In the words of the great human philosopher, Mr. Rogers “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” We are living through a transformative moment in time, when it would be so easy to fall under the spell of an aggressor wearing the mask of a savior. My friends, know that for every human right taken away, there will be someone fighting to restore it. For every lie told, someone will be out there shouting the truth. These helpers are as consistent a presence in history as the aggressors. Many of their names we never learn because their ability to help often depended on their anonymity. The ones we learn about, like Harriet Tubman and Miep Gies, live in legend. But thousands more fought both silently and publicly and some paid a price for their persistent and selfless support. Yet many of their names have faded into the unknown. It is a gift coming across these humans who made such sacrifices, not for fame, but because it was the right thing to do. Reverend Henry Eddy was one such hero. I’d love the opportunity to introduce you to him.

“Concentration of Thought” was the theme of Henry Eddy’s speech at his graduation from Clark Seminary, just two weeks before the Civil War erupted full throttle in Manassas, VA. He didn’t immediately join the cause for his country. Henry taught. He got married. He started a family. By the time he enlisted, the war was winding down. However, even the minimal amount of war he experienced weakened his body. Henry was one of the unfortunate soldiers, who took sick during the war and never fully recovered. He contracted tuberculosis, which at the time was incurable. Upon returning home, his doctor suggested it might help his lungs to move south. Opportunity arose and Henry took a job with the American Missionary Association to run a Freedmen’s Bureau School in Spring Hill, TN.

This wasn’t a move for Henry alone, his wife Martha and infant son accompanied him to Tennessee. Martha, bless her soul, took up teaching right alongside her husband. Henry’s objective was to find a location to set up a school and begin teaching as quickly as possible. The Eddy’s were met with scorn from the white citizens of Maury County and great joy from the freedmen. Although no one would give Henry premises to teach in the town of Spring Hill, he was able to secure the use of a barn, “without floor or sides” a mile from of the town. Regardless of accommodations, students came. Henry said the school was full and if he had a bigger space, more would come. Some students walked at least five miles because the schools for colored students were few. His student body made up all ages from young children to adults.

The years in Tennessee were hard for the Eddy family. Their presence was held in contempt, simply because they were there and their purpose was to help the freedmen. Henry refused to accept the abuse the black citizens suffered, with no fair representation or protections from the law as status quo. He did not sit quietly. He wrote letters, detailed letters of the intimidation of the Ku Klux Klan. He wrote letters of unjust crimes being committed against the colored people. He described the ever present figures on horseback watching them. Other teachers in neighboring communities had been targeted, their houses and schools burned down. Teachers were whipped and in one instance murdered. Knowing the danger he and his family would be in at the information he was passing on, he requested that if something was done, please do not release his name to the public. Not because he was a coward, but because you can’t help if you are dead.

In the midst of the Ku Klux’s intimidation Henry and his family, as well as the freed men, women and children were building a community. A new community like never seen in Spring Hill before. The colored citizens raised money and built a school for their children and a church for their community. In that church Rev. Eddy performed marriage ceremonies for dozens of couples. Henry, Martha and their teaching assistant Lex McKissack, himself a freedman, educated their students. The attendance to their school quickly shooting upwards of 100. Neighbor, Lucinda Thompson said Eddy was often confined to his bed, unable to teach. His illness weakened him and she said his neighbors took care of chores he didn’t have the strength to do, like cutting fire wood. When Martha had another baby ten months after arriving in Spring Hill, Lucinda helped deliver the baby. Life was moving along, despite the suffocating fear surrounding them. There was no option but surviving.

In 1868 Eddy wrote, “The ‘Kuklux Klan,’ a secret order, have sent me a notice to leave country, threatening to hang me if I do not go. This ‘Klan’ is very numerous sufficiently so to overcome the cowardice of its individual members. It is not very pleasant to live in a neighborhood where our enemies are so numerous as to make such an event as the one threatened even possible. The more danger attending, the greater need that it be done…If we are in the path of duty we cannot fail, though we may fall.” This man who didn’t have the physical strength to chop fire wood for his home had enough strength of character for several men. When the windows of his home and the school were broken in, he replaced them. He was threatened with death. His only crime? Teaching black children to read and write. Henry Eddy did not stop. He continued to teach, to minister to and to inspire the community he lived among.

When Henry Eddy left Spring Hill in the summer of 1870, he noted the change in circumstances just five years had made. He said “While we have no social privileges among the white people, we are made to feel at ease about our personal safety. To us, this has been a wonderful change…” Imagine satisfaction being found in something as simple as NOT fearing for your life. He continued “...such a change as no one can realize who hasn’t passed night after night with the K. K’s all around.” He very clearly realized the transformative moment he, his family and his neighbors had lived through. Henry knew the difference he helped to make. He saw the possibilities of the future daily, in every set of hope filled eyes trained on him as he taught his lessons. He left Spring Hill with, in his own words, “regrets.”

The bravery of this community isn’t surprising, it was necessary. Henry Eddy wasn’t a savior for anyone. He didn’t make a lot of money. He didn’t invent something that changed the world. He did what everyone of us should do. He saw wrong and he tried to right it. He saw intimidation and he looked for help. He saw unlawful abuse and he sought justice. He saw hungry minds and he filled them with thoughts. His body was languishing but his mind was sharp and his heart was full. Remember, helping is the easiest thing to do and history has its eyes on us.