with a whip. It is my position that National Park Service in Natchez cannot pass William Johnson off as being the standard bearer for the history of Blacks in Natchez and I will present a position paper to the public stating so if the Park Service exhibit and interpret him to represent such.

I continued walking to the Natchez Visitors Center and had conversation with visitors there. I returned to the area where the balloon race festival was taking place and passed out hundred of website cards. I also went up town Natchez on Main Street. I made sure the local business persons saw my person, as they have a high stake in tourism.

Main happenings and situations I encountered on my walk:

I was very well received by 99 per cent of the people I contacted. A few people refused to take our website cards.

At the Visitors’ Center I met a man from Pensacola Florida who told me about his great, great grandfather and his brothers who were drafted into the Confederate Army during the Civil War. The brothers ran off from the Army, but were later captured and sent to Petersburg Virginia. His grandfather escaped deeper into Florida and joined the Union Army at Fort Pickins (spelling). He said a famous “Indian” chief from Okalahoma was being jailed at the Fort at the time.

I also met a mixed raced couple (white male/black woman) who wanted to know where to go visit the show nuff history places that regular tourist did not go. They were escaping from New Orleans. You know I sent them to the Forks of the Roads, the National Cemetery where the U. S. C. T. Freedom Fighters are buried and the local African American museum that I later learned was closed.

On my street rounds I met a woman from west of Alexandria Louisiana who was a PhD in history and she spoke of teaching all history where she teaches. On the bluffs of the Mississippi River I met a man from Ohio who said he was a Union Army re-enactor and I told him about Nana Bennie McRae’s website and USCT history included. Uptown Natchez, I met a woman who told me about her visit to the Confederate Museum in New Orleans and they have an exhibit there showing Blacks who were dressed in Confederate uniforms. I told her there is a big scheme to make it look like Blacks fought on the side of the slavery Confederacy. But the real story is that 200,000 plus Blacks decisively helped put the Confederacy and slavery out of business. I met a man; wife and child up town and the man said I made a “yankee” like him feel welcomed in Natchez.

In all, I met people who took pictures of my person; children who handled my gun and a few of them confused me with, as you know, “Buffalo Soldiers.”

Some local whites tried to pass me off jokingly, but the joke was on them. Because as I wrote in a letter to the local editor of the Natchez newspaper, I wonder what color did the Tourism Consultant have in mind when he recommended greeting the tourist riverboats in Civil War uniforms? 3100 Black Union Army soldiers and 2000 white Union Army soldiers occupied Natchez. The dominant Civil War occupiers of Natchez were Black.

The balloon race attendees were 99 per cent white, but a few Blacks attended. One Black man told me I would fall out from wearing the wool uniform. I told him I was not worried about falling out in my uniform, but more worried about him not knowing what his great, great grandfather may have done for his freedom in a uniform like I was wearing. Others Blacks driving through the streets waved and stared at my person as they passed. I stared right back!

Crossing over the Mississippi River to the Vidalia Louisiana Flea Market

Later that afternoon I visited the annual flea market held along the front in Vidalia. Here the energy changed to hostility. As I walked through the aisles in uniform and with gun, whites stared at my person so hard I could see them through the eyes in the back of my head. One man even said, “ I was mighty brave to walk through here in that uniform.” I told him I was just as brave as the Blacks who by the thousands put on this uniform and helped whip the Confederates. I enjoyed watching out of the side of my eyes the vendors with big Confederate flags for sale all over their booth. They stood in shock and awe staring at my person striding by all erect and not paying any direct attention to any one except looking at merchandise in various booths. One local Vidalia Black teenager knew what uniform I had on and the gun I carried. I asked if he knew about Blacks in the Civil War and he said he did. He said he was a student of history.

Finally, I decided to get the hell from over in redneck Louisiana and back to my place before the sunset. No telling who or what would be coming my way had I stayed until nighttime? A few years ago, some off duty Adams County Sheriff deputies beat up a black man who attended the balloon race with a white woman. Some of the sisters I know said they should have beaten him some more for being there with a white woman. But what about the sister I just met from New Orleans who came up to Natchez with the white man?

Jumped in my car with the Redefeat Bush sign and bumper stickers and headed to my place on the Natchez Trace. I picked the best time to make the greatest impact on the most people with the least effort.

Aluta Continua and the struggle continues!

Peace and Blessings

Ser Seshs Ab Heter-C M Boxley

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Copyright © 2006. Ser Seshs Ab Heter-Clifford M. Boxley, Natchez, Mississippi. All Rights Reserved.

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