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Cut out for it: Amsterdam barber has dreamed of owning own shop all his young life
Everett Kendall Flint performed his first haircut when he was in middle school. His older brother Ellis was tired of the…https://dailygazette.com/

...by Andrew Waite

Daily Gazette 

Amsterdam 1886

Amsterdam barber was an African American political leader

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History 

Tomorrow, Monday, February 7, 2022- Story Behind the Story podcast is an audio version of Saturday’s column on an Amsterdam barber who was an African American political leader.

   The African American community of Montgomery County had events including a parade, music and a reading of the emancipation proclamation in August 1884 to celebrate the anniversary of emancipation.

   There was also a rousing political speech by Amsterdam barber Robert Jackson in support of Republican Presidential candidate James Blaine and his running mate John Logan. 

   The Amsterdam Daily Democrat reported Jackson’s speech was enthusiastic and applauded throughout, “Mr. Jackson clearly and forcibly reviewed the history of his people since the war, showing the marked difference between the attitudes of the two great parties toward them.

   “The Republicans, he said, had given them the treatment they deserved and had done all in their power to dignify their condition, whereas the policy of the Democrats toward them has resulted only in their detriment.”

   Presidential candidate Blaine had been elected to the House and Senate from Maine.  He also served as Secretary of State.

   Blaine and Logan narrowly lost the bitter 1884 Presidential election to New York Governor Grover Cleveland and his running mate Thomas Hendricks.

   Cleveland was the first Democrat elected President since 1856, before the Civil War.  He carried his own state, New York, by a margin of just over a thousand votes.

   Jackson, the barber frim Amsterdam, was chosen as a delegate to political Colored Conventions held at Montgomery County and state levels

   According to research compiled by historian Christopher Philippo, Jackson in prior years was named to the committee on principles and rules of the Colored Men’s Montgomery County Convention in Fonda.  He was chosen as an at-large delegate to the group’s state convention.

Debuting on Historians Podcast this Friday, February 11, 2022-Episode 409-James Kirby Martin is executive producer of the documentary Benedict Arnold: Hero Betrayed.  The film is based on Martin’s book Benedict Arnold Revolutionary Hero.  The documentary is streaming on several TV platforms-

   These conventions began before the Civil War and continued after the war with delegates, mostly men, who represented the leaders of African American society.

   Montgomery County historian Kelly Yacobucci Farquhar said, “It is very possible that (Jackson) had Underground Railroad connections (before the Civil War) because he was not too far away from Chandler Bartlett’s shoe store that also reputedly sheltered freedom seekers.  Jackson’s barber shop was in an upper floor over 69 East Main Street which would be approximately where the Riverfront Center now sits.  He lived on Charles Street.”

   African American barbers, many of whom served primarily a white clientele, were known to aid freedom seekers and were important members of the community.   After the war, black barbers continued to be an important link between the races. 

   In October 1884 the Amsterdam Daily Democrat did an interview with Jackson who had returned to his shop from a trip to Philadelphia for the national convention of the Colored Masons.  Jackson was originally from Troy and may have joined the Masons there.

   Jackson said the convention was the largest ever because it celebrated the 100th anniversary of the creation in Boston of the first lodge of black Free Masons in America.

   Jackson said, “(The convention) was marked by a grand parade in which 25 lodges were represented in a membership of 2,000, comprising delegates from Delaware, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Mississippi, Virginia, Kentucky, Massachusetts and Ohio.”

   Farquhar said, “According to my records Jackson was married to Hannah Herod and they had at least five children.  One of their daughters, Agnes, died at the age of seven in 1882 due to meningitis.  Agnes, Hannah and Robert are all buried in Green Hill Cemetery, possibly along with a couple of other daughters.”

   The local paper sometimes gave social news coverage to Jackson.  In 1886 the Amsterdam Daily Democrat reported “tonsorial artist Robert Jackson” was spending Sunday with friends in Minaville

   Jackson died in 1893 according to the Troy Daily Times and was about sixty years old.

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