Colfax, Iowa has played a surprisingly large part in the history of Grinnell College. A small town whose population in 1910 was about 2500 (but which attracted thousands every year to the town's mineral springs) sent several talented young men to the college. Most famous among the Colfax natives who attended Grinnell was James Norman Hall (1887-1951), who had an adventurous life and left behind a substantial literary legacy. Less well-known is Leo Welker (1880-1937), an African American who was also a champion bicyclist and went on to a career in medicine and higher education. Given how few African Americans enrolled in Grinnell in those years, the arrival of James Owen Redmon in 1909 was notable, especially since he, too, found Grinnell from the "Spring City" thirty miles west of Grinnell. Redmon, who, like Welker, was not born in Colfax, wrote no literary masterpieces nor did he win any bicycle races. But soon after his arrival at Grinnell he proved himself a distinguished orator, a skill that he put to good use often in his career. Like Hall and Welker, Redmon took part in World War I, commanding a mortar platoon in France. But his greatest contributions came later when, like some of Grinnell's later Rosenwald Scholars, he worked within the "separate but equal" world of racial difference in twentieth-century America. Today's post examines the life of J. O. Redmon.
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| Photograph of Lt. J. O. Redmon (ca. 1918) (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/105382637/j-owen-redmon) |
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James Owens (later records abandon the final "s" in his middle name) Redmon (1889-1978) was the third child born to Samuel and Elizabeth Adams Redmon (1861-1912) in Boonville, a town in central Missouri. Built on the shores of the Missouri River and a way-station on the Santa Fe Trail, late nineteenth-century Boonville was home to some 4000 persons, including the Redmon household. Samuel Redmon died in 1898, leaving "Lizzie" to provide and care for her four children, the youngest of whom, Oscar, was only seven. The 1900 US Census reports that widowed Lizzie, still in Boonville, worked as a cook, but her wages were evidently slim, so James quit school after the fifth grade in order to contribute to the household income. taking work as a child minder, driving a horse-and-buggy for a judge, and delivering meat for a butcher (Quincy Herald-Whig, 9/1/1968). His elder siblings, Sam and Susie, evidently did the same, as the 1900 census does not report the teenagers in school. Lizzie was also not well, increasing the importance of her children's wages and perhaps helping explain her move to Des Moines where in early 1910 she remarried, taking Hamilton (elsewhere Hampton) Chessner as her husband. She did not live long to enjoy this pairing, however: she was only 52 years old when she died in March 1912.
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| Gravestone for Lizzie (Adams) Redmon Chessner (1860?-1912) (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/64204488/lizzie-chessner) |
No doubt his mother's death was a blow to young James (or Owen, as he was now often called), but by the time of his mother's death Owen had already left Lizzie's household. According to the obituary of his uncle, Samuel Dean (1873-1941), as early as 1903 the Deans had taken Owen into their own Colfax home, although I could not find Owen's name with the Deans in either the 1905 Iowa census or the 1910 US Census (Colfax Tribune 10/23/1941). Attending Colfax High School, Owen quickly showed his skill as an orator. The program for the 1906 school declamatory contest, for example, had Owen—only a tenth-grader and probably the lone African American—giving a speech on "The Unknown Speaker" (Colfax Clipper 12/8/1906). Owen was part of the next year's competition, too, this time speaking on "Affairs in Cuba," referencing US intervention on the island (ibid., 12/12/1907). A few months later Owen recited several "Sketches from Longfellow's Poems" for the annual Longfellow Program (ibid., 12/12/1908). As a high school senior Redmon again joined the declamatory competition, an event so interesting to townsfolk that entrance cost each person twenty-five cents (ibid., 11/26/1908). So far as I could learn, Redmon won none of these competitions, but he was certainly operating at a disadvantage, originally because of his youth and inexperience but also, perhaps, because of his Missouri origins and race.
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| 1917 Photograph of Colfax High School (https://digital.grinnell.edu/islandora/object/grinnell:14566) |
Before leaving Colfax High, Redmon took part in the local observance of the 1909 Centenary of Abraham Lincoln (Redmon's association with Lincoln would follow him into his career when he taught and administered schools named for the great emancipator). At a program convened in Colfax on Lincoln's birthday, young Owen Redmon read Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech, the memorable lines doubtless making the reading the highlight of the occasion (ibid., 2/11/1909).
One week later Redmon was again the center of attention, this time impersonating "cupid with white wings" at a high school valentine's social. Amid the red and white decorations, the costumed Cupid pronounced a poetic greeting to each guest he introduced, "an effusion from the muse that solicited many compliments," the newspaper enthused (ibid., 2/18/1909). Ten days later the Douglass-Washington birthday was the center of celebration at Mrs. Battles's home, "prettily decorated with the national colors, pink and white carnations, and the cherry tree with the historical hatchet." This time Owen Redmon kicked off the program by singing "America" and a song called "Revolutionary" (ibid., 2/ 25/1909). Coming of age in Colfax, whose 1909 graduating class numbered only ten, Redmon grew accustomed to being in the spotlight, giving him an advantage over some less-experienced persons.
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| Methodist Episcopal Church, Colfax (https://digital.grinnell.edu/islandora/object/grinnell%3A13461) |
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| Photograph (ca. 1914) of Dr. Edward A. Steiner (Edward A. Steiner, From Alien to Citizen: The Story of My Life in America [New York, NY: Fleming H. Revell, 1914]) |
For Owen Redmon, however, the 1909 graduation ceremony was more than splendid; it directly affected his fate. According to recollections published much later, at the 1909 Colfax commencement Steiner had
complimented young Redmon who was the only colored boy in the graduating class. Redmon was so touched that he went to the railroad station to thank Dr. Steiner before he left for Grinnell. Dr. Steiner asked him if he intended to go to college. The boy said he'd like to if he could find work. Dr. Steiner promised to see what he could do for him (Quincy Herald-Whig, 9/1/1968).
A week later Redmon received a letter from Grinnell College president, John H. T. Main (1859-1931), who awarded the young man a scholarship "on character and ambition." In this way circumstance helped fulfill a prayer that young Owen had often sent heavenward:
I prayed to God daily asking that somehow I might be given a chance to get a college education. I promised that, should I receive it, I would use it for the benefit of my people and the advancement of His kingdom ("J. Owen Redmon, Grinnell '13: Past and Present Activities," Grinnell College Alumni Award files).
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| Grinnell College Bulletin 14(1916):46 |
Enrolled at Grinnell College in the fall 1909, Redmon immediately continued his participation in public speaking, competing as a first-year in the annual Spaulding Prize competition. The Marshalltown Times-Republican reported that Grinnell's "Colonial Theater was packed with eager listeners...for the Spaulding prize for 'most effective public speaking.'" "The emphasis," the newspaper continued, "...is mainly on delivery, the character of the production being ignored and the convincing power of the speaker taken into account" (5/12/1910). The Grinnell Herald reporter thought that Redmon "showed self-possession and grace on the platform and gave a finished declamation" (5/13/1910). Redmon's subject was "Indifference," but, despite the theme of the talk, the freshman "carried his audience very successfully and suited his bodily movements to his message to a remarkable degree." The student reporter admired Redmon's voice, but thought that "faulty enunciation" undermined the final result. Nevertheless, Redmon won third prize—twenty dollars (Scarlet and Black, 5/14/1910).
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| Grinnell's Colonial Theater (ca. 1890s) (https://digital.grinnell.edu/islandora/object/grinnell%3A6172) |
Success at the Spaulding competition helped Redmon make more connections on campus. For example, the Scarlet and Black reported in January 1911 that Redmon was one of a handful of students who had organized a new campus group, the Quill and Gavel Society. The group's published statement expressed the hope that the new organization might "bring the College nearer the ideal of democracy, a democracy which recognizes the importance of each individual...and develops the individual through subordinating all purely personal matters to the common welfare." Roy Clampitt (1888-1973), who graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1911 and later became the father of the American poet, Amy Clampitt, served as the group's first president and Owen Redmon became the group's first secretary (Scarlet and Black, 1/21/1911). The new society gave Redmon frequent occasion to practice his speaking skills. In late March, for instance, Redmon spoke to the society on "Current Events"; two weeks later he offered Quill and Gavel a reading on 'The Government of the Canal Zone" (ibid., 3/30/1911; ibid., 4/14/1911).
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| Photograph from 1913 Cyclone Yearbook (Redmon in front row, 1st from left) |
Somehow Redmon managed to keep up with his course work while preparing and delivering all these talks. More than that, seeking ways to earn money for room and board, the young man determined to open his own shoeshine shop. The first tiny advertisement for Redmon's "Shining Parlor" at 812 Fourth Avenue appeared in the Grinnell Herald on April 11th; the Scarlet and Black edition of April 12, 1911 had the same ad, encouraging readers to "get an up-to-date shine for 5 cents." Friday's Herald printed a two-line, anonymous endorsement: "I just had my shoes shined at Redmon's Palace; 5c" (4/14/1911). Two weeks later the S&B told readers that Redmon's younger brother, Oscar, had come to Grinnell "to assist his brother...in his shining parlors" (4/26/1911). In a recollection published much later in life Owen remembered that, in addition to shining shoes, he had worked in a Grinnell barber shop as well as in a Grinnell restaurant (Quincy Herald-Whig, 9/1/1968).
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| Advertisement for Owen Redmon's Shining Parlor (Scarlet and Black, April 12, 1911) |
Selections for the 1911 Spaulding Prize competition were soon announced, and again Owen Redmon was among the participants. Taking as his subject "The African in America," Redmon bested the other seven contestants, winning the first prize of fifty dollars. As he later recalled, "That $50 was the most money I had ever had at one time in my life" (Quincy Herald-Whig, 9/1/1968). Appraising Redmon's performance in the competition, the college newspaper asserted that "Mr. Redmon surpassed in artistic finish. He demanded attention, and his subject...did much in helping him win the audience. His gestures were graceful and he moved about the stage naturally." As with the S&B article on the previous year's contest, however, the student reporter again found Redmon "troubled a little with enunciation," perhaps a reference to Redmon's Missouri origins or his use of Black English (Scarlet and Black, 5/6/1911; reprinted in Grinnell Herald, 5/11/1911)). The city's other newspaper offered a longer, more appreciative review:
Redmon...took up the always present, the ever perplexing theme of race prejudice, as it applied to his own race. After the first few sentences, he had the entire sympathy of his audience as he told of the wrongs and injustice, the barriers against advancement in all lines, which the Afro-Americans had to face. It was a seething indictment against prevailing ideas in the United States, and, what was worse, it was hard to find a flaw in the propositions which he advanced. His delivery was such a fitting medium for the thoughts which he wished to convey that the majority of those who heard his eloquent plea heartily joined with the judges in giving him the first place (Grinnell Register, 5/8/1911).
Unlike the S&B reporter, no one in Colfax found anything to criticize in Redmon's success. The Marshalltown Evening Times-Republican told readers that after the oratorical victory Owen "received an ovation in his home town of Colfax on Saturday evening" at a banquet organized to celebrate Redmon's prize (5/16/1911; also see Grinnell Register, 5/15/1911). The young man's success soon spread to Des Moines, the city's Young Colored Men's Progressive Association inviting Redmon to deliver his Spaulding oration soon to the group (Scarlet and Black, 5/24/1911; Grinnell Herald, 5/26/1911). As his sophomore year drew to a close, Redmon found himself elected vice president of Quill and Gavel, explainable at least in part by his many oratorical successes (Scarlet and Black, 6/3/1911). That autumn Redmon attended a meeting of the college's Debating Union which had recently made Quill and Gavel a member (ibid., 11/29/1911). In December the collegiate orator addressed the Ladora Congregational Church "on the race question," after which "he received many words of appreciation" (Grinnell Herald, 1/9/1912). In June at the annual Hyde Oratorical competition Redmon gave another oration directed at race in America: "An Appeal for the Afro-Americans." The newspaper complimented the speaker's technique, although "at times it was hard for him to make himself heard by those in the back seats...partly the result of the commotion caused by late arrivals"—or did Redmon's appeal make some of the listeners uncomfortable? (Scarlet and Black, 6/12/1912; Grinnell Herald, 6/11/1912).
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| Grinnell College Bulletin 8(1910):40 |
Next fall Redmon was part of the Merrill Political Debate at which three teams argued the cases for the three candidates for the US Presidency. Although the sides were decided by lot, Redmon spoke in behalf of Theodore Roosevelt, and, despite the debate victory by Taft's partisans, the college newspaper thought Redmon's speech "excellent in technique and powerful in appeal" (Scarlet and Black, 11/2/1912; Grinnell Herald, 11/1/1912). The Grinnell Register noted that, "Judging by the applause the audience seemed to consider Redmon's opening speech the best..." (11/4/1912). For whom Redmon actually voted I do not know, but the campus newspaper announced a few days later that Redmon was among the twenty or so men who went home to vote, Redmon being the only African American among them (Scarlet and Black, 11/6/1912). Perhaps Owen favored Wilson, since after the election he spoke before Quill and Gavel about "The Coming Administration" (ibid., 11/16/1912), although what he said the record does not preserve. Several times during the spring Redmon again made the newspaper because of his work at Quill and Gavel (ibid., 2/22/1913; ibid., 4/12/1913).
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| Photograph of J. Owen Redmon in 1913 Cyclone Yearbook |
As graduation approached, Redmon cast his eye on the future which, unfortunately, remained out of focus. He told the S&B that he intended to teach, "probably at St. Louis" (ibid., 5/24/1913), although this prospect did not materialize. In fact, despite being a college graduate and an experienced orator, Owen Redmon found it very difficult to secure a teaching position. As he himself later reported:
Following my graduation from Grinnell [majoring in English and History] in June 1913 I tried unsuccessfully to secure a position somewhere in the country where Negro teachers were employed. I sent out letters to various schools and colleges...Most of the replies...stated that first consideration was given to graduates of their own institutions... (Redmon, "Past and Present").
Redmon met this unwelcome rebuff with admirable determination, and accepted whatever work he could acquire. At various times in the years after leaving Grinnell he worked as a porter in a Newton barber shop, as a night clerk and porter at the Victoria Sanitarium in Colfax, as a "helps hall" supervisor at Hotel Colfax, and as a chauffeur for an Indianola family (ibid.). He even moved to St. Paul, Minnesota where he worked first in a garage and then at the University Club, thanks to the intervention of Stanley Gates, the brother of George Augustus Gates (1851-1912), former president of Grinnell College (ibid.).
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| Postcard Photograph of Colfax's Victoria Sanitorium (postmarked 1913) (https://digital.grinnell.edu/islandora/object/grinnell%3A13612) |
In between these employments Redmon continued to mount the rostrum to deliver talks. For instance, at the Colfax 1913 Thanksgiving celebration, "Mr. J. O. Redmon, late graduate of Grinnell College, made a short and interesting talk on the race being thankful. He said many good things in his remarks, which gave rise to the thoughts of his hearers along the lines of racial progress and thankfulness for the many blessings received in the past fifty years." The Bystander's report expressed regret that Redmon "was compelled to close his remarks and hurry to the train which conveyed him to Grinnell College where he had been invited to deliver an address that evening" (12/5/1913). In 1915 Redmon was again back in Grinnell, taking part in a supper meeting of the campus YMCA (Scarlet and Black, 6/9/1915). Later that summer he went to Chicago to attend the Negro National Educational Congress, thanks to his appointment by Iowa's Republican Governor, George Washington Clarke (1852-1936) (Marshalltown Times-Republican, 8/16/1915; Grinnell Herald, 8/13/1915). In 1916 Redmon joined the Des Moines branch of the NAACP to celebrate the births of Lincoln and Douglass. Before a "good-sized crowd," Redmon, "the young Negro orator of Colfax," delivered a much-admired talk on Frederick Douglass (Bystander, 2/18/1916).
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| Owen Redmon (back row, 2nd from right) at Fort Des Moines (John L. Thompson, History and Views of Colored Officers Training Camp for 1917 at Fort Des Moines, Iowa [Des Moines: The Bystander, 1917], p. 107) |
War brought an end to public speaking engagements and to efforts to find a teaching position. In June 1917 Redmon returned to Colfax, registered for the draft and applied for admission to the Fort Des Moines Provisional Officers Training Camp, opened to African American men with college degrees. By mid-June Redmon had arrived at Fort Des Moines and was formally inducted as a 2nd Lieutenant, assigned to Headquarters, 366th Infantry Regiment, 92nd Division. Special training took him to Camp Dodge and then to Fort Sill, Oklahoma. In between assignments Redmon sometimes visited his Uncle Sam Dean in Colfax (Colfax Clipper, 2/14/1918). When he returned to Fort Dodge in May he found his regiment preparing to go overseas. After a brief stay at Camp Upton in New York, Redmon embarked on the USS Covington, headed to France. The Americans arrived at Brest on June 15, after which Redmon received more training at the American Expeditionary Forces School for Sapping and Bombing near Bourbonne-les-Baines. Within a month he and his men were at the front, which is where the November 11th Armistice found them. Two of his men had died, several were wounded, but Redmon seems to have escaped injury. Not until February 22, 1919 did Redmon board the RMS Aquitania for the trip home, arriving in New York February 28. Back in Iowa a couple of months later, Redmon was discharged from the US Army on April 4, 1919 (Redmon, "Past and Present").
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| 1914 Photograph of the RMS Aquitania, Requisitioned as a Troop Ship in WWI (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Aquitania) |
Home again, with many new experiences but still without the teaching job he coveted, Redmon resumed the job search. Through the offices of a former Grinnell College friend, in June 1919 Redmon accepted the offer to cook for the Des Moines YMCA Boys Camp at Boone, Iowa, spending the whole summer working the stove. Redmon's summertime cooking at Boone clearly pleased him and became something of a habit; according to a 1969 celebration of the Camp, Redmon cooked eleven successive summers at Boone (Quincy Herald-Whig, 3/1/1969), a welcome addition to his regular work earnings as well as an important contribution to the African American youth of greater Des Moines.
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| 1969 Photograph of "Chef" J. O. Redmon at Des Moines YMCA Celebration (Quincy Herald-Whig, March 1, 1969) |
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| 1947 Photograph of Lincoln High School, Princeton, IN (https://indianamemory.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/ppl/id/1921/rec/2) |
Princeton, Indiana in 1920 had a population of about 7500, 5% of whom were African American. In Princeton, as in so many other places in America, African Americans studied in schools that were all-Black. Lincoln High School was one of those schools (Caron's Princeton Directory for 1927, p. 141), described as serving "colored" students, of whom there were only 38 in 1929. At Lincoln Redmon taught Latin as well as History and English. It proved to be a challenging assignment, as he later observed: "I discovered that some high school pupils were more difficult to handle than the horses" he had used to deliver rural mail in Iowa (Preston, "Past and Present"). But Redmon must have done well, because after five years he was promoted to teaching principal at Lincoln (Indiana School Directory for 1929, p. 82). In 1927-28 Redmon took some education classes at the Indiana University Extension in Princeton and in summer 1928 he studied at Drake University, embellishing his resume (Data card at Grinnell College Alumni Office). All the same, life had not been easy for the single man who in his early forties owned no home and boarded with the Lorenzo Woods family at 603 East Chestnut (1930 US Census, Ward 1, Princeton City).
Even though he now worked a long distance from Colfax and his uncle Sam and aunt Maggie Dean, Redmon regularly visited his Colfax relatives. Most of his journeys there were unremarkable, but once, after having spent the Christmas holidays with the Deans, he had a difficult automobile trip back to Princeton that consumed several days. A blizzard and deep snow caught him on the road, obliging him to detour around various snow-related obstacles. As all Blacks in 1920s America knew, traveling through white America was not easy; many hotels, restaurants, and garages refused to serve Blacks, giving rise to publication of the Negro Motorist Green Book, a guide for Black travelers, the first edition of which appeared only in 1936. When Redmon and his African American passenger made their 1928 trip without the help of the Green Book, finding housing and food demanded negotiating rigid racial barriers, like those he encountered around LaSalle, Illinois:
We were informed that the road was blocked with snow and that 32 cars were snowed in on one road, and one farm house had as many as forty people in it. They do not like colored people in LaSalle and there are none in the town. We appealed to the Police. Two policemen visited most of the hotels with me but all claimed to be filled. So we returned to the Police Station and sat up in chairs all night....
Summarizing his journey later, Redmon called it "a terrible experience which I never want to go through again. I am sore and weak from it now...Winter is no time for automobiles and I intend to use the train on all other winter trips" (Colfax Tribune, 1/26/1928).
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| Undated Photograph of Lincoln Elementary, Quincy, Illinois (https://www.hsqac.org/a-look-at-lincoln-school-1872-1957) |
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| Headline from Quincy Herald-Whig, July 12, 1933 |
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| 1933 Marriage Certificate for James O. Redmon and Bertha Gaines (Ancestry.com: Iowa, U.S., Marriage Records, 1880-1945) |
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| Undated Photograph of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Quincy, IL (image taken from 2018 Google Street view) |
Redmon had declined the offer to become a fully-licensed minister because he wanted to focus upon his work with African American youth. And in Quincy the school principal often found himself supporting local kids, in and out of school. In October 1934, for instance, the newspaper reported on the arrest of two thirteen-year-old "Negro boys" for theft of a bicycle. But when Redmon appeared at court, the judge allowed the boys to go, entrusting them to Redmon and a man from the school's men's club (ibid., 10/9/1934). When the "Negro boy scout" troop was reorganized in Quincy in 1936, Redmon was one of three men serving as troop committeeman and later served as chaplain and committee chairman (ibid., 1/11/1936; ibid., 1/14/1936; ibid., 2/17/1940)). Redmon also seems to have founded a quartet from children who had attended Lincoln, and he often took the "Musical Ambassadors" to meetings of the school's PTA and other groups (Quincy Herald-Whig, 3/22/1935; ibid., 12/15/1935; ibid., 9/27/1936).
Redmon had not forgotten, however, that race, a subject he had addressed in several of his college speeches, remained a vital issue in America. When a local church embarked upon a series of six meetings devoted to the "Kingdom of God on Earth," James O. Redmon delivered one of the talks, taking as his subject "The Kingdom and Race" (ibid., 1/16/1938). At a meeting of the Lincoln school PTA a few weeks later, Redmon talked about "The Negro in Our History," his contribution to observance of Negro History week (ibid., 2/2/1938). At another Lincoln PTA meeting, Redmon spoke on an "Equal Chance." "The Negro asks no special favors," the principal said, "but simply requests [that] he be regarded as an American citizen...If America is to lead in the full vindication of equal opportunity, Christian fraternity and liberty, America must treat 'the oppressed race' decently," Redmon concluded (ibid., 4/28/40). Redmon's reputation as a speaker and his views on race brought him the role of keynote speaker for a "Race Relations Day" at Union Methodist Church. With representatives from China, Palestine, Greece, Austria, Germany, and Japan on the platform, Redmon, "representing the Negro race," delivered a talk on "America's Choice." With World War II raging around the globe, Redmon emphasized how, "For the second time in a generation, the honor of our country has been pledged to the noblest of causes. Our civilization preaches equality in God. Therefore, we must leave other people to live on equal terms of liberty." The newspaper does not say whether Redmon directed any of his remarks to the absence of equality within America, but African Americans in the audience will surely have noticed the parallels (ibid., 2/14/44).
The 1940s brought several challenges to the Redmon family. In early 1940 a fire did serious damage to the family home, firemen chopping holes in the roof to access the fire (ibid., 2/2/1940). Even more disturbing was the October 1941 death of Samuel Dean, Redmon's Uncle Sam. Dean had lived alone in Colfax after his wife's 1932 death. But in early 1941 his health rapidly deteriorated until finally, in early September, he moved to Quincy to live with the Redmons. Within six weeks the 68-year-old was dead (Colfax Tribune, 10/23/1941). A decade later the Redmons endured a similar trial when Bertha's father, L. W. Strothers, fell into poor health. Autumn 1950 he moved to Quincy to live with his daughter and son-in-law who served and comforted him until his May 30, 1951 death (ibid., 6/7/1951).
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The 1909 Colfax High School graduating class had announced as its motto "Labor Conquers All," a slogan that could be applied very well to Redmon himself (Colfax Clipper, 5/13/1909). Although Redmon resigned from his duties at Lincoln school in 1955, throughout his last years the Colfax native maintained a furious pace of community activism. He helped found a Citizens' Good Government League in 1951 and that same year joined the Quincy Interracial Council's scholarship committee. Later he spoke on "Human Rights" before a Baha'i study group in Quincy. The same year that he resigned he joined a citizen group formed to attract to Quincy "outstanding speakers on topics of public interest." Three years later his alma mater brought him back to Grinnell to bestow on him an Alumni Award. After retirement he served many years on the city's Council on Human Relations from whom in 1965 he received a plaque for twenty years' service. In 1971 Quincy's Senior Citizen Council named Redmon "Senior Citizen of the Year" (ibid., 7/20/1971). For twenty years he was president of the Negro Advancement Association of Quincy; he was also a long-time member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and he was a director and occasional speaker of the Friendly Visiting Service of the United Fund and Welfare Council of Quincy. Because he had helped secure funding for the Frederick Ball Community building at 815 Elm, in 2006 the center was renamed as the Redmon and Lee Youth and Adult Community Association, partly in Redmon's honor (ibid., 11/26/2006). And this is only an incomplete list of his community contributions. James Owen Redmon had certainly labored long and hard, even if his efforts had not conquered all the injustice and discrimination that African Americans encountered.
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| Redmon and Lee Community Association, 815 Elm St., Quincy, IL (2012 Photograph from Google maps) |
February 10, 1978 James Owen Redmon died in Quincy's Blessing Hospital. Labor may not, in fact, conquer all, as the 1909 Colfax High School graduates had hoped, but James Owen Redmon, the Colfax orator and 1909 Colfax High School graduate, had labored long and honorably within the Black communities of a racially divided country. He had spoken often, with great skill and passion, to white audiences about racial injustice in America, but he had also worked decades within "Negro schools" to aid generations of Black men and women to succeed. As the 1958 Grinnell College Alumni Award remarked, Colfax's orator was a "loved and respected leader of his race."
