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Mary Lumpkin (1832–1905) was an American former slave and owner of the property on which stood Lumpkin's Jail, a notorious slave jail. Mary was purchased by Robert Lumpkin around 1840 and made to act as his wife. She had the first of her seven children with him at age 13; two children died as infants. Mary "reportedly told [Robert] that he could treat her however he wanted as long as their kids remained free". Two of their daughters attended a Massachusetts finishing school.

Robert purchased Lumpkin's Jail in 1844. Mary is known to have secretly provided a hymnal for escaped slave Anthony Burns, imprisoned there in 1854. Prior to the American Civil War, she and her children went to live in Philadelphia, where Mary owned a house. After the war, Robert and Mary were legally married. She attended the First African Baptist Church in Richmond, Virginia.

In 1866 Robert died and Mary inherited Lumpkin's Jail, as well as properties in Richmond, Huntsville, Alabama, and Philadelphia; she was also named the executor of his will. She leased the jail property in 1867 to Nathaniel Colver, who used it to establish the Richmond Theological School for Freedmen (now Virginia Union University). The school moved to a different location by 1873 and Lumpkin sold the land.

Lumpkin operated a restaurant in New Orleans alongside one of her daughters. She died in 1905 in New Richmond, Ohio. She was buried in Samarian Cemetery.

A street at Virginia Union University was named in honor of Lumpkin. Author Sadeqa Johnson based the protagonist of her book Yellow Wife on her. Hakim Lucas, President of Virginia Union University, stated that "Virginia Union University is the legacy of Mary Lumpkin, but it is also the legacy of every African American woman that's alive today and has lived and struggled before for her children... Mary Lumpkin represents the highest form of the ideal of what social justice means for us in our world today".

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It was so intense from the band directors all the way down to the majorettes

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[venusdian]

The New Cover of the Redlands!!!

Available on:

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Inkitt

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howardu 1981 yearbook on display @ doverstreetmarket

[the-blueprint]

Proud to have hosted @HBCUCulture Battle of the Bands this MLK Weekend!

Each participating marching band received a $20,000 scholarship towards their band’s program provided by the HBCU Culture Legacy Foundation. 👏

[africanamericanreports]

The Biden-Harris Administration announced a new record in Federal funding and investments in Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) totaling more than $16 billion from Fiscal Years (FY) 2021 through current available data for FY 2024.

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[longliveblackness]

Mary, who was born in 1832, may have been the multiracial child of an enslaved woman and her enslaver, one of his relatives, or a white overseer.

Sold away as a young girl, probably from one or both of her parents, she was purchased by the slave trader Robert Lumpkin, a violent white man 27 years her senior. When she was about 13, she was forced to have the first of five children with him. According to a descendant, she told him he could do with her what he wanted but demanded that their children be freed.

Robert bought the slave jail in the Shockoe Bottom area of Richmond, Virginia in 1844. It became known as Lumpkin's Jail, and it was one of the cruelest prisons in the South. Some even called it the "Devil's Half Acre."

She and the children likely lived with him on the compound of his slave jail, where he imprisoned thousands of enslaved people between 1844 and 1866. Some were imprisoned there before sale, and others were held after sale. Nearly all were eventually shipped away to the Deep South.

In this wretched place, Mary managed to educate her children and find a path to freedom, moving them and herself to the free state of Pennsylvania with Robert’s blessing prior to the Civil War. She inherited the jail in 1866, when Robert died and bequeathed the property to her.

She didn’t want anything to do with the property, but two years later, she helped a white Baptist missionary from the American Baptist Home Mission Society turn the “Devil’s Half Acre”—a greatly feared place where countless enslaved people had long suffered—into “God’s Half Acre,” a school where dreams could be realized.

In the aftermath of the Civil War, the school, founded as the Richmond Theological School for Freedmen, provided black students with an education. For more than 150 years, it has elevated and nurtured generations of black men and women, helping them to realize their potential. It has shaped civic, education and business leaders and developed activists who worked to desegregate whites-only lunch counters in Richmond department stores.

The same grounds where enslaved people were imprisoned and beaten became the cornerstone for one of America’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). Virginia Union University (VUU) is still in existence today.

It is also one of the rare HBCUs in America that can tie its origins to a black woman.

•••

Mary, quién nació en 1832, pudo haber sido la hija multiracial de una mujer esclavizada y su esclavizador, uno de los familiares de él o un capataz blanco.

Siendo una niña pequeña fue vendida por uno o posiblemente ambos padres a un comerciante de esclavos llamado Robert Lumpkin, un hombre violento que era veinte y siete años mayor que ella. Cuando ella tenía alrededor de trece años, fue forzada a tener el primer hijo de cinco, todos de él. Según contó un descendiente, Mary le dijo que podía hacer con ella lo que quisiera pero exigió que sus hijos fueran libres.

Robert compró una cárcel para esclavos en el área de Shockoe Bottom en Richmond, Virginia en el año 1844. Eventualmente se conoció como La Cárcel de Lumpkin y fue una de las prisiones más crueles que existía en el sur. Algunos le llaman “la media hectárea del Diablo”.

Lo más probable es que ella y sus hijos vivían con él dentro de las instalaciones de dicha cárcel de esclavos, donde encarceló a miles de personas esclavizadas entre los años de 1844 y 1866. Algunos estaban encarcelados antes de su venta, otros se quedaban después de haber sido vendidos. Eventualmente casi todos fueron transportados a las profundidades del sur.

En este lugar miserable, Mary logró brindarle una educación a sus hijos y encontró un camino hacia a la libertad cuando con el permiso de Robert, ella y los niños se mudaron al estado libre de Pensilvania, antes de que comenzara la Guerra Civil. Ella heredó la cárcel en el año 1866, Robert murió y le cedió la propiedad.

Ella no quería nada que ver con la propiedad, pero dos años después le ayudó a un misionero bautista blanco procedente de la Sociedad Americana Bautista de Casas Misioneras a convertir “la media hectárea del Diablo” —un lugar grandemente temido donde un sin fin de personas esclavizadas sufrieron por largo tiempo — a “la media hectárea de Dios”, una escuela donde los sueños podían hacerse realidad.

Después de la Guerra Civil, la escuela fundada bajo el nombre de Escuela Teológica de Richmond para Libertos, le brindó educación a muchos estudiantes negros. Por más de ciento y cincuenta años, elevó y formó generaciones de hombres y mujeres negros, ayudándolos a darse cuenta de su potencial. Ha ayudado a formar líderes cívicos, educativos y empresariales y desarrolló activistas que trabajaron para acabar con la segregación en los mostradores de comida en los grandes almacenes de Richmond.

El mismo lugar dónde las personas esclavizadas fueron encarceladas y abusadas, se convirtió en el pilar para una de las Universidades y Colegios Históricamente Negros (HBCU) de los Estados Unidos. Virginia Union University (VUU) existe hasta el sol de hoy.

También es una de las HBCU que puede ligar su origen a una mujer negra.