Ryan Ostry
Bugle Reporter
@RyanOstry_BR18
rostry@buglenewspapers.com
How many people can say they have met an integral ambassador and renaissance woman of the Civil War?
Well, probably not many since the Civil War ended more than 150 year ago, but the people of the Romeoville White Oak Library District had that very opportunity Monday night.
Marlene Rivero, who reenacts Ann Stokes, the first African American woman to serve on board a U.S. military vessel was in attendance to display a part of Stokes’ inspiring story.
“I think this was very important because it shows how African-Americans really contributed to the whole war effort,” local resident Elspeth Stanzil said. “I thought that Marlene did a very nice job portraying Ann’s background of where she has been and her experiences were on a personal level which put you more in touch with the true feelings.”
Stokes was entrenched as a slave growing up in Rutherford, Tennessee in 1830 and was taken aboard a contraband Union ship that led to many laborious hours of work, with barely any compensation while still assisting more than 3,000 patients on board.
Through many difficult times and hardships, Stokes was most known for her liberating breakthrough after being granted a pension of $12 a month which at that time was only awarded to nurses.
As well as being granted the pension, she was the first African-American to actually receive a pension with the Navy, and despite her being illiterate she still paved a way for future earnings by woman.
For Rivero, storytelling has been apart of her life for the last 18 years, and the inspiration Stokes has had on her and the history of African-American woman drives Rivero to continue to tell her story.
“I had to be able to incorporate her into me by being very factual and expressing to people the impact that she has had on all of us,” Rivero said.
Though the Romeoville library has a multitude of speakers and different renditions, to the Assistant Director Bev Krakovec, this performance stands out most noticeably.
“We were just so overly pleased being able to bring [Rivero] in,” Krakovec said. “The audience seemed so enthusiastic, and for this educational experience we could not of hoped for anything more than what we received tonight.”
Krakovec was not the only person who sees benefit to these gatherings, as Rivero knows that these portrayals are needed to inform our world how we have been led up to this point in history, and that the basis of the Civil War being about slavery these gatherings brings every body together.
“I enjoy it because it gives Ann a voice and it allows people to realize she worked in the trenches,” Rivero said. “If I’m able to make her come alive, these people can take that history and read about that particular era while adding to it themselves, I’m only a catalyst and messenger to get them started.”