MARIA LOUISE MOORE was born of mixed-race parents in Fredericksburg in 1800. Her father was Scotsman Edwin Moore of Edinburgh, and her mother was a free black woman born in Toronto (then called York). During her childhood, Maria most likely received part of her education
Education for blacks, free and slave, had been legal in Virginia during the period of the American Revolution, and was even encouraged in some cases as with the pre-Revolutionary-era school for slave children co-sponsored by Fielding Lewis. The school, which operated near Kenmore from 1765 to 1770, aimed to teach slave children to read so they might better participate in church services.
In 1820, Maria married Adolphe Richards, a native of Guadeloupe. He was of noble ancestry, with Latin and Negro blood, had been educated in London, and was fluent in English and French. He had come to Fredericksburg in search of a more favorable climate for his health. He chose to open and operate a wood-turning, glazing, and painting shop.
Maria and Adolphe had 14 children, and Maria was determined that nothing would stand in the way of their education.
However, education for all blacks was made illegal in Virginia during the decades leading up to the Civil War, as fears of slave uprisings and abolitionist literature heightened. A rebellion in 1831 in Southampton County, led by escaped slave Nat Turner, gave Virginia lawmakers more ammunition to restrict the freedom of blacks.
In the Fredericksburg area, where from the 1700s until the Civil War there were almost as many blacks as whites in the overall population, these fears were intensified. As a result, the early 1800s saw a number of restrictive laws passed by the General Assembly that severely limited the mobility of all blacks, including those few who had "free black" status. Free blacks were required to carry their freedom papers with them at all times and had to present them to any white person who asked, or the consequences could be dire.
One law enacted during this period prohibited any person to sit or stand for the purpose of teaching a black--free or slave--to read or write. But two courageous white teachers defied what they viewed as a preposterous law by lying prostrate on a couch and teaching black children to read.
This was not to be taken lightly, as the law said that any white person caught in the act of teaching a black to read or write could be fined $50 and jailed for two months. A black person caught violating these laws would also be punished with 39 lashes, or "stripes." These laws precipitated the closing of "colored" schools throughout Virginia, but "secret schools" were conducted in the homes of brave free blacks.
Maria sent some of her children to one of these secret schools conducted by Mrs. Beecham, an Englishwoman living in Fredericksburg. So determined was Maria that her children receive an education that she took the extraordinary step of sending one of her sons to a school in Washington. Maria knew that this meant that she might never see him again, because an 1838 law enacted by the General Assembly said:
"If any free person of color goes or is sent beyond the limits of the commonwealth for the purpose of being educated, he or she shall be deemed to have migrated from the state and it shall not be lawful for him or her to return to the same." Maria risked exiling her own son to ensure that he would receive an education.
Adolphe Richards died in 1850. Less than a year later, to "flee the humiliation," court deeds show that Maria sold their property at the foot of George Street and eventually settled in Detroit. Amazingly, almost every prominent free black family in this area followed the Richardses, all settling in Detroit to become abolitionists, contractors, ministers, even politicians.
This brings us to Fannie Richards. The youngest daughter of Maria and Adolphe, Fannie was born
The remaining years of Fannie's long life would prove nothing short of a tribute to the courage, determination, and unyielding strength of her mother. Fannie lifted her mother's legacy still higher. In 1863, at age 22, Fannie recognized the deficiencies in the education of black children in her community and took action. She opened a private school for black children. Two years later, the Detroit Board of Education appointed Fannie the first full-time black teacher in the segregated Colored School No. 2.
Unsatisfied with the separate and unequal segregated schools of Detroit, Fannie helped to file suit against the very system that had hired her four years earlier. In 1869, the Michigan Supreme Court abolished Detroit's racially segregated school system. Two years later, in 1871, Fannie became the first black teacher in Detroit's newly integrated school system. She would teach there for nearly 50 years, helping to shape the lives of tens of thousands of students, black and white.
Miss Fannie Richards died on Feb. 13, 1922. She had also logged more than half a century as a Sunday school teacher at Detroit's influential Second Baptist Church, which had assisted escaped slaves along the Underground Railroad. In the twilight of her life, still true
Jervis Hairston is vice president, |