Black History Month and Animal Welfare

As we celebrate the accomplishments of historic figures in Black history of the United States, it is fitting to highlight some of their contributions to the animal welfare community.

Born into slavery in 1856, educator, orator, and author, Booker T. Washington, used his talents and connections to become a pioneer of the animal welfare movement. When the Civil War ended and he was free from slavery, his stepfather sent him to work in a salt furnace and a coal mine where he had no opportunity to receive a formal education. In 1872, after years of hard labor, he enrolled in Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia. In his autobiography, “Up from Slavery,” Mr. Washington wrote that he had no money to travel the distance from home to the school, so he walked most of the 500 miles. Arriving with just fifty cents, he worked as a janitor to pay his tuition.

At Hampton, Booker T. Washington and his fellow schoolmates started a branch of the Bands of Mercy, a humane youth organization that was born from the American Humane Education Society and the Massachusetts SPCA. Booker T. Washington and the Bands of Mercy members worked to end the over-hunting of wild animals and protect their habitats. They pledged “kindness and justice to all living creatures” and strove to end the cruelty and abuse of farm animals and pets through educational programming and by stopping animal cruelty when they saw it happening.

Also born into slavery in 1833, Dr. William Key became a self-taught veterinarian and equine dentist who inadvertently achieved fame through his horse, Jim. Young William grew up tending to the farm, when it was discovered that he had natural ability and great skill when working with the farm animals. He trained horses and mules when most children were learning the alphabet and later studied veterinary texts in his free time. Young Key concocted remedies and healing salves for animals and humans, which later became a very profitable venture.

Dr. Key’s Keystone Liniment was such a great success, he began selling it on the road. On one of his sales trips, Key purchased an abused Arabian circus horse named Lauretta. He brought her back to health and she gave birth to a sickly colt that Key named “Jim.” Key later learned that Jim was a naturally intelligent equine when he observed that Jim taught himself to unlatch gates and open drawers to get his apples. Through his positive and humane methods, Key taught Jim to spell, tell time, do math, use a cash register, and sort mail. When he went public with Jim’s talent, they became local celebrities.

Jim and Dr. Key gathered such a large following that they went on tour with their show, spreading the message to be kind to animals. Thousands of people came to see “Beautiful Jim” at the New York City show. When the press covered the story about the talented pair, Beautiful Jim became a sensation. At his shows, children were asked to pledge “I promise always to be kind to animals” and then they received Jim Key Band of Mercy cards. Key regularly donated a generous portion of his show proceeds to local animal welfare groups to support their work in rescuing animals and educating the public about humane treatment of animals.

Kristen Zellner owns Abrams & Weakley General Store for Animals, est. 1986, Central PA’s first health food store for pets. She helps customers keep their pets healthy through better nutrition.