March 27, 2023 Junius George Groves

Mr. & Mrs. Junius George Groves

Junius George Groves, the son of Martin and Mary Anderson Groves, was born in slavery in Green County, Kentucky. After emancipation, he received public schooling three months out of the year but taught himself to read, write, and understand mathematics. As a freedman with just 90 cents to his name, Groves ventured to Edwardsville, Kansas, during the Exodus of 1879, where he married Matilda E. Stewart a year later. The couple had 14 children, 12 of whom survived into adulthood.

After working as a sharecropper, Groves began purchasing farmland in 1884; by 1905, his holdings included about 500 acres. He and Matilda grew the farm and built a 22-room mansion on the property. Groves purchased and shipped produce—‌most famously potatoes—‌throughout North America. His other financial ventures included owning and operating a general goods store in Edwardsville, stock in mines in Indian Territory and New Mexico, and stock in Kansas banks; he also founded or co-founded the Negro Business League, the Pleasant Hill Baptist Church, the Kaw Valley Potato Association, and the Sunflower State Agricultural Association.

By 1902, Groves was considered the "Potato King of the World." His superior methods led to producing 721,500 bushels of the crop in a single year, out-producing anyone else in the world to that point. His worth was estimated at $80,000 in 1904 and $300,000 in 1915; he is considered one of America’s most prosperous Blacks of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. At the height of his success, he had constructed a 22-room mansion equipped with the latest comforts of the era.

Booker T. Washington, who featured Groves in his book The Negro in Business (1907), had high praise for him, describing Groves as "our most successful Negro farmer." Groves utilized his wealth and influence to combat racism. During the growing season, as many as 50 black and white laborers‌worked on his farm. He founded a black community center in Edwardsville and a golf course for black citizens, perhaps the first of its kind in the country. Junius Groves died of a heart attack at age 66 on August 17, 1925. His funeral, one local newspaper reported, was the "largest ever in Edwardsville"; he is thought to be buried in Groves Cemetery, near the community center he founded.


*Info for this post provided by an LA Metro Driver

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

March 28, 2023 Sarah Rector

Image
Sarah Rector Sarah Rector received international attention at the age of eleven when The Kansas City Star in 1913 publicized the headline, “Millions to a Black Girl.” From that moment Rector’s life became a cauldron of misinformation, legal and financial maneuvering, and public speculation. Rector was born to Joseph and Rose Rector on March 3, 1902, in a two-room cabin near Twine, Oklahoma on Muscogee Creek Indian allotment land.  Both Joseph and Rose had enslaved Creek ancestry, and both of their fathers fought with the Union Army during the Civil War. When Oklahoma statehood became imminent in 1907, the Dawes Allotment Act divided Creek lands among the Creeks and their former slaves with a termination date of 1906.  Rector’s parents, Sarah Rector herself, her brother, Joe, Jr., and sister Rebecca all received land. Lands granted to former slaves were usually the rocky lands of poorer agricultural quality. Rector’s allotment of 160 acres was valued at $556.50. Primarily to generate en
Read more

Feb. 26 California African American Museum

Image
California African American Museum CAAM) is a museum located in Exposition Park , Los Angeles , California , United States. The museum focuses on enrichment and education on the cultural heritage and history of African Americans with a focus on California and western United States. Admission is free to all visitors. Their mission statement is "to research, collect, preserve, and interpret for public enrichment the history, art and culture of African Americans with an emphasis on California and the western United States." CAAM hosts independent and collaborative educational programs both on and off site of lectures, workshops, innovative programs, and hands-on activities that serve public and private school students, museum patrons and community visitors. History. CAAM was chartered by the State of California in 1977 and first opened in 1981, in temporary quarters at the California Museum of Science and Industry (now the nearby California Science Center ). The museum's fi
Read more

March 20, 2023 Black Cyclists

Image
Marshall "Major" Taylor The Major Taylor Project is named after American cyclist Marshall “Major” Taylor (1878-1932). Marshall “Major” Taylor is a Black athlete and cycling legend who was one of the greatest bicyclists of his era, setting numerous world records and winning a World Championship and multiple national championships--all while battling racism throughout his career from the late 1800s to early 1900s. He was an international superstar whose superhuman exploits were as well-known in his era as LeBron James or Michael Jordan are today.   As the bicycle industry and cycling community turn their attention to the Black Lives Matter movement and the racial injustices Black people continue to face more than 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, the story of Marshall “Major” Taylor, “the fastest man in America,” is more relevant now than ever. Born in 1878, Taylor was a powerful sprinter who established numerous world records in races covering distances from a qua
Read more