Introducing: Our Ancestors Were Messy

True Story Media. Hello, it's Andrea, and I have a special treat for you today.
The first episode of my absolute favorite new podcast, Our Ancestors Were Messy, from the incredible Nicole Hill, who was also our story editor for season five. This new show covers the gossip, scandals, and pop culture that made headlines in the Black newspapers of segregated communities in pre-civil rights America.
It is a history show, but told as gossip with all of the juiciest bits. Who was beefing? Who was canoodling? Who was posting saucy love letters? It's so fun and fascinating and just makes history come alive.
I'm telling you, I only want history in the form of gossip going forward. Our Ancestors Were Messy was an official selection at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival, and I just really think you will love it.
You can find the show wherever you listen to podcasts, so go check it out and we will include a link in our show notes. Enjoy! Just a quick reminder that my new book, The Mother Next Door, Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy, is on sale right now wherever books are sold.
The book was an Amazon editor's pick for nonfiction, and the Seattle Times called it a riveting deep dive into MVP. And if you are an audiobook lover and you like hearing my voice, which I'm assuming you do since you're listening here, you should know that I narrate the audiobook as well.
If you have already read the book, which I know so many of you have, thank you so much. Please let me know your thoughts and questions at helloandnobodyshouldbelieveme.com and we will bring my co-author, Detective Mike Weber, on for a little book Q&A and post-retirement tell-all special.
Thanks for your support. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.
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Not available in all states or situations. The Secret Adventures of Black People presents Our Ancestors Were Messy.
Cragwell is poor, having only his wages to depend on. Oh my gosh! Today, a forbidden romance threatens the future of one of DC's most elite families.
And Lulu was probably like, I don't care about this side of the track, that side of the track. I'm in love.
And provides fodder for two of DC's busiest gossip columnists. Dear Louise, your letter to the household last week was read with a great deal of interest.
This episode stars. Junkle and Hill, host of the podcast Explain It To Me for Vox.
Black Delilah. And your host, Nicole Hill.
Oh! Dion. I think it's Dion.
This is Our Ancestors Were Messy, a podcast about our ancestors and all their drama. Mm-hmm.
Where did you grow up? So I bounced around Kansas and Missouri for a good chunk of my childhood. But I feel like when people ask where you're from, they're asking, where did you graduate from high school? And the answer to that question is Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Albuquerque, New Mexico, which I mean, I love it there, but wow. Yeah.
Like the number one thing people say is like, oh, they got black people there. And the answer is no.
And that's why I am not there. So where are you now? So I'm in D.C.
now. I moved out here to go to Howard.
Like most Howard grads, that's probably the longest I've gone without saying the. I went to Howard.
And I just stayed ever since.

And what would you say is your relationship to the city?

Oh, my gosh.

I really do feel like it raised me.

I was talking with someone recently, and I asked, how long do you have to live in a place to no longer be considered a transplant?

Because I've lived in D.C. for 15 years now.

And my friend was like, you're good.

Yeah, you're in.

I've been on and off in D.C.

for 20 years.

I'm not there now,

but I'm only ever away

for like a couple years

at a time.

But I count myself

and I keep leaving.

So you're in.

You've been there

the whole time steady?

No.

I essentially bleed mambo sauce now

as far as I'm concerned.

Now, what kind of a black are you?

Ooh, okay.

I've been thinking about this.

And I feel like original recipe, like I am just a regular, a very regular black person,

like not a new black, just old fashioned black lady.

Well, okay, I'm not an old fashioned black lady. Let me not say that.
What is the old fashioned? What's the original recipe? I don't know. I don't have all the bells and whistles.
Like I'm not like, oh, post-racial society. Even the conversations like the diaspora wars.
I think I'm a little original recipe in that because I'm like, y'all, we are all black. What are you? And like people will argue about the one drop rule and I'm like, you're black.
I also I think I have a very good black dar. Like there are people who are black and I clock it and I have friends who was like, that's a black person.
I'm like, I I know when a Negro is in my presence. Um, okay.
might be, this is awkward, this is the third rail, but we're going to, this story is about class. Yes.
So on a scale of one to five, one being trash and five being like free, clear, honest, easy to do, can you rate the quality of the conversations about class that you've witnessed within the Black community? It's hard to do. It's hard because sometimes it's good and then sometimes it's bad.
Like I said, I went to Howard and there's that tweet where someone's like, I hate Howard bitches. They're always in the bathroom arguing about slavery.
And it's like, I, that's, I am at the party. I am the person in the bathroom arguing about slavery also the thing is everyone tends to get blinded by their own experience and there's a defensiveness like an inherent defensiveness I'm gonna give it a two I'm gonna give the conversations a two especially if they're happening happening online.
Oh my gosh, don't even try. Oh my god, I know.
Then it's like zero. It's, yeah.
Why do you think that is? Why do you think class is such a, like, it makes people defensive? Okay, I think no matter who you are, class gets sticky. It's that whole thing.
It's like, don't talk about politics and money, and it's both those things together things together but i think for so long class and race has been married in this country and for good reason like understandably so there have been systemic things that you know uh make a lot of black people part of the same class and make it very hard to have upward mobility but when that upward mobility does exist, it can get a little sticky

because it's this thing of, well, you're still experiencing racism. And it's like, yeah, but also

like there are privileges that come with having money. And then there's all this like class

anxiety that's harder to move up in the world. And then you feel defensive about it.
And it's just,

it gets sticky so quickly.

How comfortable are you with discussing class?

Oh, I'm pretty comfortable with it. But again, I think that's because I've been arguing

in bathrooms about slavery for the past 15 years.

Okay. The story is about class and is actually in DC.

Ooh, back when it was really Chocolate City? Back when it was becoming Chocolate City. Mm-hmm.
We are in the Gilded Age, a.k.a. the Victorian era, a.k.a.
the 1880s. Mm-hmm.
In society news, President Grover Cleveland has become the first and only president to get married in the White House. Mm-hmm.
His bride is 27 years his junior, and she told their reverend, Dr. Byron Sutherland, that they would be changing her vows from honor, love, and obey to honor, love, and keep.
Oh, a progressive lady. A progressive young lady.
Reverend Dr. Sutherland is like, fine, we can do whatever you want because I've already been in so much trouble.
Because he'd married another DC couple recently. And in doing so, he'd ushered in one of the biggest society scandals that the black elite had ever seen.
This is the story of a battle between romance and class. This is the story of the scandalous loves of Lulu Francis.
Ooh! I love, first of all, I love love. I love scandals.
I love drama. This is the story for you, then.
Okay, so slavery ended 20 years ago. Black people are moving all around the country now that they can, and they're trying to decide where do we want to be? What city are we about to turn chocolate? A lot of them decide on Washington, D.C.
Period. So there are a lot of really great black schools there.
Obviously, H.U. You know.
There's a ton of other black people around. That's very attractive.
The highest concentration of Black people in the nation at that time. And in the city, there's a class of Black elites.
They are wealthy. They're from the D.C., Maryland, Virginia area, which obviously we call the DMV.
And they're known as the First Families. Oh.
So there's a couple different ways that a person can become a member of the First Families, the Black elite. And I'm going to tell you how one man did it.
He is the father of the star of today's episode, and his name is Richard Francis. Richard was born enslaved in Virginia.
A Southern gentleman never mixed his own drinks, so they would have enslaved Black men do that for them. So this was one of Richard's jobs.
He did it really well. He didn't have a choice.
So when he was freed, eventually, he went to work at a white-owned tavern up the street from the White House. He rises from basically like a bar back to the most popular bartender at this tavern.
It's called Hancock's Old Curiosity Shop. Ooh, I'm drinking an old-fashioned, and I just imagined the old-fashioned he would make me.
Oh, they would be so good. And you're Black, so he'd really hook them up.
Well, you're a Black woman, and it's the Victorian era, so maybe he wouldn't. So he'd probably be like, why are you drinking, you hussy? Go home.
He is a really, really good bartender, and because of its location, it's really popular for politicians from across the country to come in. And they all fall in love with his mint juleps.
This is his specialty. One of his patrons is a senator.
And he tells Richard that he wants to help him get a job running the private restaurant in the U.S. Senate.
And Richard's like, I would be very into that. So the senator puts in a good word and Richard gets the job.
He's not the first Black man to hold that position, but it's still like a really big deal. So once he's there, he seems to be making good money.
He takes his earnings and invests them in D.C. real estate.
Brilliant. And so then he makes more money and he can afford to now be a member of the first families.
So in order to be a member of the first families, you need to have a combination of the following. This isn't an exhaustive list, but to start, economic security.
You need enough money to not have to worry about money, and you've got to be real classy with it, meaning you need to own a beautifully furnished home. You need to dress well.

You need to vacation

in the right spots.

Harper's Ferry, West Virginia,

actually, is super popular with them.

Frederick Douglass and his family

have a house out there.

Richard is financially set,

and I don't know how he decorated

his home or where he vacationed,

but he has money,

so check, that's one thing.

You have to have a prestigious job.

Running the private restaurant

in the U.S. Senate counts, so check.
You need to go to college. I don't know Richard's educational background, but he's obviously very intelligent.
But he did not go to college, I'm assuming. So no check for that.
And you have to be from the DMV, which he is from. So check.
Oh, they're strict. They are very serious about those rules.
Very serious. I would not be grandfathered in my 15 years.
They'd be like, girl, you are not from here.

They would be like, nope, you're out.

Richard has made the three out of four.

So that means him, his wife, their son, and two daughters are officially members of the first family.

And so that brings us to the star of today's story.

This is one of Richard's daughters, Miss Louise Marla Francis, whom everybody calls Lulu.

Lulu is likely a fashionista, a little spunky and opinionated, likely educated. She would have been doing things like attending organizing meetings for women's suffrage at the city's first Black Presbyterian church, the 15th Street Presbyterian Church.
She's a woman described by the Washington Post at the time as the Belle of Colored D.C. So basically, she is our ideal rom-com heroine.
I wish I had a picture of her, but I do not. But let's cast her in our mind.
Who do you think could play this person? Okay, it sounds like she's that girl, and this person is not an actress, but I'm just imagining, like, gilded age Lori Harvey. That's so funny.
I was thinking Lori Harvey. Yeah, like gilded age Lori Harvey.
She's that girl. Know the girl, etc.
Just remember that you're the prize always. Always.
So once Lulu hits marrying age, inquiring minds would want to know who's it going to be? Who's she going to pick? Much like Lori Harvey. At this time, she could have ended up with a young W.B.
Du Bois. They're in the same class.
Or maybe his mortal enemy, Booker T. Washington.
Let's say you're Lulu. What would your ideal husband at this time be? And for context, let me just tell you that her sister married a man with a good government job working at the pension office.
So that means they're economically secure, socially elite. Her brother goes to Howard University and then the University of Michigan, where he graduates magna cum laude, and then he comes home to D.C., marries an elite Black woman at the 15th Street Presbyterian Church, becomes a doctor.
All right, so you're Lulu. Do I have to pick from the men you mentioned, or can I make my ideal man up? Make your ideal 1886 man up.
Ooh, you know what? I'm going to go with a doctor. I'm going to go with a doctor.
Somebody that, like, all the Black people go to, they're like, oh, he is that doctor, he is that guy. And I'll be like, yeah, that's my man.
Okay, so Lulu starts dating one of her dad, Richard's, employees. Oh.
He's an aspiring young barber named John F. Cragwell.
Can I have you read how the papers described Mr. Cragwell at that time? It's on page one.
Oh, my gosh. This is so rude.
Cragwell is poor, having only his wages to depend on.

Oh, my gosh.

That's your man.

Um, hmm.

He's probably a nice guy.

He might be rocking her world in one of several ways.

Like, but also, like, what else are we going to, I guess, family money other than wages?

I mean, yeah.

Ideally, family money or real estate investments.

Ugh. So rude.

So rude. She likes that boy.
She likes it. Okay, so this is the thing.
Craigwell is a barber or a tonsillary artist, which is what they're called at this time. Black men were finding that they actually really enjoy the experience of going to a shop together, talking reckless, hanging out, also getting their hair done.
So men are like, oh, okay, you guys like this? They start opening barbershops somewhat regularly. They begin popping up all over Black communities, and people are starting to be like, huh, this seems like it's a community hub.
This seems like a potentially lucrative business. So being a Black barber does have the potential to become like an important role in the Black community and a profitable job.
So Lulu's like, maybe she's like, you know, there's potential here, dad. Like, just let him cook.
Like, we don't know what he can do. So they keep dating and they do fall in love.
Aw. So like, let's picture a romance montage.
You're Lulu. You're with your Craigwell.
Can you just, like, describe the world that you two would build together? What kind of dates would you want to go on with him in the 1880s? Oh, my gosh. I'm going to tell you one thing.
We are getting ice cream. We are going to an ice cream parlor, okay? We are making eye contact at church, and he is walking me out while I fan myself.
He's courting me. He's sitting in my mother's parlor and we are drinking tea under the watchful eye of my father and siblings.
I don't know. Like, is there a promenade that we go to? Is there, I don't know what things are open.
There's probably no zoo yet, probably no museums, but like whatever the version of that is. Maybe he's outside my window at night and throwing rocks and we're writing each other letters.
Maybe we even sneak a little kissy kiss and no one sees it. Being fast.
This cross-class kind of upstairs-downstairs romance is not something that the first families would have been cool with. They're very snobby.
So like just to put it in perspective, there's like 230,000 people in D.C. at this time.
75,000 or 32 percent of them are black. And then 400 of the 75,000 are members of the first families.
Okay. So it's giving literal talented 10th.
You took the words out of my mouth.

That's what we're talking about here is the talented 10th.

So the talented 5th, really.

So the first families, they're exclusive.

If you're wealthy and Black, but you're coming to D.C. from like Philly or New York or Detroit,

they call you a foreigner or a stranger.

And if you're poor or uneducated and Black, they don't call you anything at all.

Because they're living by this mandate of lift as we climb. The saying is everywhere.
It's a huge part of the strategy that the race has come up with during a time when they literally had to move in next door to the people who used to enslave them. So it's like not a good time.
So they think like, okay, how are we going to change this? How are we going to make things better for ourselves?

And WB Du Bois and a lot of people come up with this idea of the talented 10th.

And they're like, all right, we need y'all to go in there, be as respectable and as elegant and educated as possible to put these white people at ease and show them that like, see, I'm a human just like you.

See my hands?

You can't really reason. You have to be like, it's okay.
It's okay. Or you have to just fight, but they're outnumbered.
It gives something that I would have thought to do when I was like in my 20s and felt like I had something to prove. And this is like, they're the first generation of people.
A lot of them were slaves and now they're free. White people are not okay with this.
It's not like everybody's like, oh yeah, you earned it. Good for you.
Like they're under duress at all times. So yes, you're having to like overcompensate, overprove, overdo all these things.
And the idea is if we send y'all in there to do that, then white people will be put at ease and then go around to the back of the club, open the door, and then you're going to let all the rest of us in. Here's what the strategy didn't account for.
It's hard to be in something, but not of it. What did Audre Lorde say? Master's house, master's tools, et cetera.
Yes. So the talented tent start to adopt the traditions and the customs of the elites they're meant to be imitating.
And then they come back to the Black community and are these enforcers of the politics of respectability and brutal critics of anybody that doesn't comply. Ooh, I wonder if that had any long-term consequences.
You know what I keep thinking? I'm like, you create a strategy that'll really work for you, but then, uh-oh, we just kept the same exact strategy for, like, hundreds of years.

We didn't update it, you know, as, like, modern people.

I think we're trying to update it now.

But it's so hard for me to judge them ever

because I'm like, it did work.

I am here.

Yeah, it's also this thing of, like,

if you're barely one generation out of being enslaved, you know, I'm gonna have sympathy.

Back to Lulu.

Lulu has a friend who she does seem to turn to for advice.

The papers don't name her, but I'm imagining her to be like a level-headed best friend archetype like Dion and Clueless. So I just want to call her Dion.
Yeah, every rom-com needs a best friend. Every rom-com needs a best friend.
Of course. All right, so I'm imagining this next part, but indulge me.
Dion probably would have listened to Lulu go on and on and on about her great love and these walks along the promenade, the ice cream. She's like, girl, come on now.
Do you really think that this is going to work out? He is a barber and he is broke. And we are royalty.
Like, what are you doing? And Lulu was probably like, Dionne, I don't care about that. I don't care about upstairs, downstairs, this side of the track, that side of the track.
I'm in love.

And not only do she and Craigwell continue dating,

they get engaged.

Ooh!

But someone finds Craigwell,

and they have a conversation with him.

We don't know what they say.

We don't know who it is.

All we know is that afterwards,

he goes to Lulu and he says,

I can't be with you anymore.

Our engagement is over. And then he moves to Pennsylvania.
Oh my gosh, she has to stab him. He broke her heart.
Lulu is so sad. I'm picturing her like running upstairs and then flinging herself on the bed and crying and crying and crying.
And Dion's trying to console her, but she's also maybe breathing a little sigh of relief along with Richard, Lulu's dad, and the rest of the first families, because Lulu was probably going to end up like Lucinda Seton anyway. Allow me to tell you the cautionary tale of Lucinda Seton.
Oh. 30 years before Lulu's forbidden love, the DMV had another it girl, and her name was Lucinda Seton.
When a famous German-American painter came to D.C. looking to paint the portrait of the quintessential African-American lady to be displayed across Europe, do you know who he chose? Lucinda Seton.
Not, he's going to paint her like one of his German girls. So Lucinda's, all this happening with her, her like time to shine, it's 1850.
So the Civil War is 10 years off. Slavery is in full effect.
It's the culture. But also we have a community of free Black people and that's what her family is.
But that year the census was taken and, and for the first time, it recognized and counted as separate Africans and mixed-race people,

so half white, half Black.

So it was reported that there were a little over

3 million enslaved Black people in America at that time,

and 250,000 of them were mixed-race.

So these 250,000 people, for the most part, they're not born of, you know, like loving consensual relationships. That's not what we're talking about here.
You know what I mean? So we're talking about horrible, like mass rape from white enslavers of Black women. And then Black women are giving birth to these hundreds of thousands of people.
These are just the people that they counted. So the white men who fathered these children at that time, there was like a culture among some of them of claiming these children and either giving them better jobs on the plantation, like in the house.
We know what this does to our community, but they're bringing their children inside. All right.
Time for colorism to start. But they're like, you know, you are my son, you are my daughter, you work inside.
It's

disgusting and weird, but this is what they're doing. Or they're freeing them after a certain

age or sending them off to Europe to be educated or even sometimes leaving them inheritances.

Some of the elite families got their start this way, or they claimed to have gotten their start

this way because it was seen as a respectable thing. It was like, you were special to your dad.
Obviously, we know this is how we came by being light-skinned, which is among the most important qualities a member of the Black elite could ever possess. Horrible beginnings.
What we did with that trauma is multiply it, but this is how this is part of their story, too. So Lucinda Seaton's family seemed, from what I can surmise, to have partially gotten their start this way.
I mean, they are very light. She's like part Indian, part white, part black.
Okay, she's a red bone, as we say. She would be in the Fenty 300s.
She would be in the Fenty 300s. Thank you for translating that for modern audience.
So, you know, they're free through all this, you know, weirdness and grossness. But they also, somebody opened up a grocery store, and it would eventually become the largest grocery store chain in the DMV.
And so that's how they came by a bunch of money. So Lucinda's doing great.
She's living the dream until she marries a blacksmith.

So the blacksmith is doing okay for himself.

He's doing, you know, the best that he can,

but he's also middle class.

So now she is too.

She clearly married for love

because she has to move into a middle class neighborhood

in a quaint little home on I Street in Northwest DC,

which is like now. Now it's like, girl, that's money.
Yes, exactly. So she moves to I Street where the men go to work and the women raise kids and nobody comes by to paint their pictures.
Oh, no. Lucinda has six kids, five girls and a boy named William, and she seems to have been searching for a way to get back in to the first families, like get back into the life she'd become accustomed.
But they need to make some money. If Lucinda Seton's six kids get educated, they can get good jobs, make real money, and put their family back on the map.
So all the kids are sent to school. William goes to the prestigious private elementary school in the basement of the 15th Street Presbyterian Church.
So now all Lucinda has to do is just wait. Unfortunately, in 1863 tragedy strikes.
Her husband is murdered during a robbery. Oh no no.
So now Lucinda is a widow with six kids to feed. I don't know if her family helped her out a bit.
Maybe they did. But she does become a dressmaker and she starts an ice cream shop to make ends meet.
Oh, my gosh. Did Lulu go there with Craig well? They are going to cross paths, we'll see.
But she has to pull her kids out of their schools to help earn money for their survival. Some of the members of the first families probably still stop by her little house on I Street and wish her well, but it's clear to everyone that Lucinda is now even further away from being one of them than she was before.
She'd married into a precarious financial situation, and now she was a poor with no hope of ever advancing the end. So now, we're back.
We're back with Lulu and Dion in the 1880s.

We left Lulu. She's crying in her bedroom, probably making it up, but, you know, she's sobbing.

Dion is there. She's rubbing her head.

She's saying, don't worry about Craigwell. All men are dogs.
It's going to be okay.

Then, I picture Lulu's father, Richard, poking his head in the room to check on his daughter.

Lulu, she doesn't notice him because she's sobbing, but Dion looks up. The two exchange a knowing glance.
What was that look? Cut to Lucinda's house. Lucinda's scene is still in D.C., in that little house on I Street.
And she would have likely been watching the Lulu-Craigwell affair with a lot of interest. Maybe because the story mirrored her own, or maybe because she had made it her and her six kids business to know exactly what the first families were getting into and to tell everybody.
Oh, that is nasty. Lucinda, don't be nasty.
They may have counted her out, but they shouldn't have because Lucinda has a son named William Chase. And he's all grown up now.
And she's taught him everything she knows. William and Lucinda are coming for the first families.
And sadly, Lulu will find herself caught in the crossfire. Oh, my God.
But you know what? I watch a lot of Housewives. So I do understand when you get iced out, like the alternative is like time to be a gossip monger and start some mess.
Coming up, Lucinda starts a beehive and Lulu prepares to become a bride. I'm a mom on the go in my 40s.
I'm writing books. I'm making this show.
I'm going down internet rabbit holes. And given the fact that mornings with a six and a two-year-old are a complete opera of chaos, I do not have a lot of time to think about what to wear.
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We now return to Our Ancestors Were Messy. Back to Lulu.
She's single now, but then she meets a man.

His name is Mr. Sneed.

Mr. Who?

Mr. Sneed.

S-N-E-E-D.

Okay, so she's back outside.

She's back outside.

All right, she got her toes.

She doesn't have her toes out.

It's the Gilded Age.

No, no, no, no, no.

Whatever that version is, like, hey, girl, we've got a new man.

Forget that old one. We're moving on.
Mm-hmm. Mr.
Sneed is a waiter at the Arlington Hotel, which is one of America's most opulent hotels. And the first families would have been like, this is a great look.
The papers call him swell. A waiter's a great look? Yeah, because it's at a really, really, really fancy hotel.
Okay. And because at this time, to put on a uniform and work in a hotel, like work for dignitaries and all these things, this is really, really important to them.
Okay. So, Lulu and Sneed begin a courtship.
Lulu and Sneed get engaged. Lulu's dad, Richard, agrees to give them a wedding present, which is a house.
Ugh, love that. Mm-hmm.
We love a house as a wedding gift. That's amazing.
Lulu and her parents and maybe Mr. Sneed draft an invite list.
And although I couldn't find it, I could guess who would be on it. All the first families, the famed suffragette Mary Church Terrell and the Terrells.
Oh, love Mary Church Terrell. Langston Hughes' great uncle, John Mercer Langston, and the Langstons would of course be there.

Obviously, they have to invite the founder of the 15th Street Presbyterian Church, John F. Cook and the Cooks.

The McKinleys, the Cardozos, the Grimkes, everybody's going to be there.

As in Cardozo High School Cardozos?

Right, I know, it's wild.

Wow.

I was like, all these last names come from this? What?

I know, I saw, I heard Seaton, I was like, wait a minute, I know that street. Mm-hmm, it's wild.
Wow. I was like, all these last names come from this? What? I know.

I saw, I heard Seed and I was like, wait a minute.

I know that street.

Mm-hmm.

And the school.

So then this question arises between the couple.

I'm guessing Lulu is the one that asked this question.

She says, Mr. Sneed, should we invite Mr.
Creadwell to our wedding? Would you ever invite an ex to your wedding? Okay, and this is going to sound messy. If y'all are cool and your current partner does not know the extent of your friendship with this person, yes.
But if it is well known, girl, he does not need to be there. No, stop being messy.
Okay, well, Lulu's parents send out the invitations, and the household prepares for a royal wedding. Two people who most certainly would not have received an invite from the Francis family and would have been in their feelings about it were Lucinda Seton and her now-grown son, William Chase.
So, if you'll recall, she'd had to pull him out of school when he was nine to help support the family. And he started selling newspapers.
And that's how he got to know a lot of the editors and the newsrooms and the reporters in Black D.C. He grows up.
He goes to Howard Law School. He passes the bar.
He becomes a lawyer. And he also continues reporting and working in various newsrooms.
And he lives at home on I Street with his mom and his sisters.

They're all very close. William has got this flair for the dramatic.
He has dreams of becoming a

renowned actor. And he actually ends up falling in love with and marrying another actor.
And the

two of them are in little plays together and stuff. It's very cute.
Mainly, though, his time

Thank you. And he actually ends up falling in love with and marrying another actor.
And the two of them are in little plays together and stuff. It's very cute.
Mainly, though, his time is spent lawyering, reporting, and jockeying for political appointments. Because there's another way that a person can become a member of the black elite.
And that is by doing the absolute most. If he can become a combination lawyer, reporter, and politician, he will be economically secure, have the most prestigious jobs anyone can have, be lifting as he climbs in matters of law, news, and politics.
Okay, being a politician and a journalist at the same time gives me pause, but I do respect the hustle. It's a wild combo.
Like, how are you going to do both these things, sir? But okay. Totally fine.
No questions. We're all on board.
No notes. But the problem was, when it came to the politics, he never seemed to get the political appointments that he went after.
And when he was rejected, he did not take it in stride. He would go into the office of whatever newspaper he was working for at the time.
He would sit down at his typewriter and he would go absolutely insane on everyone he held responsible for him not getting the jobs he thought he deserved. So like one time, Frederick Douglass was like, I will hook you up.
And he's like, great, great, great, great. And then Frederick Douglass is like, no, no, I can't.
He publishes all this.

He's like, I hate you.

I hate the way that you dress.

I hate the way that you talk.

I hate your hair.

Like, just... Patty.

Well, okay, but if you're going scorched earth like that, that's why you're not a politician.

Like, a not insignificant amount of having a career is being personable and getting people to like you.

And if you go scorched earth when you get a no, you're going to keep getting no's. Right.
But he doesn't care. People describe him as handsome, a climber, and very, very combative.
Oh, he was handsome? I see why he's like that. You're like, oh, wait, that changes everything.
Okay, got it, clear. That's why he acts like that.
So finally, William does secure one of the jobs he's been going after. He's named the editor of The Washington Bee, a brand new weekly paper serving the Black citizens of D.C.
whose motto was, stings for our enemies, honey for our friends. Oh, oh, oh.
It's estimated that at this time, there are like 12,000 newspapers serving segregated Black communities across America. But when you get to a major city like D.C., there's usually a few.
So the competition is really fierce and you need to do something to stand out. So William is like, what's up, sisters? What's up, my wife? You all are now going to be on staff at the Washington Bee.
And he makes all of them like reporters and cultural critics, in addition to some outside people. And then they set up offices at Lucinda's house on I Street.
There, they turn the Bee into appointment reading. So was it like the shade room? Essentially, this was their shade room? Well, okay.
So it was, they primarily cover news related to the fight for civil rights and social justice. They're, like, covering news that all the white papers are covering, but without all the racism and with black people in it.
That's, like, the idea. Mm-hmm.
But they also make sure from time to time to just let William get behind his typewriter and do his thing. He'll be like, what's up, white leaders? I am so sick and tired of all the ways that you do not point Black people to positions of power.
You are so racist and you're so hypocritical. And then he'll be like, what's up, Black leaders? Nothing that you're doing is going to make a difference in the Black community because you are too intellectual and you're too theoretical.
And then this is his favorite.

He's like, what's up, First Families?

You think you're so much better than us?

You think I don't know what's going on behind closed doors?

A lot of his readers, who the B refers to as the household, that's what they call Black DC.

Hey, roomies.

Like, okay, I know you're not the shade room, but it's giving the shade room at times. Exactly.
It's good branding. It's good branding.
You got to brand your audience. The household feels looked down upon by the Black elites because they're working class or they're poor or they're dark skinned or they couldn't go to college.
And so behind their back, the household calls the first families the Fust families.

The what families?

Fust. F-U-S-T, which is slang for musty.

Oh, nothing. Musty, Jesus.

Okay, I think being called musty is the worst thing that can happen to you.

Do you know?

I agree.

Because, like, musty isn't just stinky.

Musty is like, you're funky and you've been funky for a minute.

Can I have you read on page two what the bee said about them? Yes, let me see. Oh, they wouldn't be caught dead with an ordinary Negro, and they foolishly expect to become absorbed by the white race.
Ooh, drag them? No, okay, but here's the thing. You're Lulu, so you're the fusty one.
How would you feel reading this?

OK, and this is what OK, this makes me think it's that thing of, hey, we're all black people, et cetera, et cetera. But and I admit sometimes when I see tweets about this, where people complaining about, quote unquote, black elite or like black college educated people, There's something in you that inherently gets defensive, even though you'll have these conversations about men, about white supremacy.
And you say, hey, you got to take a hard look at X, Y, Z. But when the finger points to you, it admittedly does not feel good.
And I do feel like people start bringing out their like, no, no, no, no, their cards where it's like, well, my dad, my parents, I'm a first generationgeneration college graduate. Like, I don't, don't put me with them.
Like, my family grew up with no money. You just want to start, you do these things.
And it takes a lot of work to check that and say, okay, only hit dogs holler. If I'm hollering, what am I doing? What's happening? And that takes a lot of maturity and a lot of thought.
So back to William. He is assaulted twice and sued five times for libel over his articles.
He's like, I don't care. There's this section of the paper called the Clara and Louise column.
Every week, the paper publishes a letter from an anonymous Clara to an anonymous Louise or vice versa. And in the letters, among other things, they share the

torrid details about the ups and the downs and the scandals of the first families.

Okay, Lady Whistledown.

Lady Whistledown to a T. And the first families hate this column.
Their complaints about it

reach such a fever pitch that William, who is normally like, don't care, don't care, don't care,

has to release a statement being like, sorry, I don't know who Clara and Luis are. I understand

I need to reach such a fever pitch that William, who is normally like, don't care, don't care, don't care, has to release a statement being like, sorry, I don't know who Clara and Luis are. I understand your pain.
However, I am never going to stop. I'm never going to back down.
Every week, tune in,

because I'm going to be publishing all of their insights into your scandals and your hypocrisies.

on November

I'm sorry. into your scandals and your hypocrisies.
On November 27th, 1886, just five days before Lulu and Sneed's wedding, the Washington Bee publishes a bombshell in their weekly gossip column, which, as you'll recall, is written in the form of letters between an anonymous Clara and an anonymous Louise. I have compiled a medley of the letters that Clara and Louise wrote to each other over the next two weeks about the scandal, which I would love for us to read right now, if you would not mind.
I think I'm playing Louise. Okay, perfect.
If you will play Clara. Dear Clara, I hardly know how to begin or what to relate first, but the most sensational thing that has ever happened in our society is the elopement of Miss Lulu Francis.
Girl, not you eloping. Chubb.
Dear Louise, your letter to the household last week was read with a great deal of interest. I never was made more surprised in my life.
It will be remembered that Mr. Craigwell had been going with Miss Frances for a number of years, and it was understood that the engagement between them had been canceled.
Mr. Craigwell was persuaded to break the engagement by a lady connected with the Frances family? Oh! Dion, I think it's Dion.
Nasty work. Nasty work.
Then Miss Francis went to Harrisburg on a visit, and Mr. Craigwell did not greet her with any respect, nor did he write to her for over a year.
Still, she said that he was the only man she ever loved, and if she married another, it would be for spite. The lady was told by a friend not to marry for spite.
Okay, Lulu, Lulu, why you let me play? Let's just continue because I have a lot of thoughts. Let's continue.
Mr. Sneed expressed tender feelings for the lady.
He gave her his heart and they were engaged and he went to the expense of making their wedding a brilliant affair. The lady asked her friend, would it be wise to give Mr.
Craigwell an invite to her marriage? She was told no. Mr.
Craigwell, on the reception of an invitation from Miss Frances and Mr. Sneed announcing their marriage, immediately left Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and came to D.C.
Once in the city, Mr. Craigwell remarked to his friend that he would never leave D.C.
without Miss Lulu Francis. But finding that he could not persuade her parents to bless his reunion with Miss Francis, he returned to Harrisburg.
Mr. Craigwell could not rest in Harrisburg, so he returned again to D.C.
and inaugurated another scheme.

This time, he solicited the services of the sister of Miss Lulu.

While out walking with Mr. Sneed, Miss Lulu called at her sister's and told Mr.
Sneed to wait outside as she wanted to see her sister about a dress.

Mr. Craigwell was there, and he pleaded with her to become his wife.
Mr. Craigwell told Miss Frances that he always loved her and that it was hard to see his first love married to another man who would make her life miserable.
At this juncture, Miss Frances said, but my invitations are out for my marriage to Mr. Sneed.
Oh, I can fix that, said Mr. Craigwell.
After deciding what steps were best to pursue, it's said that Ms. Frances, Mr.
Craigwell, her sister, and her brother-in-law traveled to the residence of Reverend Dr. Sunderland, who married President Grover Cleveland.
In the afternoon of Wednesday, November 2nd, the marriage license was procured and they were married. Dr.
Sunderland said that he thought the affair a romance and that it did not excite his suspicions. It was settled and poor Mr.
Sneed was made a victim of despair. The household is started and society is up in arms to think that Miss Frances would be guilty of such an act.
Mr. and Mrs.
Frances are heartbroken to think that their daughter would treat them so. She has been reared a lady and looked upon and respected as such.
Her parents consist of the best elements of our society. This is Sneed's last song.
Where has my Lulu gone? Is the song I shall sing. The chestnut bells are ringing, and the boys are singing.
Sneed, Sneed, Sneed, oh, Sneed, where has thy Lulu gone? I have been told that Mr. Sneed has received a just retribution.
It's said that he had many sympathizing friends who regretted that he was disappointed, and many young ladies who were pleased. I saw Mr.
Sneed at the fraternals last Wednesday evening, and he approached Major Fleetwood and said, Major, I carried you an invitation to my wedding, but I suppose that you have heard that my intended has gone off with another. The Major laughed and said, Yes, Sneed, I don't know whether to congratulate you or to extend my condolences.
Mr. Sneed in reply said that he would like to have his congratulations.
Yours lovingly. Yours truly.
Louise. Clara.
All right, girl. I have so much to say.
I have so much to say. And it really is giving Lori Harvey.
I'm glad that's who we went with. I feel like Mr.
Sneed is Michael B. Jordan.
Oh, Mr. Sneed is.
Mr. Sneed is Michael B.
Jordan, which, you know, Michael, call me. I'm around.
I have so many thoughts because on one hand, it's better to end a marriage before it's miserable. She clearly was not into it.
He was, although, you know, at the end he's like it was it he feels very drakey it's very like her loss and i mean that derogatory that being said don't spin the block like no if that man left once he'll leave again and when he does it again you're gonna feel so stupid so stupid. I just like, oh, I'm gonna get you back, baby.
Like, I guess. But she let that man spin the block and here we are.
What a scandal. I think it would have been better if she had said, you know, I'm not feeling it.
Call it off. Maybe wait some time.
Lay low a little bit. But to run off and get married.
also her sister was was in cahoots. We can't forget this.
It's not all on Lulu. Her sister was in cahoots.
Also, wasn't her mom who was all like, don't marry that girl? No, they said it was a friend. So that's why I feel like Dion.
Okay, so this is my conspiracy theory that I had cooked up in my head based on no evidence. I feel like Richard, Lulu's dad, went to Dion, Lulu's best friend,

and he was like, Dion, my daughter cannot marry that broke barber.

I need you to go to him and tell him that if he really cares for Lulu,

the best thing he can do for her is to leave her.

And so then Dion went to him.

She said that.

Lulu was like, oh, my God, he left me. I want to be with him.
And maybe Richard gave him some money because you know that's how rich people do it. That is true.
So then Mr. Craigwell leaves town.
Lulu is like, oh my God, like I can't live without him. Dion's like, you'll be fine.
Lulu's like, should I invite him to my wedding? Dion is like, girl, no. Then boom, boom, boom.
He's back in her life. They're married.
Also, it's this thing of, and this is something my mom always said, and of course there are

exceptions to this rule, but it's a thing of if your child is dating someone you don't like,

don't make a fuss because that will only drive them into their arms.

Ooh, yeah.

And that's exactly what they did.

You came for the mess. Now stay for the rest.
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And now, for the thrilling conclusion

of this week's installment

of Our Ancestors Were Messy.

After the elopement, it's reported that Craigwell went to see about making arrangements for him and Lulu to get to Pennsylvania.

And Lulu and her sister went home to face their parents.

Allegedly, Mr. Sneed is also there.
Me? I would just fake my own death.

Yeah, how would your parents react to you showing up at the door being like, okay, Mary. Okay, the thing is, I'm an only child, so the amount of conniption that would be had.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You would never survive it.
Unfortunately, there's no record of what went down at the Francis home during this meeting. But at the end, Mr.
Sneed is sent away, and that's the last we ever hear of him. Now, Richard Francis, Lulu's dad, and his wife, Lulu's mom, they are humiliated in front of all the first families, the household, and potentially hundreds of thousands of recorded Black newspaper readers across the nation.
Because I found articles about this elopement in papers in New York, in Alabama, in Missouri, and a lot of them were pulling their reporting from the bee. So this is bad.
Also, since Lulu was on the radar of the Washington Post, white D.C. may have known about all of this too.
And so Richard may have had to deal with his co-workers and clients whispering about this in the U.S. Senate, as well as everywhere that he went in D.C.
Not long after the scandal in 1888, Richard passes away suddenly. Oh, he's stressed.
His funeral is held at the 15th Street Presbyterian Church. Today, bartenders still remember and revere Richard for his incredible mint juleps.
When I was doing the research for this episode, I kept getting linked to all these magazines and all these articles about, like, famous Black bartenders and recipes, famous recipes created by Black bartenders. And there was Richard's.
It's the Dick Francis special for a mint julep. And I will link the recipe in the show notes.
I never did find another article after the scandal that mentioned Richard and Lulu together. So I don't know what their father-daughter relationship was after that or at the time that he passed away.
But in the bios of his that I came across and in his obituary, he's listed as having

left behind a wife and one son.

And that's it.

Dang.

So both the daughters got got?

Maybe both the daughters.

I don't know.

Dang.

Dang, her daddy's strict.

I know.

The Washington Bee continues to grow in readership and prestige post-elopement scandal, and they gain a reputation across D.C. and in history as a paper that fought fearlessly for civil rights and social justice, in addition to the Claire and Louise gossip column, but that's less so in the history books.
That's in the back. In 1893, Lucinda passes away with the Washington Beast still running from her home on I Street, which she managed to hold onto against all odds and then pass on to her children.
So shout out to Lucinda. I know that's right.
William keeps the paper going right up until his death in 1921, which made it at that time one of the longest running Black newspapers in in America. The D.C.
First families, you know, it's hard to track down exactly what happened to them or all their wealth. Obviously, D.C.
people will recognize some of the names, Seton, McKinley, but unfortunately, those places are named after the enslavers that the First families shared names with, not the First families themselves. Oh! Although I will say Cardozo is named after Francis Cardozo, who was a famous Black clergyman and politician.
So we got that one. But here's what we do know.
Charles County and PG County, Maryland, right outside of D.C., are the richest majority Black counties in the nation. And they have been for a very long time.
And I don't know why these places in Maryland became bastions of Black wealth, but it does seem like in some way the legacy of the first families in D.C. still lives on.
But I wish someone would look into this because I would love to know, like, why do they congregate there? What is it about Pretty Girl County that we can't stay away from? Uh, uh, uh. As for our newlyweds, Mr.
and Mrs. Craigwell.
They spent a little bit of time out in Pennsylvania, and then right before the turn of the century, they moved to Seattle, Washington. And once they get there, they make their way into Black history.
Now, I can only find a record of what Mr. Craigwell did because of the times, but I know, I believe, and feel that I know, that Lulu was there right beside him holding him down.
Can I have you read the summary of Mr. Craigwell's life, which was written up for his obituary and published in Seattle's Black newspaper, The Northwest Enterprise.
Okay, uh, Northwest? Mm-hmm. Mr.
John Fields Craigwell, pioneer resident of Seattle and veteran barber, died Monday morning from a heart ailment. Mr.
Craigwell was born in Virginia in 1862. After graduation from high school, young Craigwell moved to Pennsylvania, but later returned to Washington where he engaged in the barber business.
In 1885, Mr. Craigwell was married to Miss Louise Francis by the same minister that married Grover Cleveland.
They moved to Seattle in 1890, where the young barber again started his business. His shop was a gathering place for business leaders during and after the days of the Alaska Gold Rush.
During his 56 years as a barber, he shaved many notables, including Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William McKinley, John Jacob Astor, Alexander Graham Bell, and many others. Besides his business, Mr.
Craigwell was interested in several civic affairs. He used to take an active part in politics, and at the time of his death, he held one of the highest offices at the Presbyterian Church.
Surviving are his widow, Mrs. Louise Craigwell, two daughters, three grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.
On November 24, 1935, Mr. and Mrs.
Craigwell celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, which hundreds of Seattle citizens attended. Oh, they got a happy ending.
Good for you, girl. Okay.

You can spin the block this one time,

but never do it again.

Craigwell passes away in 1937 and Lulu passes away in 1942.

And as much as I would love to tell you

that that's the end,

I want you to have this happy ending.

There is one last part.

Oh, no.

Oh, why are they like this?

See, don't spin the block. I told you.
I told you, don't do it. Do not text that man.
Yes. Lulu and Craigwell were among Seattle's earliest Black citizens and members of Seattle's Black elite.
And yeah, Craigwell does go on to become a barber and the city's most successful Black entrepreneur.

He has a staff of 11 tonsillary artists in fashionable downtown barbershops, but about those shops. So white people really like to be waited on by Black people immediately following the end of slavery, but they didn't want other Black people around also being served.
So some barbers would guarantee their all-white clientele that the staff would be all Black, but that they wouldn't serve any Black people. And members of Seattle's Black press accused Craigwell of this practice, and they call him a segregationist barber.
It's very hard to be in it, but not of it. Of course, there's so much more that happened,

but for now, that is the story of the scandalous cross-class romance of Miss Lulu Francis.

Wow. Gilded age, Lori Harvey.
You took me through a lot just now.

A lot. Do you think it's possible to be in it but not of it, to be operating in these spaces of power but not adopting their practices and their ways of thinking and treating people?

Ooh, this is a question that I think about a lot, just living my own life and living

in D.C.

I would like to think that you can be around and not be dragged down by the grips and allure

of power.

But I know that as humans, we don't do that.

It's almost like the ring and lord of the rings, like you're around it and the pull becomes so strong that you can't say no. And then like, what do you become, you know? I would like to think that someone is strong enough to do it, but I don't know if that person exists.
Yeah, that's real. How are you feeling about the tactic of lift as we climb as a strategy for 1886? What did we gain? What did we lose? Okay.
Honestly, there are things about it that worked at the time. So I can't begrudge them that.
And I guess, like, the other option would have led to even more death and destruction for Black people. So I get the route that they took.
And, you know, talk about Monday morning quarterbacking. But, you know, what if we say, OK, we're just going to do this for two years and then like we have to be real people after this.
You know, we can't be doing this in 2024. Like they devise a plan where this strategy is sunsetted by 2024.
What would you what would you have us do? Probably disengage completely. Just stop caring.
Like just being like nothing is going to work. If people want to be racist, they're just going to do it and they will find any and every reason to do it.
At this point, who cares about the white gays? What are we up to? That is the strategy I would deploy now. What do you think about looking at Black history starting from the messy beginnings? Because Craigwell is, like in Seattle, that name is a big deal.
He's like seen as a big pioneer and as a person who's done this incredible thing. And you start the story from the time that he got to Seattle.
And then, you know, you kind of talk about all the hard work he did, everything he overcame, his incredible resilience and business acumen. And he's, you know, an amazing Black capitalist.
But we don't talk, you know, about this other part. Yeah.
I don't know. I kind of like The Mess because it's also a reminder that something my mom would say to me over and over again is there's nothing new under

the sun. And I would think, I don't think that's true.
But this makes me realize, no, there really

is nothing new under the sun. And I think we would all give ourselves a lot more grace if we looked

at our ancestors as people and knew that they could get messy too, sometimes even messier.

Because this is wild. I'm like, five days before your wedding? Like, that is wild.
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