Union Course Laboratories

Category: Anna Barnes Files

  • Anna V. Downey: 1903 Letter to the Editor of the Press of Philadelphia

    Anna V. Downey: 1903 Letter to the Editor of the Press of Philadelphia

    Wilkes-Barre Record (Wilkes-Barre, PA)

    “THE NEGRO RACE”

    “To the Editor of the Press:

    Reading the Philadelphia Press of the 12th of the address of John Temple Graves of Atlanta, Ga., at the mob convention at Chautauqua, N.Y., in defense of the lynching of the negroes, I have a few words to say. In the first place a man with the name he bears tells us he believes in the holy bible. John, the name of one of the greatest apostles, who baptized our Lord; Temple, the name of the place where our Lord made his first appearance after his parents were compelled to flee when he was a babe, and (Grave)s, the place where our Lord lay,—this is evidence enough that whoever had the naming of this worthy gentleman was Christianized and not a barbarian, as he is trying to force into the heads of lawless and ignorant people. If there is anything in a name, we find here one that is going against his better nature. I simply wish to ask this man a few questions, and answer a few of the unheard of record of the race.

    “Half of the crimes of rape that is laid to the negro, are they negroes? And are they rapes? Are they white men with the negro disguise? And are the fair sex all honorable? Or do they encourage the negro and when they are discovered cry out “Rape?” I ask you to allow your mind to run back. When our poor women were afraid to say their lives were their own; and our men had simply to stand and dare not say a word, was it the negro who stole to the humble slave cabin and stole there the honor of the negro women? If she tried to defend her honor she was whipped: if then she refused she was placed in jail, there on bread and water, and if she continued to remonstrate then she was forced. All this was the example laid down for the negro to follow. All good and noble acts were kept out of his reach and hearing. If they could steal literature that could have enlightened them it was of no benefit, for they could not read. It was a whipping for a book to be seen in the hands of a slave. Yet we are only thirty seven years away from such examples and doctrines. 

    “Do not judge the race by one man. Show me a face that has made the progress the negro has in thirty-seven years? We cope with the Caucasian in every sphere. Judges, lawyers, doctors, authors, statesmen, poets, artists, etc. Our girls and boys graduate with the same honors, carry off the honors from your highest and best colleges. Bow show me where they are an inferior race and we can never be assimilated. As a law abiding race we have yet to find our equal. What race stands by the Stars and Stripes with more honor than the negro? During our Civil War you tried to fight without them, before they knew their right foot from their left; when to drill them properly it was necessary to tie straw to one foot and hay to the other, thus enabling them to mark time correctly. Then you placed them in battle. Who was it that caused your victory at Richmond, Va? The negro. Is that inferiority? Who made the bravest and most heroic efforts in saving the country’s flag? And so on down until we have the Spanish-American War.

    “Separation the solving of the problem. The negro is looking for a companion has no need to bother your race. If looks, we have that. If brain, we have that. As much honor stands at the record of our women as yours. All we ask is fair play, and when condemning, condemn as a race, and not as one man. As all races, just as a family, have a black sheep in the fold, it would seem harsh and unkind to crush that whole family for one of its members. Just so with the negro race. 

    “Yet, in the race of all the disadvantages more than any race has suffered and is suffering, with only thirty-seven years of freedom, turned out upon the world with ignorance and superstition, yet we are neck and neck in this race. Women, stand firm! When we rock the cradle, rock God, rock education, rock honor, rock virtue and rock union. And to our men: Be noble, be protection to our women, honest, unburied, unselfish and true. And with bible in one hand, gun in the other, we can, will come out victorious. I appeal to our better thinking people to look at our disadvantages, and then look at the progress in thirty-seven years!

    “Only law abiding and heroic. As in the case of our late lamented President McKinley at Buffalo, N. Y., so, Mr. Graves, your record of the negro race fails to show the most criminal record of any race on earth.  

    Mrs. Anna V. Downey

    Wilkes-Barre, Aug. 12, 1903.

  • I went looking for the grave of Anna Barnes

    I went looking for the grave of Anna Barnes

    FindAGrave did not have a picture of her grave at Flushing Cemetery, nor was there any sense that anyone had visited her page. She had no heirs. No flowers, no tribute or anything. Since I was going to be near there on successive weekends for my son’s baseball workouts at Game162, I thought I’d snap a photo of the grave of Anna Barnes, once a well known figure in Queens Republican circles during the Depression, but now lost to time and without even a photo of her grave. A photo of her grave would be my first contribution on that website. The person working at the desk gave me a map indicating the area where her grave was located. It seemed simple enough.

    Since I knew that George Upton Harvey, the first Republican borough president of Queens who served from 1929-1941, was also buried in this cemetery, I asked for information about how to find his grave, too. Harvey’s FindAGrave page did not include a picture of his grave, either, but as a public figure and a decorated veteran, there are pictures of Harvey, articles about his death, and other evidence that he would not be forgotten. Obviously, it was not for lack of interest but I was curious why Harvey, an actual war hero whose obituary was published in the New York Times, does not have a photograph of his grave on Find A Grave.

    Most of the people I look up while doing my research have photographs of their graves already available.  More than a year earlier, I created a FindAGrave account for the purpose of photographing graves for the many people who request photos of their ancestors’ graves. As I live in a section of Queens close to several cemeteries, I thought it would be a fun way to get out and away from my desk. But after my sister died in September 2024, I found it hard to go to cemeteries. It was a few months before I was able to do any writing and visiting cemeteries was a low priority. But because two Republican leaders from the same period, Anna Barnes and George Harvey, were buried in Flushing Cemetery and neither had photos, Flushing Cemetery became a destination early in 2025 when I made a series of trips there to look for the graves …[asdfjkl;]

    Borough President Harvey was elected first in 1928 and then again the next year, then he was elected every four years until he served out his last term in 1942, losing his last reelection battle after perhaps finally wearing out his welcome.

    That was the year that Anna Barnes, the Secretary of the Queens County Republican Committee, the highest ranking woman of African ancestry when she served in the 1930s and 1940s. She had been a leader of the Colored Republican Club of Jamaica in the 1920s, and also a founding member of the Jamaica branch of the NAACP. For seemingly her entire adult life she had been a secretary of various evangelistic societies of the AME church and an important figure in the Allen AME church after her husband Charles Barnes died.

    As late as the fall of 1942, the Queens County Republican Executive Committee was meeting in her home. 

    So, I was disturbed to find no headstone, nor any sense that she was not buried in a mass grave, something I was told was quite possible.