Here is Part Three of the original post broken up into smaller bites! No new stuff, so if you read it already, you got it.
Link to the whole shebang in one piece:
https://wqth.wordpress.com/2019/02/06/2591/comment-page-1/#comment-66137
Link to Part One:
https://wqth.wordpress.com/2019/02/08/a-web-of-commies-and-lies-percy-sutton-his-family-and-even-mary-jacoby-part-one/
Link to Part Two:
https://wqth.wordpress.com/2019/02/09/a-web-of-commies-stories-and-lies-percy-sutton-his-family-and-even-mary-jacoby-part-two/comment-page-1/#comment-68234
We start off Part Three with Percy Sutton’s oldest sister:
– Carrie J. Sutton, b. 15 Jan 1899, d. 12 Jan 1964; m. Dr. Joseph Hunter Brooks, b. 6 Mar 1886, d. 8 Oct 1942; attended Howard University, as did Dr. Joseph Hunter Brooks.
Joseph Hunter Brooks was the son of William and Lucy Brooks. William and Lucy married in VA in 1874.
The Reverend C. W. Black, Jr. delivered a prayer at Carrie Sutton Brook’s funeral. More about him in a bit. This is a link to Carrie’s funeral program. Hers is very simple; by the time they got to printing Alexander Sutton’s (the youngest child) the funeral program was 12 pages long!
https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth225778/m1/2/
– Samuel J. Sutton, Jr., b. 19 Sept 1900, d. 25 Mar 1963, Waco, McLennan Co. TX; attended Howard University
From first appearances, Samuel J. Sutton would appear to be a fairly innocuous and undistinguished member of this family. But then I found his funeral program. One of the speakers at his funeral was John Inman, a Chairman of the Communist Party of Texas! Inman was tasked with the “Acknowledgement of Courtesies.” I think that means recognizing the people who sent food, flowers, etc., but I am not certain. It is an antiquated term. Here is a link to the funeral program:
https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth247837/m1/2/
Also interesting is the minister officiating at Sutton’s funeral. None other than Claude William Black, Jr. He also was included in several other Sutton funerals. I believe the family must have attended his church, Mt. Zion First Baptist in San Antonio.
Black was an extreme activist in San Antonio, and had an FBI file of more than 832 pages! The file was released in redacted form in 2010 in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Some excerpts from the file are as follows:
“”It is not believed that Reverend Claude W. Black is a Communist Party member or sympathizer. He is a well-known champion of Negro rights. He is the pastor of the Mt. Zion First Baptist Church. He is a friend of John Inman and has worked with him on occasion; however, it is believed that Black’s interest is in the rights of the Negro people.”
That jibes with the recollection of Taj Matthews, Black’s grandson. Matthews said Tuesday that Black once told him Inman, a well-known East Side barber who died in 1996, was a communist, but that he was not to tell anyone.
The FBI file indicates Inman, also a legendary local activist, was chairman of the Communist Party of Texas in 1970.”
HOWEVER:
“A second-hand recounting of the episode involving Langston Hughes, told by a man named Harry Koger at a meeting attended by the informant, varies slightly from the version Black occasionally related.
It tells of the City Council’s decision, on Feb. 24, 1952, to rescind the use of the San Antonio Library Auditorium for use by Hughes, the internationally known African American poet, who was alleged at the time to be a communist sympathizer.
According to the version in the FBI file, an elderly attorney at the meeting referred to Black as “that pink” n-word.”
Black’s circle of friends, some heavily monitored by the local FBI office, included attorney Herschel Bernard, father of current City Attorney Michael Bernard, who never was identified as a communist but whose house came under FBI surveillance in 1960 for reasons that aren’t made clear.
Black crossed paths with numerous other legendary figures, including Maury Maverick, Jr., Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez and Cesar Chavez.
Congressman Henry B. Gonzales was also accused of being a communist, as was Maury Maverick, Jr. We all know about Cesar Chavez.
– Lillian W. Sutton, b. 13 Jan 1903, d. 4 Jan 1998; m. Edgar A. Taylor; attended Tuskegee Institute
The following link leads to an interview with Lillian Sutton Taylor in 1977. She gives many details about her family, including the schools each attended.
http://digital.utsa.edu/cdm/ref/collection/p15125coll4/id/3569
Within this article, Lillian recounts family lore, explaining that the progenitor of the Sutton clan was an English sea captain, John Pierre Sutton, who came to Virginia and fathered a child, Samuel Westly, by a black mistress. I say “family lore” because as is the case in many families, this story is likely mostly a myth. The only mention online ANYWHERE of the name of the sea captain is within the above article. Lillian claims the captain, her great-grandfather, was one of the First Families of Virginia. There are NO Suttons listed as FFV on their website. The story claims that the sea captain raised Samuel just like his white children, elevating him in society, but I can find no evidence of that. The man was educated, but the captain story is unverifiable.
Also, Lillian claims that her great-grandfather started a bank in Richmond and her grandfather was a teller there. Yet another source claims the bank was started by her grandfather, Samuel Westly Sutton. Lillian claims her grandfather later started a newspaper, the Richmond Planet. It appears this family story may have been conflated somewhat with that of other men, Reverend William Washington Browne, who founded True Reformers Bank, the first black-owned bank in Richmond, VA in 1888, and John Mitchell, Jr. S.W. Sutton, a laborer and Lillian’s grandfather, was an officer of the bank founded by Browne, not its founder.
https://blackpast.org/aah/true-reformers-bank-1888-1910
John Mitchell, Jr was the founder/editor of the Richmond Planet newspaper. Mitchell served on the board of the bank founded by Browne, but his newspaper was already in operation when the bank was founded. The sequence of events as Lillian tells the story does not align with the historical record. The True Reformer’s actually did eventually start a newspaper, so maybe she has confused them. That is a part of the problem with family stories as history. This newspaper, in contrast to the more radical Planet, is described as sober and conservative by its editors of the time.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4249094?read-now=1&seq=13#page_scan_tab_contents
It seems very unlikely that Lillian’s story of her grandfather working at the bank belonging to Browne and at the newspaper belonging to Mitchell could be true, as the men were bitter rivals. This newspaper article from the Richmond Planet dated 13 Apr 1895 states that “there is no man who stands to-say closer in the matter of friendship to John Mitchell, Jr. than Sam’l J. Sutton.” Sutton was already in Texas then. Sutton must have picked a side in the rivalry. The newspaper also states that Sutton went to Texas in the fall of 1886. This pre-dates the founding of the True Reformers Bank, so I think Samuel J. Sutton must have been included from Texas by his friend, John Mitchell, Jr. The article mentions that Sutton has “been through Mexico,” but makes no mention on him owning a gold (or silver; accounts vary here, too) mine there. It seems likely to me that if he had, this glowing article would have mentioned it.
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/5423335/great_grandfather_samuel_j_sutton/
So it appears some of the family story is true, but much is not. The importance of Samuel J. Sutton has been exaggerated to a degree. This educated family may not have known, or have been satisfied by, their more humble beginnings.
Family origin stories like this are NOT unusual. I find them all the time. My own family has them. This is a very proud family, and inflating their importance in history seems important to them. Much of Lillian’s story does not match the historical record. She states her father began teaching in San Antonio in 1888, but the True Reformers bank was founded that year in Richmond. He couldn’t be in two places at the same time. She says he went to Mexico and invested in gold mines after he left Richmond. The 1900 census states his marriage year as 1897, but I can’t find a record of the marriage. Wife Lillian was born in Louisiana, according to the 1910 census.
Regardless of how they got there, by 1900 the family was in San Antonio, TX.
In the funeral program for Lillian, there is commentary that she raised several of her nieces and nephews. One of them was Jeffrey, G.J.’s daughter by his first wife. Others were Lura, Alexander, Jr, and Clifton. It stated she cared for them until adulthood.  Alexander, Clifton and Lura were three of A.C. Suttons eleven children. I wonder why he didn’t raise these three?
https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth247829/m1/3/
https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nytimes/obituary.aspx?n=clifton-sutton&pid=124728343
Rev. C. W. Black, Jr. also spoke at her funeral.
According to Lillian and most sources, her father Samuel met her mother Lillian Smith at Guadalupe College. He met her through Rev. Andrew W. Smith, who was the pastor of the historic Second Baptist Church in San Antonio. She stated her father “became a big worker in Second Baptist Church from that day on.” But by the time of Samuel Sutton, Jr.’s death in 1963, the family was apparently associated with the Mt. Zion First Baptist Church where C. W. Black, Jr. officiated.
Looking into the history of the two churches, the Second Baptist Church seems to have been a much more politically moderate venue than Mt. Zion Baptist. Perhaps this was the reason for the family’s change to the more activist Mt. Zion, which featured speakers such as Thurgood Marshall, politician Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., civil rights leader Barbara Jordan, and others.
– Louise Sutton, b. 25 May 1904, d. 8 Sept 1919 of typhoid
– George M. Sutton, b. abt. 1906, d. 9 Jul 1913 of appendicitis
Next up, G. J. Sutton and a whole NEST of Communists!