One of the many conflicts that John wrote in detail about was his fight to prevent his home at 150 Ashley Avenue from being taken from him through eminent domain. From his description, it was apparent that the attempt was the typical entice the owner to sell low, intimidate if that didn’t work and then do a “land grab” and sell high. Of course, most homeowners have little ammunition against the land grabbers. These folks didn’t know John. It can be seen through the pages of the manuscript that even as a youth, John had learned to defend himself from bullies who called him “four eyes” on the chaff lot or the “N” word in college. Montague Triest didn’t realize he’d taken on a “bulldog.”

John was a charter member of the National Association of Colored People (NAACP). Possibly, he had crossed paths with The Crises editor W.E.B. DuBois when DuBois was researching the Philadelphia Negro in ward 7 and John was working at the Douglass Hospital pharmacy that was located there. In any event, John covered his bases in his battle with Triest. Despite making what seemed to be a convincing argument to the SC legislators, he took extra steps. He travelled to NYC to meet with the NAACP Executive Director Walter White and founders Joel and Arthur Springarn.

John wrote “For two and a half hours Mr. Greener held us spellbound.” He went on to write at length about the talk Richard Greener gave at a banquet held in Charleston at the Odd Fellows Hall on Society Street in 1906. One hundred twenty-five guests attended. Richard Greener’s contribution to the University of South Carolina Library has only recently been memorialized. John said that Greener predicted that conditions for Negroes in American would evolve into one like Blacks in South Africa – “a restricted group bereft of all of the rights of freemen and of citizenship.” I think that talk was pivotal to John’s engagement in the Charleston Black community. John wrote that he began ”to ponder how he could extend my life into that of the community whereby I could most efficiently render the community a worthwhile service.” John decided on community health and then education.

To me, this is what makes John’s manuscript so rich. Learning directly how Richard T. Greener affected John A. McFall and knowing what John’s next actions were is priceless.

John McFall was surrounded by girls and women: his mother, two grandmothers, eight sisters, and two aunts, eventually a wife and daughter. He wrote about an olive-skinned baby sister, Ellen, who died in infancy and a daughter, Estelle, who died soon after her birth. His mother, Mary Ann, wrote a Will that left rental property to her unmarried daughters and a house for them to live in. His sisters included: Thomasina, known as Tommie, who managed the pharmacy. Laura taught school but also worked in insurance and the YWCA. Julia Elizabeth, known as Lizzie, taught school. They were all members of the Phillis Wheatley Literary and Social Club. John’s other sisters married and moved away. Eloise died in childbirth near Pittsburgh. Mary Ann moved to Louisville and Charlotte, known as Lottie, to West Virginia. Mary Ann studied music at Columbia University and became an accomplished seamstress; Charlotte earned a master's degree in mathematics from the University of Chicago and taught at West Virginia State College for decades. One of her students was Katherine Johnson, one of the computers in the film, Hidden Figures.

John McFall wrote “Many interesting people spent that winter and spring in Charleston [1902] and their presence added much to our cultural life. Paul Laurence Dunbar was one.”

Dunbar, the most well-known African American poet at this time, met Frederick Douglass at the Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893. From that meeting, Dunbar developed a close relationship with Douglass and wrote in his poem, Douglass upon his death: “We weep for him, but we have touched his hand, And felt the magic of his presence nigh….”

John wrote about hearing Douglass speak when he was a youth. He wrote in his manuscript, “I wonder how many of the present generation know how truly great is the life of Douglass….” In a letter dated 17 January 1902 Dunbar wrote to his wife Alice about some Charleston ladies … “They stopped by the store of a friend of mine, Dr. McFall and told him their errand.”

Imagine the conversations John and Dunbar might have had about Douglass!

John McFall mentioned his close friend, Edwin Harleston, several times in his manuscript. Like John, Harleston wore many hats. He worked as an undertaker in his father’s funeral home. This was not his preference. Like John, he was civically active. Both he and John were charter members of the Charleston Chapter of the NAACP; Edwin also served as president of the chapter. Edwin was an artist; unfortunately, he couldn’t make a living being one. “Jim Crow” was a significant factor preventing that. Harleston did two drawings of John’s family: his father, Thomas, and his grandmother, Ellen Hargrove. Today, Harleston’s artwork hangs in the Gibbes Museum in Charleston, some donated by John’s daughter Edith Work.

Dr. McFall wrote that he thought that his friend’s “Old Servant” should have won the Harmon Prize in 1930. “The Wanderers” by James Lesesne Wells won instead. Harleston died in 1931 but a surviving letter he wrote shows the he lived to receive the Locke Prize (named for Alain Locke -- first African American Rhodes Scholar) that was awarded by the Harmon Foundation in 1931. Even so, according to Dr. McFall, his friend died feeling “unfairly overlooked.”

John McFall opened McFall’s Drugstore in September 1899 in the Morris Street Business District. He had graduated from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy in the spring and turned 21 that summer. In his manuscript, he told about the decisions he had to make. He told about having to convince his father about locating the store at 173 Smith Street where there was competition. It’s understandable that his parents would have a great interest in his success given they mortgaged their house to provide John with the capital he needed for rent, renovations and stock. It was a family affair since his grandfather, himself a painter, supervised the painting. It amazes me that John could recall the prices of the many items like signage, cabinets and drugs that he purchased. But, it’s a trait the John exhibits throughout the manuscript and that he honed taking care of himself in Philadelphia. The Preservation Society has done an outstanding job of documenting the neighborhood where John did business. The drugstore was at the intersection of Smith and Morris streets.

John stayed briefly with his uncle and namesake, John Allen McFall, when he arrived in Philadelphia to attend college. The first son is usually named after a paternal grandfather. It’s curious that the younger John was named for an uncle rather than his grandfather, Thomas. The elder John Allen lived in Darby and had a large family with his wife, Elmira. Elmira applied for a widow’s pension in 1927. She claimed that her husband, who died in 1903, served in the Union Army. The War Department could not find her husband on their muster rolls. She could not provide proof of his service and despite several poignant letters to the War Department her claim was denied.

Is on a peninsular surrounded on three sides by water – two rivers that empty into the Atlantic Ocean. In the past and present, Charleston Harbor provided an important and convenient entry and exit. When John went to and returned from college in 1897, he would’ve passed Fort Sumter, the site of the first battle intended to keep people like him enslaved.

Jim Crow referred to laws and traditions that treated African Americans as second-class citizens. Their right to vote was restricted by law, violence and intimidation. “Jim Crow” was based on minstrelsy – a caricature intended to ridicule and disparage people of color.