Against All Odds

On August 8th, 1871, Sam Johnson would have been heard playing his fiddle where George Clem School is today. A happy spiritual would have flowed from his hands and his handmade violin. He was a master of the strings and quite the vocalist. “Go Down Moses,” perhaps, or maybe “Oh Freedom.” The seventeenth president of the United States was also in attendance at the celebration known as “Emancipation Day” in Tennessee. It wasn’t long before this event that Sam did not enjoy any of the rights promised in the Declaration of Independence or the United States Constitution. But on this day in 1871, he sat next to the former president, along with his friend George Clem, and they broke bread at the festival as equals.

Let’s go back another twenty years or so to 1843. Andrew Johnson was serving as a Tennessee State Senator when he engaged in the evil institution of human trafficking known as slavery by exchanging money for a human being- her name was Dolly, and life would never be the same for the Johnson Family, or Greeneville, again. Dolly had also asked Johnson to buy her half-brother Sam and had hoped to keep them from being separated. As Dolly and Sam lived at the Johnson House on Main Street, Sam managed the day to day affairs of the estate as Andrew was away and slowly but surely used his influence to gain status in the community. He was articulate, intelligent, talented, and few folks viewed him as an enslaved person, but enslaved he remained. He also understood that several others remained enslaved. He decided to use his influence to change this inequity, and he would do so with pinpoint accuracy and the will of God.

Abraham Lincoln was up for re-election in 1864. He needed a way to bring the southern states back and a strategy to keep the Union together. Luckily, for us Greenevillians, He had a cousin that lived in Greeneville that he frequently kept in touch with by the name of Mordecai Lincoln (he is buried in Harmony Graveyard behind Town Hall). Mordecai encouraged his cousin to always keep in mind his dear friend Andrew Johnson, who would be instrumental to Lincoln as the Military Governor of Tennessee during the Civil War. The appeal of a southerner as a running mate would surely lead him to victory and symbolize unification. Also, Lincoln didn’t have much competition in his opponent George McClellan who had suffered huge humiliation during the Civil War. The election of 1864 remains at number 8 in the top ten of lopsided presidential elections and Lincoln won 91% of the votes. This meant that the man that had Dolly and Sam enslaved just became the second most powerful man in the country and Sam would use this to his full advantage!

On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s theatre in Washington DC. Upon the death of Lincoln, Andrew Johnson became president. Now, the man Sam had influence with was the most powerful person in the country. Sam didn’t wait long to go into action and was appointed Commissioner of the Freedmens Bureau. Since the Civil War was over and slavery had been made illegal by the Thirteenth Amendment, Sam and George Clem set about finding ways to help the African American community. They both surveyed a piece of land owned by President Johnson and determined that it would be suitable place to build a school and church. Here are the exact words that Sam wrote to Johnson in a letter dated March 1867:

"I have been appointed one of the Commissioner of the Freedmens Bureau, to raise money with which to purchase a suitable Lot on which to build a School House for the education of the Coloured children of Greeneville - and my object in troubling you upon, the subject is to ascertain if there would be any chance for me to purchase an acre Lot off of one of your Tracts that lies out West of Town close to the Reble Graveyard. If you will let us have the Lot and will send me word as to the price of it I will send you the money, and would like for you to send me a deed to it. I am getting along as well as usual and have not changed any in Politics still being for you as much as ever. I would like to see you all very much."

This is what I love about this story. When Andrew Johnson received Sam’s letter, he had a deed made up immediately to donate the land for free. The “Tracts that lies out West of Town” is currently where George Clem School is located. Sam worked tirelessly to make sure that the children and community had a house of worship and AME (African Methodist Church) was constructed- and still stands! George Clem School started out as Greeneville Academy. It would not be called George Clem School until the nineteen-forties and named for George Clem’s grandson also named George Clem.

Now, can you imagine how George Clem the elder and Sam Johnson felt on August 8th, 1871, at the celebration for Emancipation and the opening of the AME church and school- when only a little over twenty years prior to this event, both men were enslaved? A celebration where they finally had a place in the sun and owned their land. They also understood that a new battle would begin as they entered this new realm of freedom with people that still hated them because of the color of their skin. But for now, during this celebration, these worries were set aside, and on that day, love truly triumphed over hate. Sam Johnson and George Clem risked it all against all odds and now it is up to us to keep their dreams alive.