"Negro Day" was an afterthought, an effort on the part of fair organizers to appease black community leaders --- including orator, author and statesman Frederick Douglass and crusading journalist Ida B. Wells --- who charged quite rightly that African Americans had been excluded at all levels of planning for the fair and were portrayed negatively in many of its exhibits.
Negro Day was not especially successful. It was last-minute and indifferently publicized for one thing. Although Douglass delivered a major address, other black leaders organized a boycott. And in an astonishing display of tone-deafness, white organizers ordered up free watermelon to serve black guests.
But over at the Iowa Building (above), a good-faith effort was made to present a solid program and to welcome any black visitors who might arrive.
Lucas County had a part in this, thanks to Smith H. Mallory and the Rev. Preston S. "Press" Erwin.
Mallory, one of Iowa's leading entrepreneurs at the time, had served on Iowa's exposition planning committee and had moved from Chariton to Chicago for the duration of the fair to superintendent construction and operations of the Iowa Building.
Erwin, who had arrived in Lucas County with his family from Virginia during the early 1880s to work in the White Breast coal mines, was a preacher, too, and had been instrumental in organizing and furthering the work of African Methodist Episcopal congregations in Chariton and the mining camp of East Cleveland.
He also was a skilled cook and caterer, perhaps the reason why Mallory had invited him to join the Iowa Building's hospitality staff.
I don't know exactly what his role was, but The Chariton Herald of Aug. 10, 1898, reported that "Our old colored friend and former townsman, Press Erwin, who renders invaluable services in the Iowa building at the world's fair, is being showered with praises and compliments for his gentlemanly and courteous treatment of the Iowa people who continually throng the building. Press delights in making people comfortable, and those who go from here should certainly hunt him up. Mrs. John A. Holmes, of Lincoln township, and many others testify to his cordial greetings and painstaking courtesy."
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The Rev. Mr. Erwin also was selected to lead organization of the Negro Day program at the Iowa Building, an event publicized as follows in The Herald of Aug. 23 under the headline, "To Iowa Colored Men."
The 25 day of August, 1893, having been set apart by the world's fair joint committee on ceremonies as a special day for the colored people of the nation, and it is hoped an expected that there will be a large attendance of the colored people from Iowa on that day. The Iowa Columbian commission tenders to them on that day the hospitality of her state building at the exposition and the use of the assembly hall therein, which is well adapted for a large meeting, and the undersigned have been appointed a committee on arrangements, with the following program to be given at 2 o'clock p.m.
Music by the Iowa State band
Invocation by Rev. G. W. Wade, of Muchakinock, Iowa
Music by the Iowa State band
Address of welcome by President James O. Crosby
Response by Rev. T. L. Smith of Keokuk
Song and accompaniment by (blind) Professor J. B. Chapman of Muchakinock
Oration by Rev. Dr. Laws of Des Moines
Closing addresses by Hon. G. W. Taylor of Oskaloosa and Hon. S. S. Barnett of Des Moines.
Selection by the Iowa State band.
(Signed) P.S. Erwin, W. D. Crawford and W. J. Barnett, Committee of Arrangements
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Muchakinock was the Mahaska County mining town that preceded the larger and far more widely known Buxton, some distance to the southwest in Monroe County.
And I've not found anything to indicate how the Iowa Building program was received.
After the fair, the Rev. Mr. Erwin returned to Iowa, dividing his time between Chariton, where his family lived, and Des Moines, where he often worked. He died at the home of a daughter in Des Moines during 1917 and was buried near his wife, Agnes, in an unmarked grave in the Chariton Cemetery.
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