Love Beyond Bondage: An Enslaved Love Story
A Forbidden Romance
I’m blessed to be Black, I tweeted yesterday. I am a living testament of a love that was meant to be broken, but yet refused. Here is the story of a love beyond bondage.
My 3x great-grandparents, Martin and Fanny (Bridgewater) Young were enslaved in or near Sumner and Smith Counties, Tennessee. I believe both were in Sumner County, but she later was forced to Smith County. Fanny’s obituary (below) in The Kingfisher Times from 1935, stated “She was separated from [her husband] by being sold to a different slave owner. After freedom, they succeeded in finding each other and were re-married as citizens.”
When I discovered this obituary, I teared up. In a strange parallel, their story reminded me of Django Unchained. A love story of two enslaved people seeking each other to unite in love after forced separation through being sold. All I could imagine was Martin as Jamie Foxx (Django) and Fanny as Kerry Washington (Broomhilda). Their story made me even connect to Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” As the song goes, “Ain’t no mountain high enough, Ain’t no valley low enough, Ain’t no river wide enough to keep me from getting to you, babe.” Martin and Fanny shared a determined love.
As the obituary said, they were married while enslaved but later they married April 5, 1866 according to the marriage record (below) from Smith County, Tennessee after enslavement. The obituary makes a key distinction. It says they “were re-married as citizens.” When they initially married, they married as property, still viewed by their “owners” and the government as subhuman. Not only being later married as freedmen was significant, but they married with the full rights of citizens of the United States. Days after they married, the 1866 Civil Rights Act was enacted through the first veto override in United States history on April 9, 1866. This legislation laid the groundwork for the Fourteenth Amendment.
According to various records, Martin and Fanny were both born approximately around 1837 and 1840, respectively. Opportunity to leave Tennessee became available with the Land Run of 1889 in the Unassigned Lands of the Indian Territory, now known as Oklahoma. When they came to Oklahoma in 1889, they became homesteaders near Choctaw/Spencer area. They brought their daughters Emma, Mary and Martha, as well as Fanny’s mother, Matilda Bridgewater (Their son James stayed in Gallatin, TN). Despite being unable to read and write, according to the Territorial Census of 1890, Martin, Fanny, and Matilda took the trek with other Black families from Sumner County. Their migration was a part of a larger movement to turn Oklahoma into an All-Black state.
Martin and Fanny settled on their farm. They helped establish one of the first churches in Oklahoma City, namely Second Street Baptist Church, which later became Calvary Baptist Church, the epicenter of the Civil Rights Movement in the city. Martin was the treasurer of the deacon board and the church, along with his future son-in-law through Mary, William Sulcer, who was the church clerk. The church was originally on the southwest corner of Second and Hudson Streets and later on the northside of Second Street between Hudson and Walker Avenues (below). Eventually, they moved to Second and Walnut Ave. in 1923, where the church building currently stands. The church was a key meeting place for Clara Luper and her students in the 1958–1964 sit-in movement. Notably, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke at the church in 1960 for a Freedom Rally.
Today, I’m unsure of where Martin Young was laid to rest, but he died approximately in 1915, potentially on the land they owned. Fanny moved in with her granddaughter Frances Curtis in Kingfisher, where she later died (headstone below). One of the children in the home was my great-uncle who was orphaned and taken in by his aunt. Now living at 94 years old, he recently shared with me his few memories of her during his childhood. This moment made me realize I’m only one person removed from an enslaved ancestor. As Maya Angelou said, “I am the dream and the hope of the slave.”
Martin and Fanny refused to allow their separation break the bond of their hearts. They brought forth numerous generations to this family through this love including eight generations in Oklahoma today.
So yes, I’m blessed to be Black. Death was an easier option than survival for my ancestors, but through the determination of love, they survived so that I can simply be alive today. Beyond bondage, beyond literacy, beyond Jim Crow, their love persevered.
On this Valentines Day, I honor the love that has brought us this far.
“I don’t want to sound foolish. But, just remember, love brought you here. If you trusted love this far, don’t panic now.” — James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk
Sankofahoma means “To go back and retrieve the forgotten stories of honorable people.” Find other stories from Sankofahoma.
Connect with me via Twitter: @jd__baker.
