[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row admin_label=”Page Header” _builder_version=”4.16″ global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Exhibit Title” _builder_version=”4.17.6″ _dynamic_attributes=”content” _module_preset=”default” border_width_bottom=”1px” border_color_bottom=”#E09900″ global_module=”6078″ global_colors_info=”{}”]@ET-DC@eyJkeW5hbWljIjp0cnVlLCJjb250ZW50Ijoic2l0ZV90aXRsZSIsInNldHRpbmdzIjp7ImJlZm9yZSI6IjxoMj4iLCJhZnRlciI6IjwvaDI+In19@[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”Section Title” module_id=”section-title” module_class=”page-header” _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_margin=”||5px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”Page Title” module_id=”page-title” module_class=”page-header” _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_margin=”0px||” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”3_5,2_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/oldsite.coloredconventions.org\/black-illinois-organizing\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2021\/11\/CCP_041_BarquetLetter-1852.png” title_text=”CCP_041_BarquetLetter-1852″ show_in_lightbox=”on” _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.3em” header_font_size=”13px” custom_margin=”-11px|||||” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n
Letter from Joseph H. Barquet (Baynet) [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u2014 Joseph H. Barquet,\u00a0Frederick Doulgass\u2019 Paper<\/em>, May 27, 1852.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”3_5,2_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n One of the more outspoken Illinois Black activists in 1853 was Joseph Humphries Barquet, a native of South Carolina. Born into a free family in Charleston\u00a0on September 10, 1823, Barquet grew up as part of the gens de couleur libre<\/i> class. This was a community of mixed-race and relatively well-off free families who enjoyed more rights than enslaved people but still faced widespread racial prejudice. Barquet\u2019s father, an immigrant from Saint-Domingue, and mother, the daughter of a wealthy Scotsman, owned their brick home on Meeting Street in Charleston, where the family operated an umbrella-making business.[1]<\/span><\/p>\n In 1846, Barquet enlisted as a soldier in the war against Mexico. He participated in the capture of Mexico City and then returned briefly to Charleston before migrating to New York City and then to the Midwest. In August 1850, he lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, working as a bricklayer, and by October he had moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he evidently began his career as a speaker and activist. In October 1850, soon after Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, Barquet spoke out against slavery and the injustices faced by free Black Americans. His speech called for radical resistance. \u201cIf your liberty is worth having, it is worth a life to preserve it,\u201d he proclaimed. \u201cWe are Americans by birth.\u201d[2]<\/span><\/p>\n Soon after, Barquet became a prominent member of Chicago\u2019s Black activist network. He served as secretary of a December 1851 meeting at Quinn Chapel<\/a><\/span>, where Chicago\u2019s Black residents raised funds to aid fugitives from slavery in Pennsylvania who were being prosecuted for resisting the Fugitive Slave Act. He was also secretary of a December 1852 meeting at which Chicago African Americans called for \u201ca union of sentiment and\u00a0concert\u00a0<\/i>of\u00a0action,\u00a0<\/i>on the part of the colored people, and friends.\u201d Barquet drew special admiration from<\/span>\u00a0Henry O. Wagoner<\/a><\/span>, who praised him as \u201csarcastic, witty, vehement, literary, instructive, and, at times, truly sublime; and, therefore, well calculated to interest an audience.\u201d[3]<\/span><\/p>\n At the 1853 Colored Convention in Chicago<\/a>, Barquet served as a delegate from Cook County and secretary. That year, he married a woman named Maria, who had been born in Pennsylvania, and the young family soon moved to Galesburg, Illinois.[4]<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”3_5,2_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/oldsite.coloredconventions.org\/black-illinois-organizing\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2021\/11\/CCP_033_StormingFtWagner-1890.jpeg” title_text=”CCP_033_StormingFtWagner-1890″ show_in_lightbox=”on” _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.3em” header_font_size=”13px” min_height=”51.7px” custom_margin=”-8px|||||” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Storming Fort Wagner [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”3_5,2_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” custom_padding=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n In Galesburg, Barquet worked as a brick mason and started a plastering, brick laying, and paper- hanging business with Andrew Jackson Pertect. He was also secretary of the Galesburg African Literary and Debating Society. By 1860, Joseph and Maria had three children.[5]<\/span><\/p>\n Soon the Civil War began, and that changed everything. When the U.S. Army started recruiting Black men, Barquet was quick to sign up. In April 1863, at forty years old, he enlisted in Company H of the soon-to-be famous 54th Massachusetts Regiment, an all-Black infantry best known for its assault at Fort Wagner, South Carolina. Barquet was promoted to the rank of Sergeant before he was mustered out in his home state of South Carolina on August 20, 1865.[6]<\/span><\/p>\n When he returned to Illinois, Barquet waged a struggle for equal educational opportunities for Galesburg\u2019s African American children. A separate school for Black children had opened in 1863, after the local school board stated that if the Black community furnished a building, the town would pay for the teacher and other expenses. Barquet wanted to abolish segregated education. Starting with a petition in September 1870, he and other activists insisted that Black children must be permitted \u201cto attend the nearest public schools in the respective wards.\u201d Their protests escalated, and in 1872, a group of twenty-five Black children marched into the high school demanding admission. The school board of Galesburg listened, declaring that African American children had the right to \u201creceive equally with the white children the benefits of a common school education.\u201d[7]<\/span><\/p>\n Yet Barquet and his family faced hardship despite his heroic organizing and status as a U.S. Army veteran. In 1871, Democrats in Galesburg tried to exclude him and other Black soldiers from the Memorial Day parade, even though they had marched in it in the past. When the organizing committee finally agreed to allow the Black veterans to march, white veterans refused to participate in the parade. The next year, the committee forced Barquet out of the parade, at which point other Black veterans withdrew from the event.[8]<\/span><\/p>\n When Barquet passed away in 1880, the Davenport Gazette <\/i>advised that it \u201cwould be well for old soldiers and citizens to lend a helping hand at the funeral, as his family are in reduced circumstances.\u201d[9]<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”3_5,2_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” custom_padding=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” admin_label=”Sources” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n 1. Barbara L. Bellows, Two Charlestonians at War: The Civil War Odysseys of a Lowcountry Aristocrat and a Black Abolitionist<\/i> (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2018), 11, 15-16.<\/p>\n 2. Bellows, Two Charlestonians at War,<\/i> 31-32, 50, 55-56; 1850 US Census: Joseph H. Barquet, Ancestry.com; \u201cMeeting of the Colored Citizens of Milwaukee,\u201d Daily Free Democrat <\/i>(Milwaukee), Oct. 10, 1850.<\/p>\n 3. John Jones and Joseph H. Barquet, \u201cMeeting of Colored Citizens,\u201d Frederick Douglass\u2019 Paper, <\/i>Jan. 8, 1852; \u201cLetter from H. O. Wagoner,\u201d Frederick Douglass\u2019 Paper, <\/i>Jan. 14, 1853; Bellows, Two Charlestonians at War, <\/i>57-58.<\/p>\n 4. \u201cProceedings of the First Convention of the Colored Citizens of the State of Illinois, Convened at the City of Chicago, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, October 6th, 7th and 8th, 1853,\u201d Colored Conventions Project Digital Records<\/i>, accessed Sep. 9, 2021, https:\/\/omeka.coloredconventions.org\/items\/show\/261<\/a>; Bellows, Two Charlestonians at War<\/i>, 63.<\/p>\n 5. Hermann R. Muelder, A Hero Home From the War: Among the Black Citizens of Galesburg, Illinois 1860-1880<\/i> (Galesburg, IL: Knox College Library, 1987), 5; 1860 US Census: J. Barquet, Ancestry.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Excerpt from a letter of Joseph H. Barquet to Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass’ Paper,<\/em>\u00a0May 27, 1852. (Source: Courtesy of Accessible Archives.)<\/p>\n“We are here the sentinels of the army of freedom…”<\/h2>\n
<\/strong>A depiction of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment<\/span> storming the walls of Fort Wagner on Morris Island, South Carolina in 1863. \u00a0Printed by Kurz & Allison-Art Publishers, Chicago, c1890. (Source: The Library of Congress<\/a>)<\/p>\nSources<\/h4>\n