For 75 years, Columbus has celebrated the history and architecture of its 19th century buildings during Pilgrimage, when homeowners give visitors a tour of the city’s most famous houses.
Every house on the 2015 Pilgrimage tours was built before the Civil War, during a time when slavery was part of the South’s society. The Dispatch was interested in finding out how African Americans in Columbus feel about Pilgrimage and the time period it conjures up.
“I have absolutely no problem with the celebration,” Lowndes County supervisor Leroy Brooks said. “It’s part of history.”
Brooks added that Pilgrimage benefits the city by attracting tourism and enhancing the tax base.
Edrick Minor, a 39-year-old Columbus native, said he has no problem with Pilgrimage, though he has never participated in it. He believes the events merely reflect a time in history when slavery existed, not that homeowners and others who participate are celebrating slavery.
“Times have changed,” Minor said, making reference to the progress African Americans have made since the Civil War. “Just change with time.”
Tomekia Sykes, 38, agreed. Pilgrimage does not bother her. A West Point resident most of her life, Sykes goes to church in Columbus and knows a little about Pilgrimage from the time she spends in Columbus. She, too, has never participated in Pilgrimage. She also referenced the progress African Americans have made since the time before the Civil War.
“(Pilgrimage is) something that the African American can participate in now,” she said.
‘A one-sided story’
A handful of people The Dispatch spoke with through the past two weeks had never thought about Pilgrimage and had no feelings about it. However, for some African Americans in the community, Pilgrimage doesn’t tell the whole story of the antebellum South.
“Pilgrimage to African Americans is just a one-sided story,” said Rev. Tony Montgomery Sr, who has been pastor of Missionary Union Baptist Church for 19 years.
Begun by freed slaves in 1833, Missionary Union is the oldest African American church in northeast Mississippi. Because of this, Nancy Carpenter, executive director of the Columbus-Lowndes Convention and Visitors Bureau, asked Montgomery to include church tours on Pilgrimage a few years ago. Missionary Union became part of the historic churches tour in the early 2000s, but Montgomery eventually took it off the tour.
Pilgrimage places too much emphasis on the antebellum period and not enough on the progress African Americans have made since then, according to Montgomery. He would like to see the story of Columbus’ history as a story of people coming out of slavery and going on to be doctors, preachers, educators and more.
“If the story of Columbus’ past was told adequately, it would talk about 1821 to now, but it would definitely not focus on a period of slavery,” Montgomery said.
The reverend is not alone in his feelings.
Tyrone Lowe, 37, has lived in Columbus most of his life. He believes the role of African Americans needs to be emphasized more during Pilgrimage. On home tours, he said, the slave quarters are part of the house and the slaves and servants are part of the house’s history. Home tours which only talk about the families that owned the houses are only focusing on one part of history, he said.
“I think it might have missed half the story,” Lowe said.
Sam Perkins, 22, is a Mississippi State University business student who has lived in Starkville about three years. He admits to not knowing much about Pilgrimage, but says that in general, African American history is not as well taught in the United States, particularly in schools. He learned a lot more about the end of slavery and other topics in black history in college than he did in elementary and high school.
“I feel like the full story is not told enough…to the full body of people, both black and white,” Perkins said. “But especially black.”
African American history is not completely ignored by Pilgrimage
Some Pilgrimage events do incorporate African American history.
Dixie Butler, the owner of Temple Heights, is one hostess whose home tour includes not only information about the architecture of the former slave quarters behind her home, but stories of some of the slaves who built and lived in the house. Butler set up her tour so that hosts each played the role of someone who lived in Temple Heights in the 19th or early 20th centuries. This year, the performer playing the part of Richard Brownrigg, the house’s first owner, give credit to Brownrigg’s slaves for building the house. The performer also went into detail about the lives of some slaves, including “Samson,” one of the founders of Missionary Union Baptist Church, and Greg Brownrigg, whose descendants now live in North Carolina and have visited Butler at the house.
During Tales from the Crypt, juniors from Mississippi School for Math and Science take on the roles of Columbus 19th century residents and perform for visitors in Friendship Cemetery.
This year during Tales from the Crypt, student Jasmine King taught about African Americans in Columbus following the Civil War by playing the role of Anne Prowell, the daughter of former slaves who worked for wealthy cotton farmers. In King’s performance, she talked about how some former slaves went north following the Civil War, but Prowell and her family stayed in Columbus and worked for the same family that had owned her parents. King’s performance is full of bitterness over the federal government not giving Prowell’s family the promised “40 acres and a mule.”
Bob Raymond, owner of the Cedars, had never participated in Pilgrimage before this year, and his home was only open last Sunday. Raymond made sure to show his visitors a copy of a letter written by a freed slave named Eliza Thilgman to the Randolph family, who lived in the house for most of the 19th century. In the 1830s, the Randolphs freed all their slaves, according to Raymond. They also offered to pay the way for those freed people who wanted to move to Liberia. Thilgman was one of the freed slaves who moved to Liberia, though Raymond pointed out that her family stayed behind in the United States.
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