Do We Give Our Namesakes a Fair Shake?

The Still I Rise Exhibit at Reynolda: Did we give RJR a fair shake?

As is a responsible trend in museum life these days, care is taken to interpret the presented history honestly. Museums and cultural venues are striving to be more inclusive to all visitors and avoid “sugar-coating” the narrative in order not to offend the predominant supporters--often affluent Whites. For instance, the interpreters of a homeplace or associated site of a prominent figure may tend to idolize the story or character of such person or persons and ignore or omit their foibles.

Richard Joshua Reynolds, his family and his tobacco company have been generally admired and respected by most Winston Salem residents who have lived here for any length of time. However, someone who created a great deal of wealth in the South during a time of racial segregation and using a large Black workforce can’t help but attract a leery eye in today’s awareness.

Yet removing sugar-coating doesn’t necessarily require replacing it with a bitter perspective. Our latest bedroom gallery exhibit, as usual, does a fine job of sharing our archival information in a clear, enlightening way. It should hardly ruffle any feathers of visitors who might have Reynolds or Babcock family connections. However there are a few sticking points that may push the envelope a little more than necessary.

First, the exhibit begins on the southeast corner of the room with R.J. Reynolds’ father, Hardin, and was quick to bring our attention to the fact that he owned slaves. So does that matter? As the Bible says, the son shall not bear the sins of the father. Yet with no discernible explanation, a rather blunt assumption is made that being raised in a family who owned slaves would shape the son’s business dealings later in adulthood. A more likely influence came when attending business school in Baltimore during the late 19th century. There, Reynolds saw the importance of the railroad in creating wealth. His choice to leave to manufacture tobacco products came in 1874, when a spur line from the N.C. Railroad in Greensboro into Winston had been completed by the Danville and Richmond rail company. He knew a boom town would follow. And much like the offshore and immigrant labor developed countries use today, Black labor could be cheap during the turn of the 20th century. But I would question whether recruiting Black sharecroppers from South Carolina should be judged so harshly for those times. After all, these were Blacks experienced in tobacco work and he was paying the families more in a day than they had been making in a month.

Secondly, at least three times the exhibit reminds visitors that the Black farm worker’s cottages in the area known as “Five Row,” had no electricity or indoor plumbing. This could be interpreted by present day minds as discriminatory. However that could be allayed by the historical perspective that residential electrification was in its nascent stages in the early twentieth century. By 1925, only half of American homes used electricity. And of those, most were surely urban homes. The Reynolda property was outside the city limits when the estate was first developed. With the Rural Electrification Act not enacted until 1936, electricity in farm dwellings would be rare. Even if the Five Row residents had it available, people of that time found kerosene and coal more economical--and likely more reliable--and thus it would have no advantage. Additionally, I would suspect drawing their water from fresh artesian wells that were supplied was no hardship for farm families.

Finally, I was rather taken aback by the exhibit commentary that stated:

R.J. did consistently give small amounts of money to social institutions, reform associations, hospitals, schools, and churches, particularly those in the Black community…a successful strategy as there was no serious attempt by tobacco workers to unionize until 1919.

Perhaps dollar amounts at the turn of the 20th century might seem small today. Nevertheless in 1899 Simon G. Atkins, the founder of Slater College--now Winston Salem State University--was quite grateful to receive Reynolds’ $5,000 contribution that covered half of Atkins' fundraising goal to establish a small hospital and nurse training program. Atkins stated the gift was “the most liberal contribution that has been made for such a purpose by a Southern white man.” Reynolds Tobacco Company historian Nannie Tilley writes, “Because Reynolds obtained no indirect benefits from the operation of the Slater Hospital until 1906, his contribution was undoubtedly altruistic.” (In 1906, Reynolds Tobacco Co. used Slater to treat their Black employees covered at the company’s expense). Over a decade later, from his deathbed, R.J. instructed his lawyers to see that his estate paid for the both the “Negro and white additions to the Twin City hospital,” the expense of which reached a not-so-small $120,000.

The legacy of his generous contributions to Black citizens continued after his death with the successor of his company to his brother William Reynolds. Will and his wife Kate contributed $115,00 in 1936 for a new Black hospital, the Kate B. Reynolds Memorial Hospital. In 1940, the couple contributed another $75,000 for a 96 bed addition. Talk to any long time Black resident of Winston Salem and they will most likely have a fond regard for the hospital they affectionately dubbed, the “Katie B.”

Richard Joshua Reynolds was a rough and tumble businessman and industrialist and certainly no choir boy. As Michelle Gillespie points out in her book on the Reynolds family, “Throughout his own adulthood, R.J.R., who had no reservations whatsoever about cards or imbibing, had avoided organized religion altogether.” Nor was there what we today call “stakeholder capitalism,” a trend for companies to take into account the needs of all their stakeholders, and society at large. This likely was not the culture of his, or many companies during his time. However I would argue that all of Reynolds’ employees and our community fared relatively well during his tenure.

It could probably be said it was his competitors who suffered more so. But that was the name of the game.

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