Secrets and Lies
BY LAWRENCE OTIS GRAHAM
ADAPTED FROM “THE SENATOR AND THE SOCIALITE”
“My grandfather was no
darkie!” said the light-complexioned T. John McKee from his hospital bed as
he recuperated from a kidney ailment.
It was spring 1948, and Theophilus John McKee, 67, felt desperate. He’d
practiced law on Wall Street for 40 years. He’d sent his two sons to Yale
and Trinity College. His best friends were influential
people of the day— lawyers, judges. But the men in trenchcoats
kept grilling him. “Are you a Negro?” asked one of them.
McKee glanced out the second-floor window of Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan.
Hadn’t he lived an upstanding life? Hadn’t he endured enough pain
when, years ago, he made one of the most difficult
decisions a man might ever have to make?
Again: “Are you a
Negro?”
McKee blurted out, “I
will not deny or affirm that.” But he was
thinking, How can I answer honestly?
For 45 years McKee had, in
fact, been passing as a white man.
On the surface it was easy,
with his olive skin tone and the black hair he kept short and straightened with
a hot comb. What was harder was the heartache. In 1902, when he was 22 years old, he’d had to tell his
closest black friend from Exeter, Roscoe Bruce, son of a U.S. Senator, that he
could no longer associate with him. The boys had been best friends for five
years, sharing everything, even the humiliation of not being able to live in
the same dorms as white kids.
But fate had forced his hand,
he felt. In April 1902, McKee—known then as Theophilus
John Syphax, or Sie to his friends—lost
his wealthy maternal grandfather. He learned he’d inherited almost
nothing. In an America just four decades past the Civil War— a country
where discrimination was still sanctioned—he knew he’d go no
further than elevator operator or train porter, even with his college
education. He would be barred from shops, theaters, restaurants.
So he’d decided to live
as white.
Now, lying in the hospital in
1948, he knew that if he admitted his real background, he’d lose
everything. But ah, the complications! Even at age 67, McKee was afraid of
being outed by black relatives who’d been
insulted by his life choice. And for all his stature, McKee wasn’t
wealthy. Here’s why this mattered: McKee stood a chance of inheriting the
remainder of his grandfather’s million-dollar estate.
Mckee’s parents, Douglas Syphax
and Abbie McKee Syphax,
were from well-known black families that were respected by people of both
races.
Douglas had been one of the few
black Civil War sergeants, a member of an illustrious Virginia clan who had
owned acres of land in Arlington (later donated to the National Cemetery). And Abbie was the daughter of Col. John McKee, a black Civil
War hero and one of America’s first black
millionaires. He’d made his fortune in real estate and in catering
businesses in the 1870s and 1880s.
The colonel had drawn up a will
for an estate worth approximately $1 million in 1902. At least half was cash;
the rest was in real estate. When he died in April of that year, $200,000-plus
was earmarked for various relatives, with Syphax
receiving only a pittance. Deciding to pass for white, Syphax
had joined Trinity College’s all-white Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. He
began dating white girls.
He asked his family (who knew
of his decision) to stop visiting him. A talented athlete in football,
baseball, basketball and track, Syphax, as white, was
embraced by his teammates.
After graduation, he entered
Berkeley Divinity School in Middletown, Connecticut. But when a minister
recognized him as one of the black Syphaxes from
Philadelphia, he withdrew. In June 1904, Syphax
legally changed his name. As the white John McKee, he applied to Columbia
University’s law school, starting in the fall of 1905. For the next 40
years, only occasionally
did he meet with one of his four brothers in out-of-the-way spots.
After law school, McKee began
working as a commercial attorney on Wall Street. He married Anna Lois Dixon, a
white woman from upstate New York. They settled in New York City and had two
sons—T. John McKee, Jr., and Douglas Dixon McKee, in 1910 and 1911. McKee
joined the Bensonhurst Yacht Club, the Kings County
Tennis Club and became men’s league president at the Church of St. Mark.
Then his marriage began falling
apart. His wife, knowing nothing of his real background, noticed that he was
unusually fastidious about grooming his hair. And after their second son was
born, he began visiting a new client up in Harlem, a place where few whites
traveled then. (In actuality, McKee was meeting one of his brothers.) When the
couple separated, McKee stayed in Manhattan, while Anna and the two boys moved
to her hometown.
When McKee’s mother, Abbie Syphax, passed away and was
buried in Arlington National Cemetery in 1923— a rare honor for a black
then—McKee avoided the funeral. He also avoided the funerals of his
brothers, who all predeceased him. He carefully steered clear of his black
cousin in Philadelphia who founded the city’s first
black hospital, and his prominent relatives in Washington and Virginia who
later gave land to the government when President Franklin Roosevelt wanted to
expand Arlington Cemetery. McKee diligently clung to the white uppermiddle-class life he’d created.
Eventually McKee remarried,
again to a white woman, Aimee Bennett. She, too, knew nothing of his
background. By now McKee lived in an apartment building on Manhattan’s
East Side. When his sons finished college they returned to upstate New York to
be near their mother.
In 1946, McKee’s first
cousin, Dr. Henry McKee Minton, passed away. That meant McKee was now the last
surviving grandchild of the Syphax-McKee dynasty from
Philadelphia.
Then came
the shocker. A few months before he was hospitalized, McKee learned that his
grandfather’s million-dollar estate had not been fully distributed. The
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia ran an ad stating that there was a
sum of more than $800,000 available (nearly $6.3 million today). That money
would go to charity unless there was a surviving grandchild of “the great
Negro Civil War hero” Col. John McKee.
For weeks McKee struggled.
Should he stay silent and turn his back on his inheritance? Or should he come
forward? Doing that, of course, would mean admitting he’d been living a
lie.
Finally, McKee decided. Few
people knew the emotional burdens he’d been carrying for so long. His
first wife had left him. His sons seemed uncomfortable around him. His only
remaining connection with them was the money he sent. Now money—and the
truth—was dangling over him.
“So are you, in fact, a Negro?”
asked the investigator from the Orphans’ Court of Philadelphia as he
stood in McKee’s hospital room. The story soon broke. A successful white
Wall Street lawyer with prestigious credentials was admitting he was, in fact,
the black child of black parents. It was a major society news item in 1948.
McKee’s wife, Aimee, was
so devastated she refused to visit him in the hospital. McKee’s sons also
stayed away. His law partners and neighbors told the newspapers they had no
idea he’d been passing as white.
But the court and the
will’s executor, the Philadelphia archbishop, weren’t satisfied
with McKee’s simple admission of heritage. They wanted proof.
“People will say a lot when they want that much money,” argued one
of McKee’s black relatives. From his hospital bed, McKee kept up the fight for his inheritance. He called on the few black
relatives he could remember. They refused him.
Finally, one of his
mother’s cousins, Camille Johnson of Philadelphia, came forward. She
acknowledged that, yes, she remembered him when he was a black student in
Philadelphia and at Exeter. McKee also convinced a white Trinity classmate to
support his statement that he’d changed his name from Syphax
to McKee after leaving Trinity. The court decree in support of the name change was
also submitted.
The court appointed a
commission, which interviewed witnesses who knew both the “black Syphax” and the “white McKee.” It was
John SyphaxMcKee’s longtime white friend Edgar
Dibble (a fraternity brother), and his black cousin Camille Johnson, who helped
prove kinship. At the hearing, Johnson said that McKee had stopped
communicating with her and with another cousin, Henry McKee Minton, while at
Trinity. Dibble admitted he and others were uncertain of McKee’s race as
a college freshman, but assumed he was white.
As reported on March 25, 1948,
in the New York Post, the commission told McKee it “established
beyond a shadow of a doubt” that although he had been accepted as a white
man for 45 years, he was indeed the Negro grandson of the Negro Civil War
veteran Col. John McKee.
Syphax-mckee relatives in Philadelphia and
Washington registered their objections and their beliefs that they were more
deserving of the fortune. At least a dozen schools and charities asked to share
in the estate. McKee hoped it would be only a few months before he’d
finally claim his grandfather’s wealth, so he made no attempt to reach
out to anyone. Still recovering from his kidney ailment, he quietly celebrated
his victory.
Then came
the final twist. As the court approached resolution of the $800,000 estate,
McKee’s health took a turn for the worse. That summer, McKee learned he
would likely not live very long. On August 4, 1948, he died of heart failure.
There was no funeral. McKee was
cremated.
For the next several years,
black relatives battled with McKee’s white wife and two white sons.
Ultimately, the money was awarded to the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
Since 1956, the fortune has been used to grant college and vocational
scholarships to Philadelphia-area boys of all races who have no living father.
In April 2006, the program gave out its scholarship for the 50th year. Its name? The John McKee Scholarship Fund.
It’s not named for the
John McKee who lived as a white man for 45 years. Instead, the fund is named in
honor of his grandfather, the John McKee who was a black Civil War hero.
“Cam,” he said,
“I’m trusting you to take care of the
family. You’ll be the man of the house.”