Nicole Hill
Appearances
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
I mean, yeah, ideally family money or real estate investments.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
She likes him. Okay, so this is the thing. Craigwell is a barber or a tonsillary artist, which is what they're called at this time. Black men were finding that they actually really enjoy the experience of going to a shop together, talking reckless, hanging out, also getting their hair done. So men are like, oh, okay, you guys like this? They start opening barbershops somewhat regularly.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
They begin popping up all over Black communities. And people are starting to be like, huh, this seems like it's a community hub. This seems like a potentially lucrative business. So being a Black barber does have the potential to become like an important role in the Black community and a profitable job. So Lulu's like, maybe she's like, you know, there's potential here, Dad.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Like, just let him cook. Like, we don't know what he can do. So they keep dating, and they do fall in love. Aw. So, like, let's picture a romance montage. You're Lulu. You're with your Craigwell. Can you just, like, describe the world that you two would build together? What kind of dates would you want to go on with him in the 1880s?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
This cross-class kind of upstairs-downstairs romance is not something that the first families would have been cool with. They're very snobby. So just to put it in perspective, there's 230,000 people in D.C. at this time. 75,000, or 32% of them, are Black. And then 400 of the 75,000 are members of the first families. Wow.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
You took the words out of my mouth. That's what we're talking about here is the talented 10. So the talented fifth, really. So the first film is their exclusive. If you're wealthy and Black, but you're coming to D.C. from like Philly or New York or Detroit, they call you a foreigner or a stranger. And if you're poor or uneducated and Black...
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
They don't call you anything at all because they're living by this mandate of lift as we climb. The saying is everywhere. It's a huge part of the strategy that the race has come up with during a time when they literally had to move in next door to the people who used to enslave them. So it's like not a good time. So they think like, OK, how are we going to change this?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
How are we going to make things better for ourselves? And W.E.B. Du Bois and a lot of people come up with this idea of the talented 10th. And they're like, all right, we need y'all to go in there, be as respectable and as elegant and educated as possible to put these white people at ease and show them that like, see, I'm a human just like you. See my hands. You can't really reason.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
You have to be like, it's OK. It's OK. Or you have to just fight.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
And this is like, they're the first generation of people. A lot of them were slaves and now they're free. White people are not okay with this. It's not like everybody's like, oh yeah, you earned it. Good for you. Like they're under duress at all times. So yes, you're having to like overcompensate, overprove, overdo all these things.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
And the idea is if we send y'all in there to do that, then white people will be put at ease and then go around to the back of the club, open the door, and then you're going to let all the rest of us in. here's what the strategy didn't account for. It's hard to be in something, but not of it.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Yes. So the talented 10th start to adopt the traditions and the customs of the elites they're meant to be imitating, and then they come back to the Black community and are these enforcers of the politics of respectability and brutal critics of anybody that doesn't comply.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
You know what I keep thinking? I'm like, you create a strategy that'll really work for you. But then, uh-oh, we just kept the same exact strategy for like hundreds of years. We didn't update it, you know, as like modern people. I think we're trying to update it now. But it's so hard for me to judge them ever because I'm like, it did work. I am here.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Back to Lulu. Lulu has a friend who she does seem to turn to for advice. The papers don't name her, but I'm imagining her to be like a level-headed best friend archetype like Dion and Clueless. So I just want to call her Dion.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Of course. All right, so I'm imagining this next part, but indulge me. Dion probably would have listened to Lulu go on and on and on about her great love and these walks along the promenade, the ice cream. She's like, girl, come on now. Do you really think that this is going to work out? He is a barber and he is broke. And we are royalty. Like, what are you doing?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
And Lulu was probably like, Dionne, I don't care about that. I don't care about upstairs, downstairs, this side of the track, that side of the track. I'm in love. And not only do she and Craigwell continue dating, they get engaged. Ooh! But... Someone finds Craigwell, and they have a conversation with him. We don't know what they say. We don't know who it is.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
All we know is that afterwards, he goes to Lulu and he says, I can't be with you anymore. Our engagement is over. And then he moves to Pennsylvania.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Lulu is so sad. I'm picturing her, like, running upstairs and then flinging herself on the bed and crying and crying and crying, and Dion's trying to console her, but she's also maybe breathing a little sigh of relief, along with Richard, Lulu's dad, and the rest of the First families, because Lulu was probably going to end up like Lucinda Seaton anyway.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Allow me to tell you the cautionary tale of Lucinda Seaton. Oh. 30 years before Lulu's forbidden love, the DMV had another it girl, and her name was Lucinda Seaton. When a famous German-American painter came to D.C. looking to paint the portrait of the quintessential African-American lady to be displayed across Europe, do you know who he chose?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
So Lucinda's, all this happening with her, her like time to shine, it's 1850. So the Civil War is 10 years off. Slavery is in full effect. It's the culture. But also we have a community of free Black people and that's what her family is. But that year the census was taken and for the first time it recognized and counted as separate Africans and mixed race people. So half white, half Black. Right.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
So it was reported that there were a little over 3 million enslaved Black people in America at that time. And 250,000 of them were mixed race. So these 250,000 people, for the most part, they're not born of, you know, like loving, consensual relationships. No, not at all. You know what I mean? So we're talking about horrible mass rape from white enslavers of Black women.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
And then Black women are giving birth to these hundreds of thousands of people. These are just the people that they counted. So the white men who fathered these children, at that time, there was a culture among some of them of claiming these children and either giving them better jobs on the plantation, like in the house.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
We know what this does to our community, but they're bringing their children inside.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. But they're like, you know, you are my son, you are my daughter, you work inside. It's disgusting and weird, but this is what they're doing. Or they're freeing them after a certain age or sending them off to Europe to be educated or even sometimes leaving them inheritances.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Some of the elite families got their start this way, or they claimed to have gotten their start this way because it was seen as a respectable thing. It was like, you were special to your dad. Obviously, we know this is how we came by being light-skinned, which is among the most important qualities a member of the Black elite could ever possess. Horrible beginnings.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
What we did with that trauma is multiply it. But this is how this is part of their story, too. So Lucinda Seton's family seemed, from what I can surmise, to have partially gotten their start this way. I mean, they are very light. She's like part Indian, part white, part black.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
She would be in the Fenty 300s. Thank you for translating that for modern audiences. So, you know, they're free through all this, you know, weirdness and grossness. But they also, somebody opened up a grocery store and it would eventually become the largest grocery store chain in the DMV. And so that's how they came by a bunch of money. So Lucinda's doing great.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
She's living the dream until she marries a blacksmith. So the blacksmith is doing okay for himself. He's doing, you know, the best that he can, but he's also middle class. So now she is too. She clearly married for love because she has to move into a middle class neighborhood in a quaint little home on I Street in Northwest D.C., which is like now.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Yes, exactly. So she moves to I Street where the men go to work and the women raise kids and nobody comes by to paint their pictures. Oh, no. Lucinda has six kids, five girls and a boy named William. And she seems to have been searching for a way to get back in to the first families, like get back into the life she'd become accustomed. But they need to make some money.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
If Lucinda Seton's six kids get educated, they can get good jobs, make real money, and put their family back on the map. So all the kids are sent to school. William goes to the prestigious private elementary school in the basement of the 15th Street Presbyterian Church. So now all Lucinda has to do is just wait. Unfortunately, in 1863, tragedy strikes. Her husband is murdered during a robbery.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
So now, Lucinda is a widow with six kids to feed. I don't know if her family helped her out a bit. Maybe they did. But she does become a dressmaker, and she starts an ice cream shop to make ends meet.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Mm-mm. They are going to cross paths.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
but she has to pull her kids out of their schools to help earn money for their survival. Some of the members of the first families probably still stop by her little house on I Street and wish her well, but it's clear to everyone that Lucinda is now even further away from being one of them than she was before.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
She'd married into a precarious financial situation, and now she was a poor with no hope of ever advancing the end. So now, we're back. We're back with Lulu and Dion in the 1880s. We left Lulu. She's crying in her bedroom, probably, making it up. But, you know, she's sobbing. Dion is there. She's rubbing her head. She's saying, don't worry about Craig. Well, all men are dogs.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
It's going to be okay. Then, I picture Lulu's father, Richard, poking his head in the room to check on his daughter. Lulu, she doesn't notice him because she's sobbing. But Dion looks up. The two exchanged a knowing glance. What was that look? Cut to Lucinda's house. Lucinda's scene is still in D.C., in that little house on I Street.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
And she would have likely been watching the Lulu Craigwell affair with a lot of interest. Maybe because the story mirrored her own, or maybe because she had made it her and her six kids' business to know exactly what the first families were getting into and to tell everybody.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
They may have counted her out, but they shouldn't have because Lucinda has a son named William Chase, and he's all grown up now, and she's taught him everything she knows. William and Lucinda are coming for the first families, and sadly, Lulu will find herself caught in the crossfire.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
back to lulu she's single now but then she meets a man his name is mr sneed mr who mr sneed s-n-e-e-d okay so she's back outside she's back outside all right she got her toes she doesn't have her toes out it's the gilded age but no no no no whatever that version is like hey girl we've got a new man forget that old one we're moving on Mm-hmm.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Mr. Sneed is a waiter at the Arlington Hotel, which is one of America's most opulent hotels. And the first families would have been like, this is a great look. The papers call him swell.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Yeah, because it's at a really, really, really fancy hotel. Okay. And because at this time, to put on a uniform and work in a hotel, like work for dignitaries and all these things, this is really, really important to them.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
So Lulu and Sneed begin a courtship. Lulu and Sneed get engaged. Lulu's dad Richard agrees to give them a wedding present, which is a house.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
We love a house as a wedding gift. That's amazing. Lulu and her parents and maybe Mr. Sneed draft an invite list. And although I couldn't find it, I could guess who would be on it. All the first families, the famed suffragette Mary Church Terrell and the Terrells.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Langston Hughes' great uncle, John Mercer Langston, and the Langstons would, of course, be there. Obviously, they have to invite the founder of the 15th Street Presbyterian Church, John F. Cook, and the Cooks. The McKinleys, the Cardozos, the Grimkeys, everybody's going to be there.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
I was like, all these last names come from this? What?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Mm-hmm, and the school. So then this question arises between the couple. I'm guessing Lulu is the one that asked this question. She says, Mr. Sneed, should we invite Mr. Craigwell to our wedding?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Okay, well, Lulu's parents send out the invitations and the household prepares for a royal wedding. two people who most certainly would not have received an invite from the Francis family and would have been in their feelings about it were Lucinda Seaton and her now-grown son, William Chase. So if you'll recall, she'd had to pull him out of school when he was nine to help support the family.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
And he started selling newspapers. And that's how he got to know a lot of the editors and the newsrooms and the reporters in Black D.C. He grows up. He goes to Howard Law School. He passes the bar. He becomes a lawyer. And he also continues reporting and working in various newsrooms. And he lived at home on I Street with his mom and his sisters. They're all very close. Aww.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
William has got this flair for the dramatic. He has dreams of becoming a renowned actor, and he actually ends up falling in love with and marrying another actor, and the two of them are in little plays together and stuff. It's very cute.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Mainly, though, his time is spent lawyering, reporting, and jockeying for political appointments, because there's another way that a person can become a member of the Black elite, and that is by doing the absolute most.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
If he can become a combination lawyer, reporter, and politician, he will be economically secure, have the most prestigious jobs anyone can have, be lifting as he climbs in matters of law, news, and politics.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Totally fine. No questions. We're all on board. No notes. But the problem was... When it came to the politics, he never seemed to get the political appointments that he went after. And when he was rejected, he did not take it in stride.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
He would go into the office of whatever newspaper he was working for at the time, he would sit down at his typewriter, and he would go absolutely insane on everyone he held responsible for him not getting the jobs he thought he deserved. So like one time Frederick Douglass was like, I will hook you up. And he's like, great, great, great, great. And then Frederick Douglass is like, no, no, I can't.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
He publishes all this. He's like, I hate you. I hate the way that you dress. I hate the way that you talk. I hate your hair. Like just petty.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Right. But he doesn't care. People describe him as handsome, a climber, and very, very combative. Oh, he was handsome? I see why he's like that. Yeah. You're like, oh wait, that changes everything. Okay, got it, clear.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
So finally, William does secure one of the jobs he'd been going after. He's named the editor of the Washington Bee, a brand new weekly paper serving the Black citizens of D.C. whose motto was, stings for our enemies, honey for our friends.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
It's estimated that at this time there are like 12,000 newspapers serving segregated Black communities across America. But when you get to a major city like D.C., there's usually a few. So the competition is really fierce and you need to do something to stand out. So William is like, what's up, sisters? What's up, my wife? You all are now going to be on staff at the Washington Bee.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
And he makes all of them like reporters and cultural critics, in addition to some outside people. And then they set up offices at Lucinda's house on I Street. There, they turn the bee into appointment readings.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Well, OK, so it was they primarily cover news related to the fight for civil rights and social justice. They're like covering news that all the white papers are covering, but without all the racism and with black people in it. That's like the idea. But they also make sure from time to time to just let William get behind his typewriter and do his thing. He'll be like, what's up, white leaders?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
I am so sick and tired of all the ways that you do not point Black people to positions of power. You are so racist and you're so hypocritical. And then he'll be like, what's up, Black leaders? Nothing that you're doing is going to make a difference in the Black community because you are too intellectual and you're too theoretical. And then this is his favorite.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
He's like, what's up, First Families? You think you're so much better than us? You think I don't know what's going on behind closed doors? A lot of his readers, who the B refers to as the household, that's what they call black VC.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
It's good branding. It's good branding. You got to brand your audience. The household feels looked down upon by the black elites because they're working class or they're poor or they're dark skinned or they couldn't go to college. And so behind their back, the household calls the first families the fussed families.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Can I have you read on page two what the bee said about them?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
No, okay, but here's the thing. You're Lulu, so you're the fusty one. How would you feel reading this?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
And I do feel like people start Bringing out their like, no, no, no, no, their cards where it's like, well, my dad, my parents, I'm first generation college graduate. Like, I don't, don't put me with them. Like, my family grew up with no money. You just want to start, you do these things.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
So back to William. He is assaulted twice and sued five times for libel over his articles. He's like, I don't care. There's this section of the paper called the Clara and Louise column. Every week, the paper publishes a letter from an anonymous Clara to an anonymous Louise or vice versa.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
And in the letters, among other things, they share the torrid details about the ups and the downs and the scandals of the first families.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Lady Whistledown to a T. And the First Families hate this column. Their complaints about it reach such a fever pitch that William, who is normally like, don't care, don't care, don't care, has to release a statement being like, sorry, I don't know who Clara and Louise are. I understand your pain. However, I am never going to stop. I'm never going to back down.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Every week, tune in because I'm going to be publishing all of their insights into your scandals and your hypocrisies. On November 27th, 1886, just five days before Lulu and Sneed's wedding, the Washington Bee publishes a bombshell in their weekly gossip column, which, as you'll recall, is written in the form of letters between an anonymous Clara and an anonymous Louise.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
I have compiled a medley of the letters that Clara and Louise wrote to each other over the next two weeks about the scandal, which I would love for us to read right now, if you would not mind. I think I'm playing Louise. Okay, perfect. If you will play Clara.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Dear Clara, I hardly know how to begin or what to relate first, but the most sensational thing that has ever happened in our society is the elopement of Miss Lulu Francis.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
It will be remembered that Mr. Craigwell had been going with Miss Francis for a number of years, and it was understood that the engagement between them had been canceled.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Mr. Sneed expressed tender feelings for the lady. He gave her his heart and they were engaged and he went to the expense of making their wedding a brilliant affair.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Mr. Cragwell told Miss Frances that he always loved her and that it was hard to see his first love married to another man who would make her life miserable. At this juncture, Ms. Francis said, but my invitations are out for my marriage to Mr. Sneed. Oh, I could fix that, said Mr. Craigwell. After deciding what steps were best to pursue, it's said that Ms.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Francis, Mr. Craigwell, her sister, and her brother-in-law traveled to the residence of Reverend Dr. Sunderland, who married President Grover Cleveland.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
The household is started and society is up in arms to think that Ms. Francis would be guilty of such an act.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
She has been reared a lady and looked upon and respected as such. Her parents consist of the best elements of our society.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
No, they said it was a friend. So that's why I feel like Dion... Okay, so this is my conspiracy theory that I have cooked up in my head based on no evidence. I feel like Richard, Lulu's dad, went to Dion, Lulu's best friend, and he was like, "'Dion, my daughter cannot marry that broke barber.'"
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
I need you to go to him and tell him that if he really cares for Lulu, the best thing he can do for her is to leave her. And so then Dion, like, went to him. She said that. Lulu was like, oh, my God, he left me. I want to be with him. And maybe Richard gave him some money because you know that's how rich people do it.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
So then Mr. Craigwell leaves town. Lulu is like, oh, my God, like, I can't live without him. Dionne's like, you'll be fine. Lulu's like, should I invite him to my wedding? Dionne is like, girl, no. Then boom, boom, boom. He's back in her life. They're married.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
After the elopement, it's reported that Craigwell went to see about making arrangements for him and Lulu to get to Pennsylvania. And Lulu and her sister went home to face their parents. Allegedly, Mr. Sneed is also there.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Yeah, how would your parents react to you showing up at the door being like, okay, Mary.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
You would never survive it. Unfortunately, there's no record of what went down at the Francis home during this meeting. But at the end, Mr. Sneed is sent away. And that's the last we ever hear of him.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Now, Richard Francis, Lulu's dad, and his wife, Lulu's mom, they are humiliated in front of all the first families, the household, and potentially hundreds of thousands of recorded Black newspaper readers across the nation. Because I found articles about this elopement in papers in New York, in Alabama, and Missouri, and a lot of them were pulling their reporting from the beast. So this is bad.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Also, since Lulu was on the radar of the Washington Post, white D.C. may have known about all of this, too. And so Richard may have had to deal with his coworkers and clients whispering about this in the U.S. Senate, as well as everywhere that he went in D.C. Not long after the scandal in 1888, Richard passes away suddenly. Aw, he's stressed.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
His funeral is held at the 15th Street Presbyterian Church. Today, bartenders still remember and revere Richard for his incredible mint juleps. When I was doing the research for this episode, I kept getting linked to all these magazines and all these articles about, like, famous black bartenders and recipes, famous recipes created by black bartenders. And there was Richard's.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
It's the Dick Francis special for a mint julep. And I will link the recipe in the show notes. I never did find another article after the scandal that mentioned Richard and Lulu together. So I don't know what their father-daughter relationship was after that or at the time that he passed away.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
But in the bios of his that I came across and in his obituary, he's listed as having left behind a wife and one son. And that's it.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Maybe both the daughters. I don't know.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
I know. The Washington Bee continues to grow in readership and prestige post-elopement scandal, and they gain a reputation across D.C. and in history as a paper that fought fearlessly for civil rights and social justice. In addition to the Clara and Louise gossip column, but that's less so in the history books. That's in the back.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
In 1893, Lucinda passes away with the Washington Beast still running from her home on I Street, which she managed to hold onto against all odds and then pass on to her children. So, shout out to Lucinda.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
William keeps the paper going right up until his death in 1921, which made it, at that time, one of the longest-running Black newspapers in America. The D.C. First Families, you know, it's hard to track down exactly what happened to them or all their wealth. Obviously, D.C. people will recognize some of the names, Seton, McKinley.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
But unfortunately, those places are named after the enslavers that the First Families shared names with, not the First Families themselves. Although I will say Cardozo is named after Francis Cardozo, who was a famous Black clergyman and politician. So we got that one. But here's what we do know.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Charles County and PG County, Maryland, right outside of D.C., are the richest majority Black counties in the nation. And they have been for a very long time. And I don't know why these places in Maryland became bastions of Black wealth. But it does seem like in some way the legacy of the first families in D.C. still lives on.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Yeah, you're in. I've been on and off in D.C. for 20 years. I'm not there now, but I'm only ever away for like a couple of years at a time. But I count myself and I keep leaving. So you're in. You've been there the whole time, steady? No.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
But I wish someone would look into this because I would love to know, like, why do they congregate there?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Uh, uh, uh. As for our newlyweds, Mr. and Mrs. Craigwell, they spent a little bit of time out in Pennsylvania, and then right before the turn of the century, they moved to Seattle, Washington. And once they get there, they make their way into Black history. Now, I can only find a record of what Mr. Craigwell did because of the times.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
But I know, I believe, and feel that I know, that Lulu was there right beside him holding him down. Can I have you read the summary of Mr. Craigwell's life, which was written up for his obituary and published in Seattle's black newspaper, the Northwest Enterprise?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Craigwell passes away in 1937 and Lulu passes away in 1942. And as much as I would love to tell you that that's the end, I want you to have this happy ending. There is one last part.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Yes, Lulu and Craigwell were among Seattle's earliest Black citizens and members of Seattle's Black elite. And yeah, Craigwell does go on to become a barber and the city's most successful Black entrepreneur. He has a staff of 11 tonsillary artists in fashionable downtown barbershops. But about those shops...
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
So white people really liked to be waited on by Black people immediately following the end of slavery, but they didn't want other Black people around also being served. So some barbers would guarantee their all-white clientele that the staff would be all Black, but that they wouldn't serve any Black people.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
And members of Seattle's Black press accused Craigwell of this practice, and they call him a segregationist barber. It's very hard to be in it, but not of it. Of course, there's so much more that happened, but for now, that is the story of the scandalous cross-class romance of Miss Lulu Francis.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Do you think it's possible to be in it but not of it, to be operating in these spaces of power but not adopting their practices and their ways of thinking and treating people?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
How are you feeling about the tactic of lift as we climb as a strategy for 1886? What did we gain? What did we lose?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
What do you think about looking at Black history starting from the messy beginnings? Because Craigwell is, like in Seattle, that name is a big deal. He's like seen as a big pioneer and as a person who's done this incredible thing. And you start the story from the time that he got to Seattle.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
And then, you know, you kind of talk about all the hard work he did, everything he overcame, his incredible resilience and business acumen. And he's, you know, an amazing Black capitalist. But we don't talk, you know, about this other part. Yeah.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Because this is why I'm like five days before your wedding.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
I was like, what is an old-fashioned... What's the original recipe?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Okay, so this might be, this is awkward, this is the third rail, but we're going to, this story is about class. Yes. So on a scale of one to five, one being trash and five being like free, clear, honest, easy to do, can you rate the quality of the conversations about class that you've witnessed within the Black community?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Oh, my God. I know. Then it's like zero. Yeah. Why do you think that is? Why do you think class is such a like it makes people defensive? Yeah.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
How comfortable are you with discussing class?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
OK, the story is about class and is actually in D.C.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Back when it was becoming Chocolate City. We are in the Gilded Age, a.k.a. the Victorian era, a.k.a. the 1880s. Oh, a progressive lady. A progressive young lady. Reverend Dr. Sutherland is like, fine, we can do whatever you want because I've already been in so much trouble.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Because he'd married another DC couple recently, and in doing so, he'd ushered in one of the biggest society scandals that the Black elite had ever seen. This is the story of a battle between romance and class. This is the story of the scandalous loves of Lulu Francis.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
This is the story for you, then. Okay, so slavery ended 20 years ago. Black people are moving all around the country now that they can, and they're trying to decide where do we want to be? What city are we about to turn chocolate? A lot of them decide on Washington, D.C. Period. So there are a lot of really great Black schools there. Obviously, H-U. You know.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
There's a ton of other Black people around. That's very attractive. The highest concentration of Black people in the nation at that time. And in the city, there's a class of Black elites. They are wealthy. They're from the D.C., Maryland, Virginia area, which obviously we call the DMV. And they're known as the first families.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
So there's a couple different ways that a person can become a member of the first families, the Black elite. And I'm going to tell you how one man did it. He is the father of the star of today's episode, and his name is Richard Francis. Richard was born enslaved in Virginia. A Southern gentleman never mixed his own drinks, so they would have enslaved Black men do that for them.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
So this was one of Richard's jobs. He did it really well. He didn't have a choice. So when he was freed eventually, he went to work at a white-owned tavern up the street from the White House. He rises from basically like a barback to the most popular bartender at this tavern. It's called Hancock's Old Curiosity Shop.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Oh, they would be so good. And you're Black, so he'd really hook them up. Well, you're a Black woman, and it's the Victorian era, so maybe he wouldn't.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
He is a really, really good bartender, and because of its location, it's really popular for politicians from across the country to come in, and they all fall in love with his mint juleps. This is his specialty. One of his patrons is a senator, and he tells Richard that he wants to help him get a job running the private restaurant in the U.S. Senate. And Richard's like, I would be very into that.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
So the senator puts in a good word and Richard gets the job. He's not the first Black man to hold that position, but it's still like a really big deal. So once he's there, he seems to be making good money. He takes his earnings and invests them in D.C. real estate. Brilliant. And so then he makes more money and he can afford to now be a member of the first family's.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
So in order to be a member of the first families, you need to have a combination of the following. This isn't an exhaustive list, but to start, economic security. You need enough money to not have to worry about money. And you've got to be real classy with it, meaning you need to own a beautifully furnished home. You need to dress well. You need to vacation in the right spots.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, actually, is super popular with them. Frederick Douglass and his family have a house out there. Richard is financially set. And I don't know how he decorated his home or where he vacationed, but he has money. So check. That's one thing. You have to have a prestigious job. Running the private restaurant in the U.S. Senate counts. So check. You need to go to college.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
I don't know Richard's educational background, but he's obviously very intelligent. But he did not go to college, I'm assuming. So no check for that. And you have to be from the DMV, which he is from. So check.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
They would be like, nope, you're out. Richard has made the three out of four. So that means him, his wife, their son, and two daughters are officially members of the first family. And so that brings us to the star of today's story. This is one of Richard's daughters, Miss Louise Marla Francis, whom everybody calls Lulu.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Lulu is likely a fashionista, a little spunky and opinionated, likely educated. She would have been doing things like attending organizing meetings for women's suffrage at the city's first black Presbyterian church, the 15th Street Presbyterian Church. She's a woman described by the Washington Post at the time as the belle of colored DC. So basically she is our ideal rom-com heroine.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
I wish I had a picture of her, but I do not. But let's cast her in our mind. Who do you think could play this person?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
So once Lulu hits marrying age, inquiring minds would want to know who's it going to be. Who's she going to pick? Much like Lori Harvey. At this time, she could have ended up with a young WB Du Bois. They're in the same class. Or maybe his mortal enemy, Booker T. Washington. Let's say you're Lulu. What would your ideal husband at this time be?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
And for context, let me just tell you that her sister married a man with a good government job working at the pension office. So that means they're economically secure, socially elite.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Her brother goes to Howard University and then the University of Michigan where he graduates magna cum laude and then he comes home to D.C., marries an elite Black woman at the 15th Street Presbyterian Church, becomes a doctor. All right, so you're Lulu.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy
Okay, so Lulu starts dating one of her dad Richard's employees. Oh. He's an aspiring young barber named John F. Cragwell. Can I have you read how the papers described Mr. Cragwell at that time? It's on page one.