This Week In Southern History - Teddy Roosevelt Shuts Down A Mississippi Post Office or (America's First Black Postmaster Deals With Racism)

This week in southern history, we go all the way back to 1903, and here’s what the world looked like then!

The Ford Motor Company was founded when Henry Ford received $28,000 from 12 investors. That's $884,380.00 today, in case you were wondering

The first Tour De France was held and won by Italian cyclist Maurice-François Garin. Garin would go on to win the next year as well, only to have his title stripped from him when he was caught cheating. A tradition that lives on today in the Tour De France!

Also, in 1903, the first box of Crayola Crayons was released and sold for 5 cents. A buck 58 in today’s money, in case you were wondering. Still a bargain if you ask me.

Down in Mississippi, they were also dealing with color, but not in a good way. It was This Week In Southern History, on January 2, 1903, that Teddy Roosevelt had to shut down the Indianola, Mississippi post office. His reason? For the cities threats against their Postmaster Minnie M. Cox: Possibly the first African American woman to hold such a position.

Born Minnie M. Geddings in 1869 to a family of restauranteurs down in Lexington, Ky, Minnie went on to Fisk University where she graduated with a degree in teaching, then married a teacher, and presumably started doing some teaching! Hooray teachers!

Not long after that, her husband Wellington Cox got a job at The United Railway Postal Service where he was able to start saving money to buy up some land… a venture he would continue with great success throughout his life, affording them the luxury of living in the white part of town, which is a sentence I will never not feel icky writing.

Forgive me for pulling a Seinfeld here and “yada yada-ing” some of the events in their life, like Mr. Cox serving as a chairman for the Republican Executive Committee of Sunflower County for five years. It’s just that I barely know what that means, and I’m not sure I know how to make it fit my narrative, and by god, that's all a writer is good for!

Anyways, Yada Yada Yada in 1891, under President Benjamin Harrison (whom I could not find one thing funny about) she was appointed Postmaster of Indianola, Mississippi, because no white republican was qualified. There it is. There is the funny thing. A white republican not qualifying for a job? What was it, cultural sensitivity trainer at a lesbian magazine? Let me try another one: What was it, HR at a women’s prison? Ok, maybe that wasn’t good…. Oh, I got it. A white republican not qualifying for a job? What was it, clitoris finder? Ok, that was mean, Corey… don’t act like that's not a bipartisan issue!

In 1897 under President William McKinley, she was reappointed and continued as postmaster under President Theodore Roosevelt. Minnie was known for being generous with her $1,100 a year salary and would often take care of rent on P.O. Boxes when someone couldn’t cover it. She got there early, stayed there late, paid out of her pocket to install a telephone at the post office. This way, people could call and see if they had any mail instead of having to walk down to the post office, which, in 1903, could’ve been used as the cause of death on an autopsy. Seriously, back then, people used to either just fall smooth out or get eaten by a wolf or some such. The past was a nightmare. That's almost a theme in this series. That salary, by the way, is about $34,743.50 in today’s money, in case you were wondering.

Regardless of being a model citizen, employee, and human being, the townspeople of Indianola called for Minnie’s termination from the position due to the Reconstruction policy of making African Americans political appointees no longer being in favor with the sitting President’s politics. Gee, I wonder why policies like that are kind of necessary sometimes.

The white people of the town, being both simultaneously from Mississippi and the past, were acting like the gaggle of slack-jawed racist dipshits that they most likely were. Minnie and her husband began receiving death threats, as James K. Vardaman, a literal white supremacist, tried ousting her from the position to take over for himself. I know some of you are saying right now, “Hey dude, just because a white man is trying to take a black woman’s job, that doesn't necessarily make him a white supremacist!” And I could not agree more. What does make him a white supremacist, though, is the one time he was quoted as saying, "If it is necessary, every Negro in the state will be lynched; it will be done to maintain white supremacy.” He said this after becoming the Governor of the state, earning him the nickname “The Great White Chief.” That is the part that makes him a white supremacist and what makes this entire thing about race; case closed, thank you very much, no further questions, your honor.

Minnie Cox resigned from her position. As was often the case for non-white males, which unfortunately remains the case in some situations today, Minnie had to give up something she loved in exchange for a bit of safety. She had to choose between her job and her life.

Fortunately, though, in Minnie’s case, she had some support from people in power. “As a bonafide federal officer, Mrs. Cox should be protected, by federal troops if necessary, in the discharge of her duties.” Postal Inspector Charles Fitzgerald would go on to say. This would get the attention of our 26th president. An American politician, conservationist, naturalist, statesman, writer, historian, and the one they called “The Bullmoose,” Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt.

Among the many differences Teddy Roosevelt and toilets have, the main one is that Teddy Roosevelt don't take no shit. Not only did he make sure everyone knew that sending in federal troops would not be necessary, but he also flat out told Minnie that he did not accept her resignation.

What he did do was inform the citizens of Indianola, Mississippi, that if they ever wanted to see their old-timey telegrams sent via horseback again, they were going to have to stop being such hateful bags of horse excrement and cease threatening the life of a public servant who had only ever done good things for them—not quite asking them to storm the beaches at Normandy or anything.

So this worked, and everything went back to normal end of story. Good night. No…that’s not how the past worked. Minnie had to leave Indianola for her safety on January 5th. The post office remained closed for a year. Still, eventually, Teddy Roosevelt had to re-open it without Minnie Cox, who was hiding out in Alabama. Do you know how dangerous a place must be for a black woman if she felt safer in Alabama in 1903? I don’t have a good analogy… that's insane.

Minnie eventually returned to Mississippi and ran a few successful businesses during the Jim Crow era, which provided needed services to the black communities of Mississippi, but she would never be postmaster again. That’s because real life for Black folk doesn’t always come together at the end of the story with a pretty bow on top of it. And reading about America in the not-so-distant past doesn’t always leave you feeling good. This story won't either. At least Teddy tried, I guess.

Thanks for listening

‘Corey