Sonoma Index-Tribune Editorial: A belated honor for a local pioneer

This editorial is from the Sonoma Index-Tribune:

Questions linger over much of Mary Ellen Pleasant’s life. For despite being the country’s first self-made female millionaire, she was a Black woman born in the 1800s, so her story was not captured for the record, as it likely would have had she been born white.

In 2019, the New York Times recognized the error of its ways and attempted to write a complete obituary detailing Pleasant’s unusual life. It was part of a series that acknowledged that, during long periods of its history, the paper focused almost exclusively on the accomplishments of white men when writing obituaries. They assigned a team of writers and editors to correct this racist and sexist oversight, to protect and preserve these stories for the benefit of the historical record.

Sadly, many of the details of this one-time Glen Ellen resident’s story were already lost to history. Was she born at a plantation in Georgia or in Philadelphia? Was her first husband, who left her a sizable inheritance, a white man, which would have been revolutionary for the time? Did she run boardinghouses or brothels?

Among the many questions to consider, one fact is undeniable: she was fearless. “I would rather be a corpse than a coward,” the Times quoted her as saying. She helped free slaves on the Underground Railroad and fought segregation of San Francisco streetcars all the way to the state Supreme Court (and won). “Pleasant lived her life between the lines of legitimacy and infamy, servitude and self-invention,” the Times wrote.

She knew how to use the world to her benefit. As a child forced into indentured servitude in Nantucket, Massachusetts, she looked at it like a “finishing school,” and was hellbent on soaking up any knowledge she could glean.

“I often wonder what I would have been with an education,” Pleasant said in her autobiography. “I have let books alone and studied men and women a good deal. … I have always noticed that when I have something to say, people listen. They never go to sleep on me.”

She knew how to captivate an audience and how to disappear into the background, choosing to stand out or step back depending on what suited her best in the moment. When she arrived in San Francisco, she worked as a cook and quietly listened to discussions on finance and investments, picking up tips that allowed her to grow her immense fortune. Soon she owned restaurants, laundries and homes all over the city.

When the time came to make a difference, she didn’t hesitate. She funded the slave uprising at Harpers Ferry in Virginia, although no one knew it at the time.

“When the abolitionist John Brown was hanged on Dec. 2, 1859, for murder and treason, a note found in his pocket read, ‘The ax is laid at the foot of the tree. When the first blow is struck, there will be more money to help,’ ” the New York Times obituary reads. “In 1901, an elderly Pleasant dictated her autobiography to the journalist Sam Davis … ‘Before I pass away, I wish to clear the identity of the party who furnished John Brown with most of his money to start the fight at Harpers Ferry and who signed the letter found on him when he was arrested.’ The sum she donated was $30,000 — almost $900,000 in today’s dollars.”

Can someone please make a movie about this woman? It would be Oscar gold. While amusing, the “Drunk History” episode about Pleasant doesn’t do her story justice.

Pleasant deserves to be memorialized, and not just in a New York Times obit. With her connections to Glen Ellen’s Beltane Ranch, which she purchased in 1892, there should be a local monument to this megastar of American history. Kudos to historian Arthur Dawson and his team for securing Beltane’s designation as a Black historical site with the National Park Service. It’s a step in the right direction to honor this extraordinary Sonoma Valley figure.

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