Description
TIMOTHY THOMAS FORTUNE
Is an author, a journalism an agitator, and a lecturer. Mr. Fortune’s grandmother was a mulatto, and his grandfather a Seminole Indian. Thomas was born of slave parents in Florida in 1856. His father took an important and active part in the Reconstruction of Florida, being a delegate in the Constitutional Convention that framed the present constitution of Florida, and a member of the first five sessions of the reconstructed Florida Legislature. During the Ku Klux Xian period, which followed, the father of Thomas had to stand for his life, which he manfully did by preparing his house to receive the night marauders. The father finally moved with his family to Jacksonville, Florida. Here young Thomas soon found a position as printer’sdevil,which was the first step to that high position which he now occupies. He left his printer’s casefor two years in order to attend school and to work in the Jacksonville city postoffice. In 1874 he was appointed mail route agent between Jacksonville and Chattahoochee; but he was soon promoted to the position of special inspector of customs for the first district of Delaware. A year later, 1876, young Fortune entered that school which has been an inspiration to so many negro youths, Howard University. After two years’ study in this school he returned to the printer’s trade. While in Washington he married Miss Smiley, of Florida. In 1878 Mr. Fortune returned to Florida to try his hand at school teaching. After a year’s experience at this work, he again returned to his first love, the printer’s trade, but this time he went to New York City. Of course the other compositors objected to working with aNigger,but by the manly stand of the publisher, Mr. John Dougall, theNiggerremained, and after a short strike the white compositors were glad to return….
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