As a teenager growing up in Portsmouth, Valerie Cunningham was proud of her family’s African American heritage, but she was also curious about local Black history. While working at Portsmouth Public Library, she discovered Brewster’s Rambles About Portsmouth. From Brewster’s stories about local Blacks, Valerie found clues to a history that until then had been invisible. She began a quest that would consume the rest of her life as researcher, historian and chronicler of Black Portsmouth from 1645 to present day.
“I’ve heard the word ‘diversity’ quite a few times,” began United States Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, “and I don’t have a clue what it means. It seems to mean everything for everyone.” That is how the Justice responded to an opening statement made last fall by legal counsel defending affirmative action in college and university admissions. Seemingly casting doubt on the underlying premise of race-conscious policies – i.e., that a diverse student population performs better academically – Thomas’ incredulousness runs counter to a robust consensus around the meaning of diversity and the value it has in education and society more broadly. I confirmed this consensus through my work producing a literature review looking into the meaning and value of diversity in public education.
Timothy Blanchard, born in Wilton, New Hampshire, in 1791, the eighth of ten children, was not yet 21 when his father, George Blanchard, turned over to him management of his veterinary practice and land holdings.
Although his father was still alive at the time of the 1820 federal census, “Timo Blanchard” was listed as head of the household of six, including a number of “free people other than Indians.” Blanchard property had for many years served as a place of refuge for a small rural community of free African Americans.
Inez Glenn Bishop was born in Florida in 1927. But it wasn’t until she moved North that she realized her skin color made her feel like a second-class citizen.
She and her husband, Frank Bishop, moved to Manchester, NH, in 1947, following her mother, Bertha Evans, and her brother-in-law. The Bishops found not many people were willing to rent to Blacks. And then there was work.
Prince Hastings is recorded as living in Warner by the 1820 census. His small home was high in the Mink Hills next to a small wetland now known as “Chocolate Swamp.” Prince probably worked as a laborer for local farms. It is not known what brought him to Warner or where he came from but the 1820 census indicates several other African-American families in Warner (Clark, Haskell, Cary, and Jackson). Perhaps Prince traveled to Warner with them.
Although born in the West Indies, Benjamin Darling’s ancestry traces to the Sengal-Gambia region of Africa. Much of his story is unclear, and legend surrounds his name. It is said that he rescued the man he was enslaved to when their boat was shipwrecked, and, for his loyalty, was awarded his freedom. Another story contends Darling escaped slavery. How he came to the Phippsburg area of Maine is not known. However, he was known there as “sturdy, industrious” and “with many staunch friends.”
Rosary Broxay Cooper, daughter of a Baptist minister, was born in 1913 and grew up in Eatonville, FL, one of the oldest Black towns in America. She graduated from the all-Black Florida Normal School with certification as a children’s nurse.
Hired to care for the children of the Merrill family, she traveled with them to New England, where the family owned a resort in Maine about 15 minutes from Portsmouth. It was there, in 1938, that she met and married Owen Finnigan Cooper and moved to Portsmouth. They lived with his mother and sister.
As young teenager Katie Brown rose to read the Emancipation Proclamation before a crowded South Meeting House celebration in 1882, she drew her courage from her grandmother, Annette Brown.
Katie lived with her grandmother on Portsmouth’s waterfront, where Mrs. Brown is believed to have taken in strangers seeking shelter as they escaped from slavery in the 1840s. Her husband was from Pennsylvania, where ships often embarked for northern ports carrying fugitives. Katie’s father and her uncle both served as sailors in the Civil War. By 1883, the household included only Katie and her grandmother.
Anthony Clark may have been small of stature (5’3″) but he loomed large with his ability to play fiddle and call a dance. He ran week-long dancing classes at various halls and inns in western Merrimack County and was called a “dancing master.” Theresa Harvey, writing in 1823, recalls Clark at a muster, followed by a party at her Uncle Jonathan’s Musterfield Farm in Sutton:
“…As soon as possible after the dinner tables were cleared away, the hall was made ready for the dancers…Anthony Clark, the fiddler and dancing master, probably did more toward instructing the young people in the arts and graces of politeness and good manners than any other man of his day and generation…”
Eric and Sharon Houle have grown more and more upset since last school year when they were informed of a racist death threat targeting their son written on the bathroom wall of John Stark Regional High school.
Equally disturbing as the threats themselves, which were written by two white students, is the way the school district has handled the situation and failed to act in a timely manner, they said.
Seven months ago an accomplished chef and business owner was the target of racism when someone wrote the “N” word in white marker on the front window of his Caribbean restaurant.
Chef Gerald Oriol, owner of Caribbean Breeze at 233 Main St., kept the incident quiet, preferring to let police conduct an investigation into the April 8, 2022, incident.
Katherine Harake drove to the New Hampshire state archives from her home in Hampton on a recent Thursday afternoon, her sights set on one particular document penned 342 years ago.
With help from the state records manager, Harake inspected the document’s uneven edges, remarked on its penmanship and marveled at such a significant, if lesser-known, piece of the state’s political history.
With 10 days left until the election, first lady Jill Biden swung through the state Saturday to stump for Democrats up and down the Nov. 8 ballot, including Sen. Maggie Hassan and other incumbents locked in tight contests.
Biden met with candidates and supporters late Saturday afternoon at the Democratic Coordinated Campaign field office in Portsmouth, where she said the work that volunteers put into these final days of the campaign may determine the outcome.
A Texas man is suing New Hampshire State Police, alleging that a state trooper ethnically profiled and illegally detained him during a traffic stop in August 2019.
The lawsuit is the second in three years to accuse State Police’s Mobile Enforcement Team, a drug-interdiction squad with a history of using minor traffic violations as pretexts to stop and question drivers, of acting illegally during a vehicle stop. A previous lawsuit, involving a 2017 stop by a different trooper, Haden Wilber, led to a $212,500 settlement.
The four Democratic leaders who spoke during a recent press conference at the Portsmouth Public Library delivered a singular warning.
New Hampshire’s current race for U.S. Senate could have dire implications for abortion rights nationwide, they said, if voters pick the Republican candidate, Don Bolduc, over incumbent Sen. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat.
