Isaac Burns Murphy: The Great Black Horse Jockey from Kentucky

Photo: Isaac Burns Murphy

(b. 1/2/1861 - d. 2/12/1896)

When we think of horse racing today we are hard-pressed to remember the time in the sports history when Black jockeys dominated the sport. As a matter of fact, all but one of the 15 jockeys riding in the first Kentucky Derby were African Americans. Isaac Burns Murphy was the first Black jockey to win three Kentucky Derbys and is considered one of the greatest American Thoroughbred horse racing jockeys in history.

"There is no chance that his record of winning will ever be surpassed," said Hall of Fame jockey Eddie Arcaro, referring to his 44% victory rate that has never been equaled.

Isaac was born January 2, 1861, in Lexington, Kentucky. His father was Jerry Burns (aka Jerry Skillman), a free man who was worked as a bricklayer before joining the U.S. Colored Troops in the U.S. Civil War. He died as a prisoner of war at Camp Nelson. His mother, America Burns, soon after changed Isaac's last name to Murphy as a tribute to her father Green Murphy.

Photo: Isaac Burns Murphy in action at the horse races. 

America Burns, Isaac's mother, worked as a laundress for Richard Owings of the Owings and Williams Racing Stable in prime horse territory. He quickly became acquainted with horses and launched his racing career at an early age. On September 15, 1875, at the age of 14, he won his first horse racing victory when he rode Glentina at Crab Orchard Park in Lexington, Kentucky. This was the first of 628 career victories.

Isaac holds a record number of impressive wins. In 1882, he won 49 of 51 starts at Saratoga, New York. In 1883, 1885 and 1886, he won races at the Hindoo Stakes. In 1884, 1890 and 1891, he won Kentucky Derbys. In 1884, 1885, 1886 and 1888, he won four races at the American Derby in Washington Park in Chicago. On May 23, 1887, he won the Latonia Derby in Kentucky. On June 25, 1890, he won in a neck-to-neck race against the great horse jockey Ed "Snapper" Garrison, a White jockey, in New York City.

The Prince of Jockeys:

The Life of Isaac Burns Murphy

By 1891, Isaac began to develop an off-season weight problem -- ballooning to 140 pounds. While this doesn't sound like much for a man, it is hefty for a horse jockey who aims to be light on his horse. Unfortunately, his constant efforts to lose weight adversely impacted his healthy. By 1895, Isaac had caught pneumonia.

On February 12, 1896, at the young age of 35, he died of heart failure leaving a widow behind, Lucy Murphy (nia Carr). For many decades his incredible sports legacy was forgotten, symbolized by an unmarked grave in Lexington's African Cemetery No. 2 , an historical cemetery purchased by The Colored People's Union Benevolent Society No. 2 in 1869.

In 1955, Isaac was the first person to be inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. He was regarded by many as the greatest of all jockeys due to his record as having the highest winning average than any jockey in racing history during his lifetime. It wasn't until 1948, more than 50 years after his death, that someone broke his record of three Kentucky Derby victories. The National Turf Writers Association have given out the Isaac Murphy Award since 1995 to jockeys with the highest winning average in North American racing.

Resources: The Search for Isaac Murphy's Parents, Pamela Lions Brygar, CG (2009)

Be Free or Die: The Amazing Story of Robert Smalls, Escaped Slave Turned Union Hero (A Book Review)

Photograph: Robert Smalls, U.S. Civil War Hero 

I wish to make a public confession about reading the book Be Free or Die: The Amazing Story of Robert Smalls' Escape from Slavery to Union Hero by Cate Lineberry. I approached it with great skepticism. I had read U.S. Civil War books before and none of them really impressed me. In fact, I found many of them down-right boring, mired in the details of military actions – a very "White" and "male" genre.

The story of Robert Smalls in Be Free or Die, which will be published by St. Martin's Press on June 20, 2017, has changed my view. I had certainly read nothing like this before. The spectacular tale of Robert Smalls was not simply that he escaped slavery in South Carolina with his family and a band of other enslaved African Americans, but that he did so by stealing and navigating a Confederate ship into the hands of the Union navy across an armed-military fortified Charleston Harbor.

I'm not being flippant when I reveal that my first thought after reading the book was, why had I never read about Smalls in my history books. Not only was his journey unbelievably courageous, but he was a central character in the Civil War action who would go on to become a U.S. Congressman. An American hero of the U.S. Civil War, Robert Smalls story should not be lost on this generation.

The Great Escape from Slavery

The Amazing Story of Robert Smalls

In 1862, it was a mild May morning in Charleston, South Carolina. The young nation was in its second year of civil war. Robert Smalls was born into slavery among the Gullah, a distinctive community of Africans who had inhabited the coastal regions of the U.S.'s Carolinas since the beginning of slavery in the states -- which is to say from the beginning, In 1862, Smalls was 23 years old and working on a Confederate steamer. He and a crew of fellow Africans had devised a plan to steal a Confederate steamer and arrange to escape with their families across the Charleston Harbor to nearby Union forces.

In Be Free or Die, Lineberry does a crafting an exciting historical tale and chronicling Smalls'  great escape from slavery. She includes highlights of Smalls' remarkable career with the Union forces, such as his becoming the nation's first Black captain of an Army vessel and serving as a five-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives from South Carolina.

As a storyteller, Lineberry does a great job of bringing the reader along for the journey. The reader joins Smalls on each encounter with a Confederate combat ship and is able to take a glimpse into the life of someone who is a wanted by the Confederates, constantly living under the threat of retaliation --  even after the war ended!

The journeys away from South Carolina to the North provides readers insight into the activism of civil society groups boldly assisting the efforts against slavery, such as the work of the well-known Frederick Douglass, but also less well known members of the Black clergy whose church memberships became sanctuaries for Africans escaping slave states. Also a treat are the book's lesser  known historical facts, like Abraham Lincoln's plan to colonize Panama as a resettlement of the newly freed enslaved Africans.

Be Free or Die is an excellent summer read that retells the U.S. Civil War story, but also introduces many to Robert Smalls -- one of the great Civil War heroes.