Preserving My Legacy: During Black History Month - Theodore Josiha Haig
Thursday, February 29, 2024
Black History Month is a time to honor the contributions and legacy of African Americans across U.S. history and society. So I wrote to my only granddaughter, Jacqueline Craft Haig, and attached to the communication was the very first chapter of my latest manuscript - Escaping “The Waterford Plantation,” a novel about Edward Lee Rutherford Jr, a modern-day celebrity and character I created that happened to be a distinguished social and criminal justice activist and the subject of this "Book of Life” as characterized by Dr. Henry Louis Gates.
Truth be told, the prolific writer that I am, for years, I had been grappling with the idea of finding someone in my family “tree” capable of carrying the legacy that I leave forward. What happens with my legacy when I die? I thought, who is the person more likely to "run" with the "Haig' Legacy, so when I return “200 years from now” I have some assurances that every family member of the Haig descendant “tree” knows about the contribution I made to our family’s history?
In my story telling, Dr. Gates connected Edward Lee Rutherford Jr to Cornelius Waterford as his fourth-generation grandfather, who was also a social activist. My request of my granddaughter seemed reasonable…I wanted her to critique and offer her opinion on what was written thus far. Now readers should know that my granddaughter, Jacqueline Craft Haig, is actually the sixth generation granddaughter of Ellen and William Craft, who in 1848 escaped slavery and authored the book “Running a Thousand Miles For Freedom.“
Her response…
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST“I read your first chapter and think you thoughtfully bridged the history of race in America to its current state. The references to William and Ellen Craft were great, I like the idea of their escape being something that the characters discussed in the past. I interpreted it as though the main character is a fictionalized version of yourself because of the references to Nana, Anthony, and myself. Thank you for sending me this chapter and I look forward to hearing and reading more about your book.”
Again, in my storytelling, for the past ten years Dr. Gates had revealed the unexpected family trees of his celebrity guest surprising them with these fascinating ancestral stories that could literally “wake up the dead.” In each episode, celebrities are presented with this “Book of Life” compiled with information researched by professional genealogists who allows them to view their ancestral histories.
Together Dr. Gates and his genealogists presents a family tree as complete as paper research allows, providing copies of historical records used to assemble each tree with photos of newly found family members. For the average African American, whose both sides of their descendant tree are “traced” to Africa, the paper research started at a point where their African ancestor was sold into slavery and then tracked for the US census, as property owned by a white slaveholder.
But it was Edward Lee Rutherford Jr, fourth-generation great-grandfather, who was tracked escaping from slavery around the same period as William and Ellen Craft. They are known for their courageous and ingenious escape from slavery by train and steamboat from Macon, Georgia, to Boston around December 1848. Literally one-hundred years before I was born.
Dr. Gates revealed to Edward Lee Rutherford Jr, uncharacteristically, over a two-week period, as his celebrity guest, what one might call the extraordinary story behind his social activism. The historian extraordinaire came to that conclusion once he found out just how socially active Cornelius turned out to be, soon after his mother overheard some white folks talking about the “Great Craft Escape,” while she was browsing goods for sale, for her slaveholder, at the town’s general store. She overheard the store owner reading to one of the wealthy landowners from a column of the local newspaper reporting the “Craft’s” historic escape. Not that attempted escapes weren’t unusual. She recovered the discarded newspaper for her son to read the article to her.
“I’ve often wondered how many other enslaved men and women escaped slavery using similar tactics and survived. Not to mention all those that perished along the way,” Edward Lee Rutherford Jr responded. Truth of the matter, so did Cornelius Lee Waterford as told to me by Henry Louis Gates.
Although, the US Congress outlawed the African slave trade in 1808, it was the domestic trade that continued to flourish with the enslaved population in the United States nearly tripling over the next 50 years. And by 1860 it had reached nearly 4 million, with more than half living in the cotton-producing states of the South.
Approximately 100,000 enslaved Americans escaped to freedom, while the railroad was thought to have helped as many as 70,000 individuals escape in the years between 1800 and 1865. And even with assistance the journey had to be nothing less than grueling. Nonetheless, it was how the escape was staged that made it so unique. Alerting white slaveholders to be on the look out for similar scenarios slaves may conjure up.
Cornelius unveiled this story to a British newspaper, leaving an outline of his literary account some eighteen-years later after his escape from slavery. His biological father was his white slaveholder, which explains why he was so light in complexion and, like most enslaved men and women, he couldn’t trace his African ancestry.
The newspaper chose to chronicle Cornelius’ activism by highlighting a literary account of his escape over a number of articles and ledgers leaving the reader not to have to use much of one’s imagination.
Fortunately, he had married a northern journalist of mixed race, the former Elizabeth Graves. Most of her writing and storytelling about her life with her husband was while she was employed in South Carolina with the “Charleston Courier” and her personal journal once the two married.
Thank God for Henry Louis Gates and his researchers, although both sources helped them flush out much of the enslaved life Cornelius lived, in America, couple with a healthy historical context to analyze and interpret his social activism in America, particularly during the Reformation Era. We were able to chronicle his life and activism with greater detail.
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No doubt, inspired by Dr. Henry Louis Gates, I responded back to my granddaughter on February 2, 2024. I wrote, “What follows are my literary works with some great photos all put together for posterity, for the Haig descendant tree.”
I have prepared nineteen folders electronically, all placed in one large folder, with the capacity to update while I remain alive. They include things like my original manuscripts, copies of my degrees, and a comprehensive document about Haig ancestry. All my unreleased writings with a note for you to continue should my death predate their publishing, I included photo albums and PowerPoint presentations, compendiums of all my writings, my published screenplay and theatrical play, and with tongue and cheek, I added, "DEM" future Haig’s better know my contribution to our legacy.
Folders #14 and #15 attached to this communication are finished manuscripts (four novels and three non-fiction) that I intend to publish in the order written. Folder #16 is currently halfway finished (Escape "The Waterford Plantation"). If published during my lifetime, I will notify and update you. Please don't disseminate in the interim.
If I fail to publish either please take the initiative, over the years, to edit and publish under both our names or as you see fit. I will be taking the steps so that legally this will not be an issue.
I also have copyrights to folder #6 attached, a theatrical play (Mario Bauza) and I wrote a screenplay (folder #5) for the short screen about my fourth novel "New York's Finest." Do as you see fit. So far, I have been unsuccessful marketing either, although I have not given up.
By the way, the actor Michael Beach (Nana's second cousin) has a copy of "Baldwin Village." He did indicate to me if the story-line is good he knows people who would be interested in making it a movie. I have my fingers crossed.
In closing, each year during the remaining years of my lifetime, I will probably update this document with my writings and travel. For instance, this March 2024, I know I will be traveling to Guatemala for two weeks, and in April I will be spending two weeks in Columbia and Paraguay, and in May I will be spending one week in Mexico facilitating school accreditation evaluations, with a team of international educators. I will be documenting all my future writings and travels and of course, any traveling Nana and I do.
Sweetheart, I have chosen you for this generational task because I believe you are the family member that best fit the task of carrying the HAIG legacy forward. I wasn’t insensitive, at 28 years old, you are still trying to carve out your place in our society. So I added, ”There is something in you that you have yet to discover. Hopefully, this will help you find it!”
With ALL my love,
Pop Pop.
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Theodore Josiha Haig, PC ’70 – a former superintendent of schools in both Hartford, Ct. and East Orange, New Jersey, and currently functioning as an international educational consultant. Ted lived in the state of Qatar, the Middle East, for eleven years and holds both a doctorate from Boston College and a law degree from the University of Florida, College of Law. A native New Yorker and former PC basketball player, Ted served as the first president of the Afro-American Society at PC and the college’s first director of the Martin Luther King Scholarship program. Among all his accomplishments, Ted is a five-time published mystery-suspense novelist and is currently publishing a 6th novel, “Baldwin Village.”
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