A. A. Burleigh, 1848-1939
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| The portrayer, Hasan Davis, holds degrees from Berea College,
where he appeared in several major theatrical productions, and from the
University of Kentucky College of Law. Davis works for the city of Lexington
as coordinator of a youth violence prevention program. In his spare time
he is a professional storyteller, performance artist, and poet.
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This son of an English sea captain grew up as a slave in Virginia and Kentucky. In August 1864, at age sixteen, he ran away from his master in Anderson County and enlisted in the Union Army at a recruiting station in Frankfort. Running away to volunteer was a risky venture for a slave. Burleigh was called a traitor and spat at, others were beaten or even lynched.
For training, Burleigh was sent to Camp Nelson, on the Kentucky River in Jessamine County about twenty miles south of Lexington. The Union Army had begun accepting blacks in Kentucky in March 1864, and Camp Nelson had quickly become the state's most important recruiting station and training camp for black volunteers. Once at Camp Nelson, Burleigh drew inspiration from the company of other black men who were risking everything for a chance to improve their lives. And the camp did offer opportunities for improvement: missionaries established schools and churches for the recruits, there were even glee clubs and a marching band. But there was also, as Burleigh noted with dismay, another side to Camp Nelson.
| Only those who could fire a rifle or take a bullet, said Burleigh, were welcome at Camp Nelson. |
He recalled the shock of walking through the shanty town that had grown up on the approaches leading to the camp. Suffering black people, mostly women and children, huddled in makeshift tents and shacks, begging for food. Hundreds of wives, children, and parents had followed the recruits to Camp Nelson, but since Kentucky was still a slave state, the camp was not a legal refuge for the dependents of black soldiers who had been slaves. The soldiers became free men when they enlisted; their dependents remained slaves. Camp Nelson's authorities sent many refugees back to their owners. Only those who could fire a rifle or take a bullet, said Burleigh, were welcome at Camp Nelson. On a freezing day in November, 1864, soldiers drove 400 women and children from the camp at gunpoint. The order was eventually reversed, but more than 100 of those evicted died. In all, just over 3,000 refugees entered Camp Nelson, and 1,300 of them died.
A. A. Burleigh served as a sergeant in Company G, 12th Regiment, 108th United States Colored Heavy Artillery. As he was being mustered out of the army in 1866, he met a man who changed his life - John G. Fee. Fee, an abolitionist minister, had founded Berea College in 1859 but had not been able to open it before being driven from the state by Madison Countians who feared his radical views. He returned to Kentucky as a missionary at Camp Nelson in 1864, and now planned to finally open his college at Berea. Fee intended to educate blacks and whites together. He invited Burleigh, who had been planning to go to school in Massachusetts, to become part his bold new venture In interracial education.
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To learn more about A. A. Burleigh: Burleigh, A. A., John G. Fee: Founder of Berea College (undated pamphlet in Berea College Archives). Burleigh, A. A., Letters to Berea College (Berea College Archives). Ellis, William, Madison County: 200 Years in Retrospect (1985). Fee, John G., Letters to A. A. Burleigh (Berea College Archives). Lucas, Marion B., and George C. Wright, A History of Blacks in Kentucky (2 volumes, 1992). |
In April 1866, Burleigh enrolled as Berea's first adult black student. The atmosphere at Berea - which at that time offered classes from kindergarten through college-level - was unique. The student body was about half white and half black. Black and white students studied, ate, prayed, and played together as equals. They all worked campus jobs to pay for their educations. But, said Burleigh, Berea was no heaven on earth. At times the racial tension was thick. There were people at the college itself who did not share Fee's vision, and many in the community who opposed the great experiment. One student was beaten to death by the Ku Klux Klan; the college sometimes had to put night pickets around its main buildings.
In 1875, after nine years of work and study, A. A. Burleigh became the first black graduate of Berea College. He immediately headed north to Xenia, Ohio to get married, then spent the rest of his long life teaching and preaching in Indiana, New York, Wisconsin, and Illinois, where he once served as chaplain of the Illinois State Senate.
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