The agency wants to make diversity, equity and inclusion more than trendy, and will start a monthly post on a diversity topic to run through February 2023. We want to make sure we are contributing to an employee group that is knowledgeable as well as respectful, and that we regularly take an opportunity to shine the light on a range of topics that comprise diversity, equity and inclusion.
So what happens after February, 2023? We will review our body of work at that time and determine how to continue. Again, we’ll know better a year from now!
February is Black History Month
Since 1976 America has designated February as a way to support you and yours in giving voice to the contributions and achievements of Black Americans who have shaped our country. This is a perfect time to assure we are paying attention to some very important parts of our history.
It would be neither be proper or fair to expect that contributions made by black Americans can be showcased during this month and then put on the back burner until next February. We want you to dig deeper throughout the year when learning about our past…make sure to include the richness of black culture and history. For this article, we want to highlight a few key individuals and an event from this area you may not be aware of. You should know that we will only be scraping the surface here – our area’s history includes some good stuff, some unfortunate stuff, and some “I didn’t realize that” stuff. Make sure you are always on the lookout to learn more than the usual!
John W. Birney
John W. Birney, his wife Penelope, and their young daughter Mary Ella moved to La Crosse from Louisville, Kentucky. At the age of twenty-four, Birney hoped to continue his career as a barber, which he had learned through apprenticeship back in Louisville. At the time the family arrived, La Crosse’s population was doubling at a fast rate. In 1855, the population was reported as 1,637. Just five years later in 1860, it was listed to be 3,860. The Birneys were not the first African Americans to settle in La Crosse, though they were among the first few. According to a 1924 La Crosse Tribune article, Birney was the second Black barber to establish a shop in the city. After owning shops with a variety of other African American men in town and floating to a few locations in his first few years here, Birney eventually settled in his own shop at 301 Main Street in 1865, where he stayed until 1885.
After arriving in La Crosse, Birney quickly pounced on land development opportunities and purchased a number of empty lots to construct houses and resell the properties. By looking through City Directories and newspaper articles—both found in the La Crosse Public Library’s collections—you can easily track down the properties Birney owned, developed, and sold. You can also trace the many downtown buildings that he conducted his barbershops in, as well as the people he went in and out of business with.
Besides his success as a local businessman, he was also well-regarded at a state level. In 1884, the Wisconsin Governor invited Birney to represent the state at the World’s Fair (titled, “The World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition” that year) in New Orleans as an example of one of two African American business owners in Wisconsin. To put his importance into perspective, he was joined by millionaire and Milwaukee businessman F.D. Holton.
Morrill Hall Protest
Morrill Hall is an administration building at the University of Minnesota. In 1969 a group of students staged a 24 hour protest against the school’s administration. The demonstration was made to shine a light on the hostile campus environment towards black students and the absence of an African American studies department. The result of the protest successfully established the Department of Afro-American studies, one of the first in the nation and the creation of scholarships and programs for Black students.
James Thompson
James Thompson’s first trip into Minnesota came in 1827 as a slave under the supervision of his owner, John Culbertson, and they settled at Ft. Snelling. In 1833 Thompson, still living at the fort, married a daughter of the Dakota leader Mahpiya Wicasta (Cloud Man) and began to learn the Dakota language.
The Methodist missionary Alfred Brunson searched for an interpreter to help him teach the Methodist faith to the American Indian people near Fort Snelling. He looked for a man who not only shared his faith but could clearly communicate its tenets to the Dakota. Seeing Thompson as a committed Methodist and recognizing his unique relationship with the Dakota, Brunson chose him to be his mission’s interpreter. Eventually, with financial help from his friends in the East, Brunson was able to buy Thompson’s freedom. He then returned to Fort Snelling with Brunson and his team. Shortly after arriving back at the fort in 1837, the group began the area’s first Methodist mission in the Dakota village of Kaposia, located ten miles down the river from Fort Snelling.
Nathan Smith
Nathan Smith is known locally because of a hill that took his name and as a former slave who received a farm as a gift from General Cadwallader Washburn for his faithful service as a valet during the Civil War. But Smith was so much more than that. He and his wife Sarah were foster parents to numerous homeless boys and girls who worked on their farm near West Salem, and some of whom the sent to receive a higher education at boarding schools at the Smith’s significant expense. Smith mortgaged his farm on several occasions to pay their tuition and board. Smith also provided a home to indigents and elders within the black community in exchange for labor on the farm. Perhaps equally significant, Smith was an active participant in political and labor movements, even to the point that he was one of thirteen local representatives to the Neenah Convention of the Wisconsin People’s Party in 1886.