MW Mary Ellen Pleasant: Id Rather Be a Corpse Than a Coward

Published: Oct. 9, 2023, 9:55 a.m.

In today's scripted episode, Amy learns about Mary Ellen Pleasant, called the mother of San Francisco civil rights and a one-woman social agency.\nWhen the census taker passed through town for the United States Census of 1890, Mary Ellen Pleasant declared herself a \u201ccapitalist by profession\u201d using every trick in her toolbox to amass a fortune that some estimate to have been worth thirty million dollars (in today\u2019s money) at its peak. By some, she\u2019s been lumped in with the \u201crobber barons\u201d of the San Francisco gold rush.\nSo maybe right now you're asking yourself, \u201cWhat is a self-declared capitalist like Mary Ellen Pleasant doing in the Missing Witches pantheon - this group of magical beings who use their powers to try and make the world a better place?\u201d\nWell, what if I told you that Mary Ellen Pleasant used her wealth to support her community, to support the fight for abolition and women\u2019s suffrage? And what if I told you that she studied under the New Orleans Queen of Voodoo herself, Marie Laveaux? And what if I told you that these two facts are inexorably linked?\nIn Pleasant\u2019s own unpublished memoir, she summed up her legacy:\n\u201cYou know my cause well. My cause was the cause of freedom and equality for myself and for my people and I\u2019d rather be a corpse than a coward.\u201d