"Callie House Guy"[1861-1928]

Is most famous for her efforts to gain reparations for former slaves and is regarded as the early

leader of the reparations movement among African American political activists.She was born a slave in Rutherford County, near Nashville Tennessee.Her date of birth is usually assumed to be 1861 due to the lack of birth records for slaves,this date is not certain.Callie was raised in a household that included her widowed mother,sister,and her sister's husband.She received some primary education.At 22 she married William House and moved to Nashville,where she raised 5 children.To support her family,Callie worked at home as a washerwoman and seamstress.In 1891,a pamphlet entitled Freedman's Pension Bill:A Plea for American Freedmen began circulating around the black communities in Central Tennessee.This Pamphlet,which espoused the idea of financial compensation as a member of rectifying past exploitation of slavery,persuaded House to become involved in the cause that would become her life's work.With the help of Isaiah Dickerson,Callie chartered the National Ex-slaves Mutual Relief Bounty and Pension Association in 1898,and was named the secretary of this new organization.Eventually she became the leader of the organization.In this position she traveled across the South,spreading the idea of reparations in every former slave state with relentless zeal.During her 1897-1899 lecture tour the Association's membership by 34,000 mainly through her efforts.By 1900 its nationwide membership was estimated to be around 300,000.Her activism was not without controversy.Newspapers of the time often ridiculed her efforts and the federal government attempted to arrest her and other leaders of the Association.In 1916,the U.S. Postmaster General A.S. Burlleson sought indictments against leaders of the association claiming that they obtained money from ex-slaves by fraudulent circulars proclaiming that pensions and reparations were forthcoming.Callie  was convicted and served time in the Jefferson City, Missouri penitentiary from November 1917 to August 1918.She died in Nashville on June 6,1928 from cancer.