Beyond the shade of the trees and the guiding arms of retainer walls, Newport’s Bellevue Avenue — an icon of the Gilded Age — has helped create the mythos of titanic American families and the palatial, material stamps they left behind.
Their names are synonymous with opulence and fortune: The Astors. The Belmonts. The soiree-hosting Vanderbilts.
And in the popular imagination — especially among those who have never set foot in Rhode Island — there is a particular visual idea of Newport as a bastion for the nation’s white elite.
But an exhibit earlier this summer at Rosecliff — one of the Gilded Age mansions on the street — has widened the focus to include a history of a Blacker Bellevue Avenue, and of a Blacker Newport.
Their wealth would not have matched the astronomical tallies of their more famous neighbors, but another well-known list of families also called Newport home: the Downings, the Van Hornes and the Barclays.
The exhibit itself has just come to a close, but sparked a conversation about how Newport, and Rhode Island more broadly, was once buzzing with businesses, capital and charitable organizations led by people of African heritage — even as early as the 18th century.
“We’re using the term African heritage, because during the Gilded Age and before that, there was always an understanding that we are connected to a larger African diaspora,” said Keith Stokes, a ninth-generation Newporter and one of the organizers behind the exhibit.
Stokes is a descendant of October Barclay, who was born into slavery in Jamaica. Eventually, two Barclay brothers, early investors of their namesake bank, and themselves Quakers, emancipated the 8-year old October.
“My ancestor at age eight was sent to be trained, to be educated, to be immersed in Philadelphia and then Newport, the largest and most organized Black communities,” said Stokes.
Barclay formed an active relationship with fellow abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor William Still; one of Still’s original copies of “The Underground Railroad” remains in Stokes’ collection.
Newport’s early Black community
A century before the Gilded Age, Newport had made itself known as a place where a free Black community could thrive. In 1780, the Free African Union Society — the first benevolent society for Black Americans — was formed in Newport.
A page from one of the society’s meetings in 1796 survives, detailing how the committee pushed for several benefits, including “proper notice to be given to all free Blacks and other people of colour to get a copy of their marriages births and deaths in their respective families.”
The Newport community encouraged others in Philadelphia, Boston and Providence to act similarly, laying the groundwork for future prosperity and political involvement.
Free Africans and those of African descent, both from the new United States and beyond its borders, flocked to Newport.
“So Newporters already had a history of supporting themselves and became entrepreneurs,” said Theresa Guzman-Stokes, who helped bring the exhibit to Newport and is married to Keith Stokes.
“And when you bring in the Gilded Age and the fact that all of a sudden you have these very wealthy people coming in, all of whom are going to need services, that’s exactly what many of these people did. They came in, started their businesses and really built their own wealth from that.”
The list of names and achievements, many of them archived with the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society, is long. Among the notable individuals are Mahlon Van Horne, the first person of African descent to serve in the Rhode Island state legislation and U.S. Consul; his son, Mahlon H. Van Horne, Rhode Island’s first Black dentist; the painter Edward Bannister and his wife Christiana Bannister, an advocate for early childcare legislation and the founder of the Home for Aged Colored Women.
And then there was dressmaker Mary Dickerson, the first Black woman to open a store on Bellevue Avenue. Guzman-Stokes said Dickerson became a philanthropist and a political activist, and that one of her former homes is now the site of the Women’s League.
“She found that all these people who were coming to build these mansions and hold these parties were going to need a dressmaker, and that’s what she was doing,” Guzman-Stokes said. “She made so much money that at one point she owned seven properties of her own, and then three more that she inherited from her husband.”
Keith Stokes said his ancestors were well aware of, and concerned by, the oppression of Black people in the American South and elsewhere.
“My mother vehemently rejected the term ‘Black bourgeois’ or the ‘Black elite,’” he said. “The families of Newport and Boston and Philadelphia that earned wealth did not see themselves as chocolate-covered Cornelius Vanderbilts.”
They were very engaged with the civil rights movement, he said.
What happened to Newport’s Black population?
Guzman-Stokes said the two World Wars had a striking impact on Newport’s Black population. Newport, home to a naval base and Fort Adams, saw some servicemen bring their own brand of bigotry.
Guzman-Stokes said churches began to tell the Black residents to be home by nightfall, and that women were discouraged from going out alone. The impact that it had on local businesses was devastating — a struggle simply because newcomers didn’t want to spend their money there.
Many families left for good. But a handful, including the Stokes family, remained. Keith Stokes, like his ancestors, has served the state politically — he has worked with five governors, including 15 years as executive director of the Newport County Chamber of Commerce. In May 2024, he was appointed the Rhode Island Department of Administration’s associate director of the Division of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.
Stokes said he believes art, like the exhibit “Gilded Age in Color,” can shift the narrative and show a more accurate, inclusive history of a city.
“I get excited and I feel empowered when I see kids of color coming to exhibits like ‘Gilded Age’ or coming to visit historical sites, and it starts to look like them and it starts to speak to their own history,” Stokes said.
“I want Black people to have a sense of, people who look like me, spoke like me, worship like me, were part of the founding contributors of America. And if they could succeed, it’s 2024, I can succeed.”
This story was originally published by WGBH. It was shared as part of the New England News Collaborative.
