Black Explorers 1: William Sheppard in the Congo

Podcast: African American Explorers 1

 

Hi and welcome to rememberinghistory.com where we are remembering history and we’re making it. Today we begin our great and groundbreaking podcast series about Black explorers! And we also have a very special guest who will introduce them: Frederick Lofton who is known as the Lawyer Explorer. Frederick has made many incredible explorations and today he is on the Big Island of Hawaii making even more discoveries. We are so lucky that he is taking the time to tell us about explorations made by other African Americans. You might not have heard of these great people—which is very sad—but hopefully they will one day become household names because there is so much that we can learn from them and their stories are so inspirational. Let’s do a bit of housekeeping then let’s hear from Frederick, the Lawyer Explorer.

 

As you may know, October 12, 2015 is Columbus Day in the United States. Columbus is celebrated for his explorations in the 15th century. Although he set out for a short route to India, he landed in present day Bahamas, convinced that it was India. Today, we know that he didn’t actually land in the East Indies but instead landed in the Americas. We don’t want to discuss what he did in the Americas, but there is no denying that Christopher Columbus was an explorer. Of course, there have been (and still are) many people who show the courage to leave their own shores in search of distant lands and adventure. We hear their stories of courage (and sometimes conquest) in history classes and on the Discovery Channel or PBS. But we don’t often learn about African American explorers or women explorers and their burning desire to discover strange new lands and go boldly where no one has gone before.

 

This month’s podcast series will introduce you to more African American explorers and show you that while the world is getting smaller and smaller, the adventures and explorations are getting bigger and bolder. The boundaries are endless. The only limit is your imagination, your courage, and your willingness to test your personal limits.

 

What is your limit? How far are you willing to go for glory?

 

These stories will show that exploration is not about finding gold or conquest (many explorers, including Columbus, forgot that golden rule.) Exploration is a test of your limits and transcending them. And that’s about more than finding new lands…it is about finding yourself. And this applies to any new endeavor like taking a new job or following a new career, getting an education or going back to school, learning a new language or studying a new subject, moving to a new city or country or, like some of our explorers, even searching for new planets!

 

The people in this podcast series on African American explorers challenged themselves in many ways. They went beyond their perceived limits and ultimately expanded their life, their worlds, and themselves. And this continued long after they “returned home” from their journeys.

 

You might remember that last October (2014), we began this podcast series by introducing Matthew Henson who was the first African American to reach the North Pole, some say he was the first person of any race to reach the North Pole. And we mentioned George Gibbs who was the first African American to reach the South Pole. We also discussed the many heroic and distinguished Black astronauts, like Ronald McNair and Mae Jemison. So impressive. And, of course, we can never forget Sophie Danenberg who, in 2004, became the first African American to climb Mount Everest. Her story is incredible and so inspirational. Actually, all of these stories are amazingly inspirational. You can find these podcasts at the rememberinghistory.com website or on Stitcher Radio. You will be impressed and inspired!

 

These history makers faced difficulties, obstacles and hurdles like the North Pole and Mount Everest and they kept going. They kept pushing. They kept digging deeper and aiming higher. And they reached their goals.

 

So, if you’re up to the challenge, let’s begin our next exploration into uncharted territory. Let’s begin our journey with an African American man who endured many obstacles and hardships to explore what used to be called “the dark continent” and, in doing so, save millions of people from modern day slavery!

 

Without further ado, let’s hear from Frederick Lofton, the Lawyer Explorer. Frederick, welcome to the show!

 

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Thanks, Robin, I’m really happy to be here to present a great explorer and a great human rights activist. He is not so well known yet but he deserves a place right at the table with many of the greatest explorers and humanitarians.

 

So, who is this great explorer and activist? I’m glad that you asked. His name is William Henry Sheppard. His story is both inspirational and incredible so sit back and get ready to be impressed!

 

William Sheppard was born in Waynesboro, Virginia on March 6, 1865. Now many listeners might know that Virginia in March of 1865 was still part of the Confederacy. Virginia was still a slave-owning state—but only for a short while longer. On December 31, 1865, slavery was abolished by the 13th Amendment. Now I digressed away from William Sheppard for a moment to discuss this important development. You see, Sheppard was NOT born into slavery. His mother was a free woman of mixed race ancestry and his father was a barber and the sexton at a predominantly white Presbyterian church. Sheppard attended Waynesboro’s “colored” school and learned basic reading and technical skills. At the age of 12, Sheppard left home and worked as a servant for a dentist from the Presbyterian Church and improved his literary skills by reading books that had been discarded by the dentist’s children. At the age of 15, he attended Hampton University and attended classes by Booker T. Washington. After graduating from Hampton, Sheppard took classes at the Tuscaloosa Theological Institute (now called Stillman College) where he was ordained as a Presbyterian minister. Sheppard became pastor of Zion Presbyterian Church in Atlanta but had a burning desire to become a missionary in Africa. He submitted numerous applications but they were all rejected because church leaders were not comfortable with an African American pastor travelling to Africa, especially without the supervision of a white minister. However, Sheppard boarded a train and personally confronted the Church board to demand that a position as a missionary in Africa. In 1890, Sheppard’s application was accepted and he was allowed to travel to Africa under the supervision of a white pastor named Samuel Lapsley. And Sheppard’s real adventures began!

 

The following year, Sheppard and Lapsley arrived at the mouth of the Congo River in what is today called the Democratic Republic of Congo. They established a mission in a village called Luebo. The first Africans to meet Sheppard thought that he was a rubber trader but Sheppard explained that he was there to teach about God. Because of his work and partnership with Lapsley, Sheppard had a dubious position with the local population to whom he was known as a “Black white man.”

 

But William Sheppard was a true explorer. He got to know and learn about the Bakuba people. He studied their crops, textiles and music. He studied the way that the Bakuba people worshipped their ancestors. He learned to hunt and killed snakes and large game to help feed the villagers. He even killed a hippopotamus and learned to dry the meat to trade and share with the villagers.

 

Sheppard learned to speak the Kuba* language, which helped him to discover parts of the Congo region where no American or European had ever gone. Sheppard and his local Bakuba guide would go from village to village buying eggs at different markets. For three months, he would buy and eat eggs and preach the gospel at every village where he stopped. For years, he stayed and studied the culture and, because of his excellent language skills, he was welcomed into the villages by the local leaders.

 

In 1893 (after an extended trip to London where he met with Queen Victoria), Sheppard returned to the Congo where new challenges faced him from Belgium’s King Leopold II who was the Congo’s colonial ruler at the time. The colonial government of the Congo Free State was using Africans as slaves to harvest rubber and build railroads, setting one African group against another in order to find traders with whom they could deal in the traffic of human lives. The Presbyterian Church in the United States opposed these activities and especially the atrocities that were occurring against the local people. The Church aimed to bring international attention to this situation.

 

Sheppard visited villages and people whom he had met years before upon his arrival in the Congo region. He was dismayed to witness the enslavement of the people, destruction of villages and food sources and the torture and killings of African men, women and children by the Belgians and their African allies known as La Force Publique. He was determined to bring international attention to this terrible situation. One of the most common forms of punishment imposed on the Congolese and Belgians was to sever the hands of any person who failed to meet their daily quota of rubber. Sheppard painstakingly made an exact count of severed right hands, noting 81 of them in a report that was later presented to colonial authorities.

 

Sheppard, together with two other missionaries, formed the Congo Reform Association, which was one of the world’s first humanitarian organizations. Through the Congo Reform Association, Sheppard continued to document and report on the atrocities committed in the Congo.

 

Back in the United States once more, Sheppard began to publicize his findings and wrote articles about them for church magazines. His allegations gained international attention and Sheppard quickly became well known around the United States and Europe as a human rights activist. In 1908, Belgium’s state-owned rubber company (the Kasai Rubber Company) sued Sheppard for libel and slander but the suit was later dropped because of Sheppard’s international acclaim as an explorer and humanitarian.

 

In 1910, William Sheppard returned to the United States, to settle with his family in Kentucky. He worked as a writer, speaker and pastor at Grace Presbyterian Church. He brought the courage that he displayed in the Congo to his work in the racially segregated state of Kentucky where, for the next 17 years, he spoke about equality and human rights to audiences throughout the American South.

 

You know, many people refer to William Sheppard as the “Black Livingstone”. But I take exception to that. (Of course, you know that they are referring to the explorer, David Livingstone. Remember, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”) While David Livingstone did make many important explorations and discoveries in Africa, William Sheppard approached Africa and the Africans in a different way. He was a humanitarian, a man of God and an African American man (remember a “black white man”) who opened his mind and heart to learn and observe. He was an explorer in the truest sense of the word.

 

Sheppard’s story is filled with courage and determination. He used his experiences, opportunities and innate curiosity and drive to become one of the earliest Black missionaries in Africa, a respected and multi-lingual explorer, an avid collector of African art and a human rights activist. That’s a lot for anyone to accomplish but particularly an African American man in the American South during the Reconstruction era.

 

But he persisted and demanded. He fought crocodiles. He persisted through 22 bouts of malaria. He researched and wrote about the sufferings of the people. He spoke to kings in their languages. And he followed his dream of going to Africa. As a boy, he often said of Africa, “When I grow up, I shall go there.”

 

That’s exactly what he did. William Henry Sheppard “went there.”

 

Where do you want to go? What will you do to “go

there”?

 

That is what this Black explorers series is all about: having the courage to “go there”.

 

William Sheppard did it. And you can too!

 

So, that’s all for this first show in this great and groundbreaking podcast series. It’s a lot and there is more coming. I hope that you enjoyed this show and brief story of William Sheppard—explorer, humanitarian, activist, and art collector. I hope that you see that he followed his dreams, overcame terrible hardships and improved his life and the lives of many others. His legacy lives on.

 

 

Thanks so much, Frederick for that interesting and enlightening discussion of William Sheppard. There is so much that we can learn from his story and I hope that his story will be told in schools and other learning circles, great and small. He deserves it. And we all benefit from it.

 

In the next podcast, we will focus on Black women explorers who also “said that they “shall go there”. And they did! They had a dream and they followed it. I won’t ruin the surprise but I will just say that these women went in many directions in their explorations. They definitely “went there”. Spoiler alert: one of these women explorers “went there”--to the North Pole, that is--at the age of 75! You won’t want to miss her exciting story—or the other inspirational stories.

 

So, that is all for now. I do want to remind all the listeners that you can get additional information and pictures of the William Sheppard on the Remembering History Podcast Page on Facebook. There is a great community of fun and friendly historians there who love to discuss these great people and their even greater adventures. And I would love to hear your comments and thoughts about today’s podcast or really any history topic that you’re interested in. I really enjoy hearing from you!

 

Oh and I almost forgot to mention that rememberinghistory.com website has a great store where you will find books, DVDs, and lots of other fun and educational products, including two amazing books about William Sheppard.

 

So, thanks for listening to the first part in the great and groundbreaking podcast series on Black Explorers. I hope to “see” you at part II of the series where we will focus on Black women explorers. We are doing fantastic work here and I’m glad that you’ve joined us for this great adventure.

 

Again, a big thanks to Frederick, the Lawyer Explorer whose adventures you can follow at thelawyerexplorer.com. I encourage you to visit his exciting website and follow his great adventures. The lawyer Explorer goes to many uber-interesting places and collects, learns and shares fascinating facts, legends and stories of the people and places in his adventures.

 

See you next time at rememberinghistory.com where we are remembering history and we’re making it.

 

Bye for now.