Hello, I am the oldest daughter of the only black person known to have been on the Titanic

PREFACE

THE PONDERING OF UNANSWERED QUESTIONS.

Being Jamaican by birth, and identifying with African-American culture, the first question that popped into my mind on seeing this challenge, was, "Were there any black people on the Titanic"?

Secondly, "What was the plight of black people in Britain and it's neighbors at the time of the sailing of the ship"?

Lastly, "What was the plight of women as a whole during this time"?

Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom as well as the United States was a movement to fight for women's right to vote. It finally succeeded through laws in the UK in 1918 and 1928. It became a national movement in the Victorian era. Women wanted their freedom in the same way that black people wanted to be seen as equals instead of second class citizens.

In the later 1800's to early 1900's England had a black population of about fifteen thousand (15, 000) people.

They lived mostly in major cities like London, Liverpool and Bristol, in towns that were port cities, market towns and villages across the country. The majority of the black people worked mainly in domestic services, both paid and unpaid.

There were black people who were neither slaves nor servants. They were sailors, many types of tradespeople, businessmen and musicians.

Slavery had long been abolished in Britain, James Somerset, a runaway slave was set free in 1772, because slavery had no basis in British law. British merchants did, however play a part in the Atlantic slave trade. By the 1900's, although there were still slaves, mainly those brought to Britain by masters who emigrated there, most black folks were free from bondage, if not free from hostility towards their race.

"The story of Joseph Laroche is one that has, until relatively recently, been largely forgotten in Titanic memory and discourse. The lingering question concerns why this is the case. You would think that seeing a black man walking the decks of the ship with a white woman and their offspring would make a lasting impression on Titanic’s passengers, particularly the first- and second-class passengers, but little mention is made of Laroche or his family. It was only in the year 2000 that his story rose to prominence as a result of a Titanic exhibit in Chicago. This oversight helps explain the prevalence of the mythical 'SHINE' in African-American memory instead of Laroche who was born in Cap Haiten, Haiti, on May 26, 1889 to a prominent Haitian family. His uncle, Dessalines M. Cincinnatus Leconte, was the president of Haiti from July 1911 until August 1912 when he died in an explosion.

Laroche left Haiti at the age of fifteen to study engineering in Beauvais, France. While he was there, he met Juliette Lafargue, who lived in Villejuif, a nearby town. The two married in March 1908. After he earned his engineering degree, Laroche was unable to find suitable employment in France because of his skin color. Laroche had a wife and two young daughters that he wanted to support on his own, without the help of his father-in-law. Shortly after he learned that Juliette was expecting a third child, Laroche decided that he should return to Haiti with his family while his wife was still able to travel. Initially, the family was to travel on the French liner La France, however the liner’s strict policy required children to remain in the ship’s nursery during meal times, which didn’t appeal to the Laroches. They exchanged their first-class tickets for second-class tickets on the Titanic. The family boarded the ship at Cherbourg, France on the evening of Wednesday, April 10" ( Excerpt from an article By Brandie Course, entitled, "Black People and Titanic: The Reality")

The mythical 'SHINE'

A toast well known in any large American city with a significant Black population is "Shine and the Titanic." This toast relates the heroic efforts of an old Black stoker to warn of the ship's impending disaster, but when ignored, he strives to save himself.

It could not have been easy for a mixed race couple and their children during the early nineteen hundreds. So to be the only black person on board the huge ship must have made him stand out like a sore thumb.

In her article titled "What happened to the only black family on the Titanic", Zondra Hughes intimated that race was indeed an issue on the ship and that the presence of the family garnered insults and crude behavior from both crew members and passengers.

It is believed that racism was rampant all around the family and they had to endure derogatory comments and behavior.

It was later discovered, that Juliette wrote to her father from the ship, telling him how wonderful things were, and how welcoming the passengers were, but accounts from survivors recounted otherwise and seemed to disprove that fact.

There must have been a great deal of pressure on her, being married to a black man at that time, I believe she was too ashamed to let her father know the true story of her misery. Maybe she was trying to spare him the worry. It is what I would have done.

I have read Titanic, watched Titanic, listened to Titanic, and I cannot recall any mention of any diversification in the crew or passengers. I am just feeling a bit like rebelling against the status quo and asking some hard and challenging questions.

I realize that I need to do some in-depth research for myself to arrive at a meaningful conclusion.

Little was known about the Larouches in survivor accounts. Amidst the press reporting and sensationalism of the event nowhere was there ever mention of a black family. It could be that they were just counted as a dearly loved family, just as valued as everyone else. Maybe they were just not counted as important enough to be made a highlight and given special attention, or were just forgotten in the general confusion that followed the disaster.

Juliette spoke only French. It is possible that she did not understand a lot that was being said around her. When the problems with the ship started it was Joseph who had to explain it to her and try to get his family to safety.

He had them placed in one of the first lifeboats. It was the custom to provide safety to the women and children first and the men would follow when they were all secured.

I cannot imagine the heartache of everyone involved, the women and children sailing away from husbands and fathers, and the husbands watching as their families drifted away into uncertainty. Joseph must have been devastated. Being the only black man there certainly must have been a very lonely ordeal.

He was never accounted for, and is believed to have perished. His body was never recovered.

Juliette and the children, Simone and Louise survived and arrived to disembark in New York aboard the ship the Carpathia, a sister ship.

She however, decided to return to France. She is believed to have moved back into her father's house, where she gave birth to her third child, a son whom she was carrying during the entire ordeal.

Juliette sued "The White Starliner", the owners of the Titanic, and won. She received 150,000 francs in 1918.

She used the money to open a fabric dying business which she used to support her family which had lived in poverty throughout the first world war.

Juliette was a member of The Titanic Historical Society from it's inception in 1963 until her death in 1998. She lived a quiet life, most of her story was not told to the public until later in her life.

Maybe that is one reason why it took such a long time for her version of the story to become a part of history.

Maybe the next book, story or film will be from a black man's perspective, or as told by his wife and children.

Maybe the fact that the Titanic sailed from Britain with not a single person of color, was not unexpected, they probably were unable to afford the fees, among other reasons. The Laroches boarded the Titanic in France. (It was discovered, however, that a group of Chinese immigrants were mentioned briefly, much later, when they survived and made it to New York, only to be turned away). Will this change the dynamics of the story. A great big ship of the privileged and wealthy that ignored proper safety regulations and ended up dooming the people who put their lives in their hands. There were a myriad number of reasons why the ship had not been fully ready to sail.

Is it audacious and presumptuous of me to expect that the story of a black man be represented and matter as a part of the overall story, that all people should be represented and matter, when we all work just as hard as everyone else. Should we not expect to matter just as much as everyone else.

Is it not akin to taxation without representation.

The Titanic was luxurious, decked out (forgive the pun) for the rich and famous. The Larouche family were housed in the second class cabins, giving them a better chance to escape when the ship hit the iceberg. People below in the third class cabins were not as lucky. It is believed that due to a locked gate, barring them from entering the other cabins, and forgotten in the ensuing melee, many lost their lives.

Did they doom themselves?

It is breaking my heart researching this story. I feel the pain and agony of every single person's soul on this ship. I am finding this one of the hardest of the challenges.

I seem to be writing my story from a philosophical viewpoint. It was not intentional, but somehow became extremely interesting as I delved deeper into the decisions that became this tangled web. I found an amazing story that has to be told all on it's own at another time. I hope that I can do so eloquently enough to honor the memories of those involved in the story.

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A FICTIONAL PERSPECTIVE

STORY

The chronicling of the events is from the viewpoint of an adult, then from the perspective of a three year old, as the story endeavors to recall the events and moments, both the happy ones and in the aftermath of the unhappy journey.

How did my father, a black man, secure passage in a second class cabin, on a ship as the Titanic, considering the time in which he lived.

I asked my mother the question when I was old enough to query the nature of people and their various types of idiosyncrasies. She assured me that she had made all the arrangements, with the help, secretly, of her father. She said that Joseph was proud and would not have accepted, had he known. You see, my mother was white, or white enough to be accepted as such.. At the time women were fighting for their rights with the 'Women's Suffrage Movement', between that and her husband being black, she had to get creative. I understood, even though she declined to regale me with the complete details of her creativity. It is completely unlikely that we would have been considered for the journey if my father had tried to navigate this situation on his own.

Names obtained from the passenger list of the Titanic on Wikipedia.

Laroche, Mr. Joseph Philippe Lemercier 25 Paris, France Cherbourg Cap-Haïtien, Haiti

Laroche, Mrs. Juliette Marie Louise (née Lafargue) 22 Paris, France

Laroche, Miss Simoné Marie Anne Andrée 3

Laroche, Miss Louise Marguerite 1

My mother and I pieced together the events from the time that we boarded the ship, they are mostly her observations since I was only a young child. Upon boarding the ship, we were a little unprepared for the opulence, grandeur and lavishness of the Titanic's overall layout. It was breathtaking, she said, and was happy that we were to be in the second class cabins. My father had been skeptical about how passage was obtained, but he decided not to fuss too much, he was just grateful to be going home where he could find suitable enough work to provide for his family.

There was a momentary hold up while my father translated to my mother that they thought we should be below deck in third class because of my father's nationality. She would not have it. She just took firm hold of the children and marched off in a huff. When my mother made up her mind, she was a force to be reckoned with. Head held high, shoulders held proudly erect, father took one look around and strode purposefully towards the allotted cabin, the porter following behind hesitantly.

Amidst some baleful looks from crew members and passengers alike, a rather grumpy ship's steward escorted us to our cabin, our luggage had been safely stowed away. We could not see much, except for richly dressed men and women, laughing, crying and excited children, and crew members trying to get everyone sorted.

The cabin was small, but we were grateful to have the privacy of our own space. We did not have a private bathroom, and sharing the public one proved to be a total nightmare, we did however have a sink and a mirror in the cabin, which helped a lot. She washed us kids in the sink. It was fun, lots of giggling. We got clean linen every day, papa had us change them ourselves.

My mother said that she did not feel welcome on the Titanic. She had married against the accepted genteel behavior of the time. Even though she only spoke French, she could feel the tension and see the disapproval in the faces of many persons on the ship. For this reason they made as little contact as possible with the others, except to allow the children fresh air, visit the dining facilities, and sit outside for a while each evening.

The dining room was really spacious, the furniture was made of mahogany, with crimson red upholstery and decorative lights to complete the ambience. There was a pianist in the evenings to entertain the guests.

We discovered that there was an outdoor promenade, a library, a smoking room and even a barber shop on our level. My mother loved the books, father was teaching her English, so we spent a lot of time in the library.

My parents were determined to make the most of an uncomfortable situation by filling our time with family preoccupations.

We were fine for maybe four days when we were awakened in the middle of the night by my father.

"Wake up, wake up", he was yelling in French.

"What's the matter", my mother asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes, we were all very frightened.

He explained that the ship was damaged and he had to take us to the lifeboat. He had been out on the deck after he heard a lot of shouting and saw that the ship was in grave trouble and was taking on water.

They got our coats on and we headed out the door. Everyone was running everywhere, women and children were crying, screaming , confused, and the men were shouting, some to families and some to crew members wanting to find out what to do. The noise was deafening, we could hear the ship creaking and groaning, while the water was pouring in.

My father already knew where to take us, he had spent some time studying the layout of the ship when we went to the library. They had a very detailed plan for the passengers to study at their leisure.

We headed straight for the boat deck upstairs. The confusion was causing panic and indecision on the part of the crew. Father said there were some problems with the radio and communicating our plight about getting us help, and it seemed things were not going well. Finally, realizing that the damage might cause the ship to sink, the captain ordered the lowering of the lifeboats.

My mother believed that the time that they spent arguing about who should or should not be allowed on the lifeboats, was time they should have used to just evacuate entire families. This way she thought, many more lives could have been saved. Joseph could have been saved. Instead, they separated us from our father, he had fought hard to get us on one of the lifeboats, but they were not allowing the men on, only women and children.

We were being assured that another ship was on it's way to rescue everyone.

My father waved frantically to us as they shoved the boat away from the ship to allow for other boats to be filled. Everyone was crying, my mother was yelling that our boat was only half full, but even if she were not speaking in French, they would not have heard her above the noise and total pandemonium.

It was so cold. We hugged each other and watched as my father faded in the distance. He was still waving. There were people everywhere, some jumped into the water trying to get to the boats. Some were rescued and some disappeared into the depths of the cold and freezing water.

We spent a long time waiting for the other ship, the Titanic broke apart, with my father still on board. There was so much screaming, the wailing sounds that would give us nightmares for a long time to come, continued to haunt us even after the ship had totally been submerged. We hoped that they would be rescued.

Everyone grew deathly quiet as the sound of the huge ship sinking beneath the freezing water, with many, many people, including my father, still on board, slowly disappeared from view.

Finally, cold, numb and mentally worn out, the ship, the Carpathia arrived to take us to New York. We said our tearful goodbyes to my father and all the people who we hoped would still be rescued.

We returned to France to live with my grandfather.

Louisa is happy and very doing well.

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LITTLE SIMONE'S STORY

My name is Simone, I am almost four years old. Papa says we are going on a big ship. He says we will see lots of people, and I should not be afraid. I'm not afraid, but my little sister is, I will give her a great big hug.

I have seen ships before. They looked pretty scary.

We did not have a lot of money, you see. My papa couldn't find a job to take care of us, he said he wanted to go somewhere else to find work, so he could buy us lots of nice things.

Momma and papa packed all our clothes and we went to the big ship. I was a little afraid, it was really big, and there were so many people, and boxes and bags and funny looking ship things.

There were a lot of people talking when we we got on the ship. They talked to momma and papa, they seemed to be mad at papa, but momma just marched right past them and they just stared and stopped talking.

Papa said momma is a formidable woman. They sure loved to use big words that I didn't understand.

"Why are they mad at us momma", I asked.

"Never you mind child", she replied, "they are just being a little silly".

She said I was a bit precocious for my age. I wonder what that means.

Everything looked so shiny and new. People were saying that the inside of the ship was as fabulous as any great big rich people's mansion. The people were all dressed up in lots of beautiful clothes. The ladies wore such lovely dresses and hats. The hats had flowers and bows and feathers, some of them looked very funny. It made me laugh. The men looked really distinguished, papa said.

It took a very long time, but the ship started moving. We had stayed out of the way of people for a while, momma and papa whispered a lot. Me and momma got a little seasick, papa and Louisa were ok. We were ok the next day though.

We walked about on the ship sometimes, "stay close child", they kept saying, "don't go too far", when we wanted to run and play. Some people said "hi", or "hello", but others just stared at us funny, They would not let us play with the other children. This made me sad. We ate our food in the nice kitchen place and then we would sit for a while and watch the sea.

Then one night we woke up, there was a lot of noise, they put on on a small boat, then on another big ship, and sailed us away.

Papa did not come with us. He just waved from the big ship where the water was going in.

I never saw my papa again. I keep asking momma when he is coming home.

I am still waiting.

N.A.