Carter Woodson, the “father” of Black History set out in 1926 to designate a time to educate Americans about Black history and promote Black culture. It wasn’t until 1976, during the country’s Bicentennial Celebrations, that Black History Month was officially established in the month of February. And, as many supporters and critics have noted, Black history is inextricable from American history writ large. “The Black experience,” says Sara Clarke Kaplan, executive director of the Antiracist Research & Policy Center at American University in Washington, D.C. “is embedded in everything we think of as ‘American history.’”
And so too is it buried deep in my own family’s history—a story of Jewish America and of Black America.
For much of my childhood, two large portraits loomed large over our living room. Hanging over the fireplace were these dark paintings of a severe looking man and an equally intense looking woman, both dressed in black. Dating back to the late 19th century, we jokingly referred to these relatives as “the horse thieves”, but thanks to a deep dive into our genealogy by my father, we knew they were a “great-great” of some kind, though it was always unclear whether it was a great-great aunt/uncle or great-great grandparents.
Coupled with the two Bibles dating back to the Civil War that my father discovered after his parents died, those portraits told a different story than the one I had known of my Ashkenazi roots. It was one rooted in the pre-Civil War South, shrouded in far more mystery than my Ellis Island arriving Russian and Polish ancestors.
One of those stories surrounds Henrietta Geisenberg, my great-great-great aunt. She, along with her then-husband Leopold Bauer, and her brother Isaac and his family (my great-great-great grandparents?), emigrated from Germany to Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana—a small town just across the river from Vicksburg, Mississippi. Henrietta, the owner of a grocery store in Milliken’s Bend, was reported, even before the Civil War, to be an abolitionist. Because of her known stance, she was run out of Milliken’s Bend. Henrietta eventually moved to Island 102 after the Union army came to the Vicksburg area, where a small community of Black people who had escaped enslavement also sought refuge. Island 102 was an island in the middle of the Mississippi River, about 4 miles above Milliken’s Bend, where nearby Union soldiers could protect their families.
Later, under the Act of Congress on March 3, 1871, Henrietta filed a Petition to recover damages for the taking of her property by the Union soldiers during the war. Henrietta signed her petition, for $4,150 in damages, on October 24, 1872. Her signature reads “Henrietta Bauer”. Henrietta Geisenberg Bauer died December 20 or 21, 1876, at Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana, and was buried in the Ansche Chesed cemetery in Vicksburg. Outside of that particular recorded history, and perhaps even more interesting, is that most of what we know about Henrietta’s life during the war came from Thomas Staten, Washington West, Lizzie Reed, Green Rider, and Turner Johnson, members of that small Black community living alongside her on the island.
And so, in their memory, and on this final week of Black History Month, I share this story.
— Rabbi Sari Laufer