Heiskell championed Knoxville's black citizens

One hundred and 20 years ago, Samuel Gordon Heiskell was an outstanding advocate for the achievement of black citizens. He was elected mayor of the city five times from 1884 until 1923 and was at the forefront of much of the city's progress. "He was a friend of education and liberal toward the Negro race," said the the French Broad Holston Country history book. Several black historical buildings attest to that fact.

Born on a farm in Monroe County on Aug. 7, 1858, Heiskell was brought to Knoxville as a child. He received his bachelor of arts degree from the University of Tennessee in 1877 and studied law at the University of Virginia. Since he was only 19, he could not get a license to practice law in Tennessee and went to Somerville, Alabama, and passed the bar.

After traveling in Europe for several months, he set up his law practice in Knoxville. At age 26 he became the city attorney in 1884. He was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1892 and represented Knox County in the Tennessee Legislature in 1895. As a legislator he passed a bill that led to the erection of a facility at Lyons View for insane black people. He was elected mayor of Knoxville 1896-98; 1900-02; 1906-08; and 1910-1915.

During his first term he built the first two new school buildings ever erected for black children in Knoxville. Heiskell Elementary at the corner of Kentucky and Campbell was dedicated Nov. 11, 1897. with 2,000 people in attendance. Maynard Elementary was dedicated Nov. 18, 1897, at 737 College Street.

On May 14, 1906, when ex-slave Cal Johnson officially gave property for Knoxville's first black YMCA at the corner of Vine and Patton, Heiskell made the presentation speech. "It affords me great pleasure to appear before you tonight, representing a colored man whom I have known from boyhood. This presentation of a $2,000 house by him, I am told, is the largest gift of a Colored man to a YMCA."

For 11 years Heiskell had listened to the urgings of professor Charles Warner Cansler before he sought the assistance of the Andrew Carnegie Foundation to build a library for blacks. Finally in 1917 he approached the foundation and received funds to build and equip it for $30,000.

At the dedication Cansler said, "I wish to thank his honor, the Mayor and the associate commissioners of the City of Knoxville who so willingly furnished the site and agreed to the maintenance of the library out of the city's finances. The Colored people of the city were deprived of any access to a public library. This building will have served its purpose if it becomes the center of the activities of the reading Colored people of this community." Heiskell, a historian, wrote three volumes of "Andrew Jackson and Early Tennessee History," published 1918-1921. He died Sept. 17, 1923.

Robert J. Booker is a freelance writer and former executive director of the Beck Cultural Exchange Center. He may be reached at 546-1576.